It had come as a shock to many when Neetesh Jung Kunwar wrote something about taking a break from “Nepali music journey” last week. The singer-songwriter had shared four of his pictures from various live concerts on his Facebook handle on April 25 and wrote, “Dear friends, As I believe my Nepali music journey has come to Conclusion, I wanna thank you all for this amazing rollercoaster ride. Stay Healthy and Be Humble. #change.” [sic]

As expected, the post quickly spread like wildfire and the comment section was filled with hundreds of fans who were keen to know what had happened. Many of them were also trying to speculate whether the announcement had a hidden meaning as Neetesh had mentioned that it’s a conclusion of “Nepali music journey” and wondered if he is trying to go international and concentrate more on doing English songs. Well, that theory seemed to be quite true when two days later, he posted a picture of him holding the national flag with the caption, “On the map.”

And finally breaking the silence (to some extent), the ‘Gedai Jasto Jindagi’ hitmaker posted a video of him earlier today explaining (kinda) the entire thing. He entirely rubbished the speculations that he is leaving the scene in lack of support saying he wouldn’t be who he is if he hadn’t recieved support from Nepali people living around the world. Then he went on to open up about the announcement.

“The reason I took this decision is that I have come quite a long way, and I feel like I need to do even more with what I know”, he said, “My plan is to make my country known with what I do.” He further suggested everyone to do the same, do their thing, follow their passion and give their best and put Nepal on the international map. NJK also talked a bit about his personal life and how the recent times have been tough with his father’s sickness. But not at any moment, he seemed weak or negative as he kept on saying inspiring things to motivate his fans and the highlight of the four minute clip was when he said, “I am not someone who gives up, man.”

And that was it, the NJK we all know — the person who would inspire you even when he himself is going through a tough time.

While he didn’t really make his plans clear for now and that’s fair enough as we are at a point when nobody has a slight idea what tomorrow is gonna bring; but it sure makes me happy to know that he is far from even thinking about quitting music for good.

Neetesh, who already had a YouTube channel with over 660k susbscribers, had come up with a new channel named NJK Vibe earlier this year and the first song he put out on it was ‘Rebirth’ featuring Uniq Poet. He then released ‘Kholai Khola’ and ‘Frustoo’.

It has been five years since he started releasing his music online. He initially rose to fame with numbers like ‘Bujhya Hoina Kura’ and ‘Gedai Jasto Jindagi’. His most popular song to date remains his 2018 hit ‘Hamro Nepalma’ with over 26 million views on the video-sharing platform.

You take all the time you need, Neetesh; and come back stronger than ever.