If you ask me, I think Nepali pop music scene was at its best in the late 90s and early 2000s. I don’t know, may be I feel this way because it was a good time of my life when there were no responsibilities and no stress and life was like real fun. But whatever it is, the pop songs back then had a different kind of charm. An honesty and the passion of the artist could genuinely be heard. Not only music, but I loved the music videos of back then. Even though the technologies were not as advanced as today, the videos looked way more better and genuine. So, one such song is what we are going to talk about today and it’s none other than… “Hello Puja, ke chha maiya, you’re looking sweet today!”

The song titled ’14th Feb’ is more popularly known as ‘Hello Puja’. The title song from Sagun Tamrakar’s 2001 album ’14th Feb’ has unofficially become the Valentine song of Nepal since then. The singer is currently based in Washington DC, United States where he works as the Chartered Accountant (ACCA) at the World Bank. We talked to him to know about his memories and experiences with this evergreen love song. Here’s what he has to say.

“I have some bitter but mostly beautiful memories with ’14th Feb’. Before recording the song, I had played it in front of my friends but didn’t get positive feedback from them. They advised me it’s better not to record the song but I had a feeling that people will like it and so I went ahead with it. Initially when the audio was released through radio, it didn’t get much attention. Many people complained that it was a bad idea to mix English words in a Nepali song. It was after the release of the music video when people started to connect with the emotions of the song and started loving it. Most of the listeners of this song were the youths but later on, it started getting equal amount of appreciation from the people of all age groups. With the popularity of the song, my album started to do very well too. This song was and still remains the most popular work of mine. The crowd used to go crazy when I used to sing it in concerts. In fact, I didn’t even need to sing the song as they would all sing it in loud voices.”

When asked why he chose the name Puja, he said, “It wasn’t actually for any particular reason but as the name is very common, I went with it. Plus, it sounded pretty well with the song.”

Wonder how he looks like after all these years? Well, here he is.

What? You want to know if he is single? Why? Alright, try not to shed a tear; ladies, he got married with this beautiful woman in 2014. No, her name is not Puja. She is Sucheeta. Pretty she is, right? Such a lovely couple!

He hasn’t released a new music video since a very long but that doesn’t mean he is not active in music any more. In fact, he releases a new song every three months. He releases them on his Reverbnation handle. You can listen to them HERE.

For now, how about we listen to ’12th Feb’ once again? Sounds like a good idea, right? So here it is. The music video shot by Nabin Shrestha is edited by Prakash Tuladhar and directed by Sahendra Shrestha.

Previous ‘Blast From The Past’ Posts:

The Uglyz’s ‘Aaudai Jaadai’ With Sarun Tamrakar

Axix’s ‘Adhuro Prem’ With Sandeep Bishwakarma