Do not worry about the destination, just enjoy the journey.
Do not worry about the destination, just enjoy the journey.
Sunil Kumar Gurjar comes from a village called ‘Meharon Ki Dhani’ in the Sikar district of Rajasthan. Being from a rural background, he has enjoyed a pretty awesome childhood. His father was in the army and mother is a homemaker. He goes by the stage name - “Rahgir'', meaning ‘The Traveler’, which resonates perfectly with his personality.
His interest in singing started during his engineering days when he used to write songs and poems casually. And after graduating from the Lovely University in Punjab, he got placed at a company in Pune.
Sunil kept his side-hustle going on but he had begun getting the impression that it wasn’t going anywhere. In the meantime, he got introduced to country music, which is mostly content oriented and has a flavour of wanderlust in it. He instantly got inspired by this genre and realised that this was what he wanted.
Sunil quit his job after realising his passion and decided to pursue his music full-time. He started off by singing at a nearby cafe which got a pretty decent response from the audience. Then he went on to perform at open-mic sessions.
On his content being viral, Sunil says that he does not consider himself successful because of that, and thinks success is subjective. He says that he had never thought of doing this and wanted a simple life with a decent job. But life had something different in store for him, and here he is. Anyways, he is content with his life and savours the fact that he can go anywhere and do anything that he feels like. For him, this is success.
During the lockdown, Sunil experienced many things. First, his travelling took a toll, as he is a frequent traveller and due to the lockdown he couldn’t do that anymore. He also moved to his village and spent the lockdown there. There he got the chance to spend good time on his music and nature. And this was the period when he got viral too.
Sunil says that he chose this genre because he can relate to it. He believes that if you have experienced something yourself and then wrote something , then only you'll be able to make people connect with you. He says that his experiences of village life can be seen and connected to in his songs. According to him, if you sing from real life experiences, then your audience would feel your authenticity and get connected with you on a deeper level.
Sunil strongly believes that deep down all humans are the same and feel the same and thus its easy for him to establish common ground between him and his audience.
In free time, Sunil likes to read and watch good quality movies. He also enjoys spending fun time with his friends.
He recalls a very sweet memory from when he was performing in Bikaner. He says that after the performance an old man came to him and complimented him on his talent. After talking to him for some time Sunil came to know that he has been the CO of his father’s unit. The retired officer then talked to Sunil’s father too and congratulated him on his son’s success. That was a very proud moment for Sunil.
For budding artists, he has the advice that they should focus on performing live, in front of real audiences. Sunil asks them to make good connect with the audience and enjoy being in that moment. He says that one should not worry about the likes and comments on social media only. He also motivates new artists by saying that just keep working regardless of what results you are getting, and one day you will definitely achieve your goal.
For the upcoming future, Sunil has plans to visit almost every part of the country and experience all the cultures first hand. He is also looking forward to learning five to ten folk songs belonging to every state of India. Along with it, he has published a novel and is planning to publish another one in the near future.