NEHSAN SELVARAJ
A Remarkable Life Journey!
Nehsan's Biography
Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. That is how Nehsan Selvaraj has been from day one. Nehsan Selvaraj’s story could inspire us and all youths through the failures and obstacles in his life in order to be successful in his life today. After all, every success story comes with great pain and suffering.
Nehsan is born to Mr Selvaraj and Mrs Sathiabhama on 9th June 1998 in Segamat, Johor, Malaysia. His father used to be a professional chef and also a classical singer and his mother is a fashion designer. Nehsan is the youngest among his siblings Satheeswaran (elder brother) and Puspa Dewi (elder sister).
From the age of 5 to 12 Nehsan's family had to go through a lot of difficult life situations in order to make a living. Nehsan’s father had to quit his job in oversea as professional chef due to family situation. Once he came back to Segamat from abroad, Mr Selvaraj started working as a rubber tapper. Even at a such young age, Nehsan used to go rubber tapping with his father, brother and sister every morning. There were days where the family even had to go to bed without dinner.
When Nehsan stepped into secondary school, the family started to make a better living slowly through the great efforts taken by his parents. Just as his life starts to get better step by step, an unforgettable and life changing incident happened in Nehsan's life. At the age of 15, Nehsan got with an accident while going back to his home from school. He lost control of the motor he was riding and hit a lorry on the oncoming road. The accident did not just crush his motor and heart, but also his face and caused fracture in his mandible.
Nehsan thought his entire life is gone and there is no more hope for him. He lost his voice and was unable to talk and even eat properly for almost 6 months. Mrs Sathiabhama, Nehsan's mother used to be the one who gave him hope and courage to fight back his emotions and recover as soon as possible. She taught him that having a positive mind and living style could change our life to be better.
During this painful recovery, Nehsan realised a lot of things which he consider as the root cause of his successes. The successful youngster used to be a shy and introverted person before the accident. The accident made him realise the power of having the ability to talk. Nehsan believes that the ability to talk is one of the biggest gift given by God to us. We could achieve a lot of wonderful things through the ability to talk instead of hurting our loved ones with the words we throw. That is when Nehsan decided that he has to recover as fast as possible and start his new journey of life.
After the recovery, Nehsan started to join in a lot of public speaking and debating competitions. His fluency in Tamil and English language impressed most of his peers. He started reading dozens of books to gain knowledge and deliver it to his friends and family. “A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle” he said. In the year 2016, he joined a government organisation as a volunteer. Through the experience he gained from being a volunteer, he participated in a program called “World Festival of Youth and Students” organised by Russian government in the year 2017.
As he actively participated in the program, Nehsan got an opportunity to represent Malaysia in Russia. In 2018, Nehsan was appointed as an International Expert Election Observer. He witnessed and declared the elections in Russia, Congo, Zimbabwe, Madagascar and South Africa. While being the representative of Malaysia, this young achiever applied for a career in Bernama TV (Malaysian National News Agency) as a news presenter and was accepted immediately after the interview, as the interviewer was amazed by the fluent and pure Tamil spoken by Nehsan. Since then, Nehsan became the youngest News Presenter not just in Malaysia but also all around the world at the age of 19 in the year 2018.
On 13th March 2019, Nehsan Selvaraj was awarded “International Digital Leader” an award of honour by the Indian government and BRICS International Forum for his International Cooperation work with many countries. Besides that, Nehsan also received “Life Time Achiever Award” from Astro Malaysia for his outstanding achievements. From a shy and introverted person to multiple national and international recognitions, this young man has a burning desire and motivation in him.
Nehsan’s greatest passion is singing. His father who is a classical singer used to conduct classes for children that had interest in singing. However, whenever his father Mr Selvaraj ask him to join the classes Nehsan refused, as he was not really interested to join the classes. Through time, he started to develop interest in singing as he saw his father teaching the students and soon, he started joining the classes. Just like the saying goes, “Like Father Like Son” this young champ has a fantastic talent in singing. Nehsan started to show his hidden talent in his school from the age of 9. The teachers and students were mesmerised listening to his wonderful voice.
Since then, he started participating in every singing competitions he came across. Shortly, his house started to be filled with the trophies and gifts that he won from the singing competitions. He has also joined one of the biggest singing competition in Johor and won the competition with his melodious voice.
During his teenage life in secondary school, He began to perform in events such as birthday functions, festive and charity events. A small group of his friends started becoming his fan and that is when his fan base started to build. Nehsan also got an opportunity to participate in Malay “syair” competition. He will stay in school after the class period in order to learn to perform “syair” from his teacher. The teacher trained him well and Nehsan started winning all the Malay “syair” competitions that he participated in.
Nehsan has written and composed a lot of his own songs since 2015. In the year 2018, he joined Super Star competition organised by Astro Malaysia. The competitors in the competition used to consider Nehsan as a tough contestant. Although Nehsan got eliminated in the 8th week of the competition with a small fraction of difference in the mark, he managed to form a huge fan base all over the Malaysia for himself. The same year, the melodious singer Nehsan also performed in G.V Prakash’s (an Indian Music Producer, Composer and Actor) Live Concert.
There are two singers whom Nehsan consider as his inspiration. They are, the well know American singers Whitney Houston and Toni Braxton. Nehsan also has always been in love with Alleycats, a Malaysian music band formed in 1969. He always had an attraction towards David Arumugam, the leading singer in the band who inspired him to come up with a Malay song despite being an Indian. There were people who discouraged Nehsan for coming up with this idea. Regardless of what people told him, Nehsan gave 200% of his dedication to come up with the song “Damailah Engkau” in 2020.
“Damailah Engkau” is born from the collaboration with the leading music composer Sharon Paul, renowned poet Shah Shamshiri and of course Nehsan’s astonishing voice. The song is produced by Fantast Production and directed by Dannyhan Miskam. Nehsan underwent vocal training with Enrico Fridlevski, former music producer from Universal Studio, Paris. He has also trained his vocal with Cikgu Shafi from Shafi Vocal Studio. Through his handwork Nehsan signed an agreement with Universal Music Malaysia as the official digital distributor for "Damailah Engkau" music video in 2020.
Preparation for the song “Damailah Engkau” started in April 2019 when Malay music industry approached him with this great opportunity. The video song has been recorded in Malaysia featured by Nehsan, Lofea Yusof and some other supporting talents. When asked about the idea behind the song Nehsan said that it is to show the blissfulness of spending our time with our loved ones. This idea came when Nehsan realised that sometimes, we tend to forget our loved ones while chasing our busy life. He said that it will be a soulful song as the storyline of the song is partially based on Nehsan’s true life story.
“Damailah Engkau” is expected to be a great debut for Nehsan in his career in music video industry as he has plans to diversify his music career in Arabic music, with the expectations to be the first ever Malaysian to step into UAE music industry.
Nehsan is a great example for the youngsters today. He has brought himself up from being a rubber tapper at the age of 6 to a successful singer and entrepreneur at the age of 21. A long, painful and suffering journey with fruitful outcome. Nehsan believes that in today's fast growing world, we are given all the necessary opportunities and fundamental needs to be successful and live an inspiring life style. Hence, the youngsters should always be ready to take the initiative to achieve their goals in their lives. "Just like, if Rowan Atkinson did not take the initiative to start his own tv show and gave up due to his speaking disorder and stammering problem, we would not have had Mr Bean. Just because I was poor, people laughed at me when I told them I will be successful and be an inspiration for the youngsters one day. I did not give up, I just smiled and kept fighting against the odds.” Nehsan said. The rest is history.
To know more about the young achiever Nehsan Selvaraj and his inspiring life style you can follow him on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.