The Extraordinary Rise Of Lisa Mishra

The popular singer-songwriter on how she went from singing in her bedroom to playing shows for 30,000 people

- Riddhi Chakraborty

IT’S 7 PM ON A THURSDAY when we connect over Zoom for our chat and Lisa Mishra is excited about going home. The Chicago-native moved to India full time in 2018 to establish her music career and so— thanks to a certain virus that plunged the world into chaos—hasn’t seen her family since November 2019. “I know in general, everybody has had it tough because of social distancing,” she says. “But there’s another layer of just isolation added to it when your families are not only inaccessible but so far away that it feels impossible. But finally, I’m going to be home next month.”

Before she heads out however, there’s a lot she needs to get done. Her schedule is packed with music videos to shoot, meetings to attend and recordings to complete. The best part, is getting to be back onstage post COVID-19. “This week has been hectic, mostly just been a lot of rehearsals.” Everything is pretty much back in season in full swing and Mishra has a couple of performances lined up over the next couple of weeks—”Under strict precautions of course,” she assures me. “I think our first show back, which was a private show about two weeks ago, was really emotionally overwhelming. I announced on stage that this was our first show in 10 months, and [the audience] got emotional. There was a wave of applause because for a lot of them, it was the first time they were getting out and doing anything social in almost a year.”