Suchona Shely has secured second place at the Rukh Sanat World Traditional Culture and Music Festival, held in Kyrgyzstan. The competition featured 82 artistes and bands from 14 countries, including Bangladesh.

For Shely, a devoted Baul singer from the village of Lakshmipur, music is not performance—it is prayer. Her father, Abdul Jolil Sordar, a Sadhu, always hoped that one of his daughters would become a Sadhu.