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Rock star nun: how Nepal's rebel with a cause became an unlikely sensation

Ani Choying Drolma tells Bibek Bhandari about escaping a traumatic childhood to blaze her own trail as a world-famous singer and a philanthropist.


As Buddhist chants and prayers echoed through the Nepalese hilltop monastery where Ani Choying Drolma lived, the 19-year-old nun was listening to, and losing herself in, Bonnie Raitt's .

She rewound and replayed the American blues singer's uplifting anthem over and over on her cassette player - "Luck of the Draw", the album featuring Raitt's big hit, was the first Western music Drolma had owned.

Fourteen years later, Raitt went to see Drolma play live in San Francisco, in the United States. The teenage fan had become the rock star nun.

"Hi, I'm Bonnie Raitt, and I'm one of your biggest fans," giggles Drolma, re-enacting her treasured meeting with the flame-haired singer she'd first seen on that cassette cover.

"She said 'Cho' was one of her favourite albums."

People like to put you in a box. I always disappoint them, and I always wanted to disappoint them.

Drolma's debut album is the perfect introduction to her music, with her haunting melodies and ancient Buddhist mantras set to the guitar riffs of American Steve Tibbetts. describes hearing the nun chant as "like being present at the creation of something fragile and miraculous".

American singers Tina Turner and Tracy Chapman are fans and Drolma has recently collaborated with Oscar-winning Indian composer A.R. Rahman. For years, however, despite her fame elsewhere, Drolma would remain unknown in the hills of Nepal.

a dark past, a disturbing beginning rife with violence.

She was born and brought up during the 1970s in Boudha, a Kathmandu neighbourhood which she refers to as "a mini-Tibet in exile", in her 2009 autobiography . Originally written in French (an interview in French inspired the book, so it was first published in that language), the work has since been translated into 11 languages, including English. In it, Drolma writes extensively about a tormented childhood at the hands of an abusive father.

Watch: Ani Choying Drolma on how she became a singer

"My back was always covered in bruises, I was always bent over, but he seldom drew blood," she writes.

She still carries the scars, mentally and physically - a faint gash on her face is a reminder of one particularly merciless beating. It was the fear of being forced to "marry a man who could become my father" that inspired the 13-year-old Drolma to join the Nagi Gompa nunnery, which is attached to Kathmandu's Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling Monastery.

"My experience of abuse made me make a choice not to have it anymore," she says. "Becoming a nun and going to the monastery was like going to heaven from hell."

Today, Drolma is a calm, composed character - a charismatic woman with an infectious smile. Ani, meaning "nun" in Tibetan, cracks jokes about her age (she's 43) and the miraculous effects anti-wrinkle cream has on her skin - not that her clear, smooth complexion appears to need it. Self-deprecatingly, she shares a story about substituting Whitney Houston lyrics with Buddhist chants when she couldn't remember the words to while singing at the monastery.

"Being a nun, I never had the ambition to become a famous singer," Drolma says. "[I didn't want] to become a rock star or a pop star or become No1."

Tibbetts first heard Drolma sing in 1994, when he visited Nagi Gompa. He proposed a collaboration and, Drolma says, she agreed instantly.

A young Ani with fellow nuns in Kathmandu.

In 1997, "Cho" was released, but in one of her early interviews, on National Public Radio (NPR), in the US, Drolma said she disliked hearing the centuries-old hymns mixed with guitar and percussion.

"Originally, [this ancient music was] not that way," she said.

With time, her perception changed.

"The important thing is the original tune and the words," Drolma told NPR a year later. "We never changed that. The music Steve Tibbetts does is wonderful. I take it as an ornament."

With more than a dozen albums and thousands of record sales under her belt, Drolma has refined her musical philosophy further.

"I've never sung these songs [the way] we imagine them to be," says the singer, who recently collaborated with Rahman and Jordanian singer Farah Siraj for an MTV Coke Studio live-music television show. "It's a part of our spiritual and meditational practice. The only difference [with the albums] is that the packaging and presentation has changed."

After the success of "Cho" - it was sold in HMV and Virgin Megastores around the world - Drolma and Tibbetts embarked on a US tour. As the positive reviews poured in, Drolma actively pursued a professional singing career.

"I didn't hesitate to let it happen," she says.

From her first international concert, at the Walker Art Centre, in Minneapolis, in 1998, to one of her biggest performances, before an audience of 14,000 people at Hong Kong's AsiaWorld-Expo to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the handover, Drolma's voice has been heard around the world.

"The exciting thing with my music was the money that came along, to be very honest," Drolma says, unexpectedly. "It was one of the ways that I could help people through my music."

"I say two men changed my life - one is my dad and the other is my teacher," she says. "One gave me the most unwanted difficulties, physically and emotionally, and the other was the perfect example of a man, [one] who was the kindest, wisest and most caring. My teacher made me realise it's OK to be a child, it's OK to be a woman and he made me grow to the fullest."

Drolma's formal education ended abruptly after fourth grade, when she joined the nunnery, where she was immersed in Buddhist studies. But she was determined to learn, and read and re-read every book she could find. In the monastery, she asked foreigners to help her learn English. The teenager watched English television shows and listened to Western songs to perfect her command of the language.

"Education really helps people to think," Drolma says, in accented English. "Education enlightens you."

more than 50 US cities, mesmerised party-goers at a Singapore nightclub in 2001 with a Tibetan version of and rubbed shoulders with American celebrities, but still her music had not caught on in her home country.

In 2004, , a single from her album "Moments of Bliss", connected with the Nepalese public and turned the Buddhist nun into an overnight phenomenon.

Released as the decade-long Nepalese civil war raged on, was a call for peace and harmony. The song's positivity and spirituality resonated with a public in need of respite from conflict.

Ani Choying Drolma

"It was a song that touched everyone's heart," says Mandira Dhungel, presenter and producer at Nepalese radio station Hits FM. "The entire country was singing that song."

That year, at the Hits FM Music Awards, Drolma was shortlisted for the song of the year and best female vocal performance prizes, while "Moments of Bliss" picked up record of the year and best composition went to .

Drolma had become a household name - an unlikely pop star had landed on Nepal's music scene with songs that extolled the goodness of the human spirit.

Nhyoo Bajracharya has known Drolma for a decade and composed more than 100 songs for her, including those on "Moments of Bliss".

"She isn't someone who knows a lot of music but she has her own style," Bajracharya says. "Her voice and songs aren't just for the ears, they are also for the soul.

"Once in a while, there's a voice that leaves a memorable impression. Ani is one of those voices. People will remember her songs."

of Nepal, the education of girls is not a priority and women are routinely discriminated against. Despite significant progress in female school enrolment, archaic traditions such as early marriage, the seclusion of women during menstruation and the burden of household chores still hinder their advancement.

Her charity work started in a rented four-storey house in Kathmandu that served as the base for the Nuns' Welfare Foundation, a non-profit organisation Drolma founded. In 2000, she set up the Arya Tara School in the capital, to educate other nuns in subjects such as English, maths and Nepali.

Drolma started touring to raise funds to expand her school. In 2005, on a small hilltop in Pharping, on the outskirts of Kathmandu, a new Arya Tara facility was inaugurated. Today it is home to 80 nuns.

In 2009, Drolma established a kidney hospital in Kathmandu to help those who cannot afford treatment abroad.

"My belief in the goodness of human potential drives my philanthropic work," says Drolma, who idolises Mother Teresa, the late missionary sister who once tended to the poor of Calcutta, in India.

Bajracharya refers to Drolma as "a singer who sings for a cause".

"I make my livelihood from my music - it's my job," says Bajracharya. "But it's different with Ani. Though she sings professionally, her earnings go towards charity and social work. That's commendable."

But Drolma is not entirely comfortable with her image as a selfless nun.

"Everyone is selfish in this world," she says, stretching her legs from the living room chair she has been sitting on for the past few hours. "I don't believe there's a 100 per cent selfless act. The only difference is there's a positive way of being selfish or a negative way. Positive in the sense people do things for the well-being of others. When I do something for others, it gives me immense pleasure and that inspires me to continue doing what I'm doing."

"My dream is to see every woman enjoy their freedom of life, freedom of choice and to [achieve] their potential to the fullest level."

Drolma has faced criticism for her feminist beliefs and "luxurious" lifestyle; she lives in one of Kathmandu's expensive high-rise apartments, drives a car and dines out in fancy restaurants. At Nagi Gompa, some have called her a "business nun".

"They're free to think the way they like," she shrugs. "I'm not bound to follow their expectations. It's my life. I believe in live and let live."

While women in Nepal are climbing the social ladder - they are now represented in parliament, business and the media, in jobs once reserved for men - patriarchal principles are still entrenched in Nepalese society. Drolma has challenged those traditions by joining figureheads such as anti-human trafficking crusader Anuradha Koirala and Shanta Chaudhary, who rose from being a bonded labourer to become a parliamentarian fighting against modern-day slavery, in giving greater visibility to women. Drolma especially campaigns on the behalf of nuns, who are expected to stick to their monastic rituals and not embark on independent careers.

For those reasons, many see Drolma as a rebel.

"People like to put you in a box," she says. "I always disappoint them, and I always wanted to disappoint them. I'm a nonconformist."

Drolma might just have started a revolution, paving the way for other nuns, many of whom see her as a towering figure synonymous with success and social work.

Ani Sangmo is a graduate of the Arya Tara School and aspires to open a travel agency. She says she wants to become "more than just a nun", and Drolma has helped her to gain that confidence.

Sangmo, 23, works closely with Drolma. She administers her concert schedules, maintains her daily diary and promotes Drolma's social networking sites.

"She's an example," Sangmo says, checking updates on Drolma's Facebook page, which has more than 200,000 followers. "Ani Choying inspires me to pursue what I want."

Drolma smiles when she hears about the positive influence she is having on others. But she doesn't like to dwell and shifts the conversation.

"Every individual has their own potential in doing something and making a difference in society," Drolma says.

"If I had thought that my idea of continuing singing was against our societal norms, if I had suppressed or underestimated myself or hesitated to express myself … none of the things I have done would exist today."

 

 

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Rebel with a cause
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