A resident of Danabari - 8, he developed an interest in flute since he was a primary level student at Kankai Higher Secondary School. When he left for Kathmandu in 2061 BS, he got the opportunity to sharpen his skill. As an 11-year-old sixth grader, he played the flute for the first time and won the first award of his life. He still remembers how his teacher, Taranath Khanal, would repeatedly praise and encourage him. “It is because of my childhood interest and the encouragement of my teachers that my present is as beautiful as a melody from the flute,” he says.[break]
As a child, Mitra participated in many programs organized in Illam and Jhapa. He remembers participating in a competition held at a school in Dhulabari, Jhapa where he played the flute for a song. “When the song won the first prize, it encouraged me and gave me hope that I could make a career out of it,” he says.
In Kathmandu, he met famous flutist from Illam, Balaram Samal, and took lessons from him as well as another flutist, Prem Autari, for a couple of months. He states, “If Balaram Samal hadn’t coached me, I don’t think I would be a flutist today.”
He worked in different hotels and restaurants in Kathmandu as a singer and a flutist. He has also played flute for many songs in the National Sound Studio in Jhapa. He has contributed to around three thousand songs, he says, but finds it difficult to point out which melody he has played in a song. “We have to play the music according to the musical sheet we are provided in the studio. It’s hard to find out which song has the music we’ve produced,” he says. Since the track is readied first before being mixed, the artists who contribute to producing a song do not meet.
Mitra has played for singers like Rajesh Payal Rai, Anju Panta, Shiv Pariyar, Gurudev Kamat and Dipak Limbu. Balaram says, “Mitra was already an experienced flute player since his younger days. He is trying to establish his future by playing traditional musical instruments that are being lost in these modern times.” According to Balaram, Mitra is a bright talent in the genre.
Accompanied by two dozens of flutes that go into producing a variety of tunes, he has played in many concerts organized in Nepal and India. “There are many invitations for concerts,” he says. The flutist, who also sings at times, says that he has decided to take up playing flute as a career.
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