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Get to know Harinie Weerasinghe, aka. @khannabliss

08 Nov 2020

  By Mahika Panditha --- Happy Sunday everyone! We here at Happinez hope you and your family are safe and well. We understand that these are trying times, so let’s work together and stay safe so that we can combat this. Moving on to the star of today’s edition, you might know her as @khannabliss from Instagram and YouTube. And I am pretty sure you have come across her amazing content and hilarious videos! Her name is Harinie Weerasinghe. She is currently in a band called Wings, where she is the female vocalist. Aside from this, she creates videos for small brands, boutique hotels, etc. and she even runs a non-profit organisation with her best friend, called GarbagEffect (@garbageffect), which aims to help the planet out in any way possible as well as create awareness. We had the pleasure of speaking to her last week, and here is what she had to say! To start off, tell us a little bit about yourself. Harinie Weerasinghe. I’m 24 years old and I went to Stafford International School. I am a person who really appreciates my personal space, although I love going out with my friends, enjoying my time with them, and being in the moment. But I prefer going out of Colombo and out of the hustle and bustle and just being with nature or the ocean. I also surf because it frees my mind, and I love the feeling that I get out of surfing, although I am not a really good surfer, but I’m trying to be a better surfer! Other than that, I love animals and also, I love to take pictures of places, people, and just capturing the moment, not forgetting the feeling I get in that moment. So, how did you get into content creation? I have always been a fan of taking pictures of random things! It all started on Instagram because I used to take pictures of my friends or myself and kind of just had a pretty feed, I guess. One of my friends, Thakeisha, was going through my Instagram, which was private at first, and she was like: “Why don’t you make it public? You have such nice pictures and people would want to follow you, and you should share it with other people.” I thought that was a really good idea, so that day itself, in the evening, I thought about it and made the profile public. People actually started liking the pictures I was posting and the captions I was including in the posts, so that is where I started, and it also made me feel good. I like to show people a different perspective: My perspective of things and how I take up things in life. Later on, I thought of starting a YouTube channel and I did! What is the process like when you create content? That depends; if it’s my YouTube videos, for the skits that I am doing, I will first come up with a few ideas and I will pick the best one, and then write the script. And then I would video it, edit it, put in the music, and publish it. If it is an Instagram post, most of the time, my posts include pictures that I have taken in different places. I usually take a picture if I go and spend some time there or if it looks artistic, or simply if I just like the area and if I feel like I can come up with a message for the picture. It involves me uploading a picture and going through the stuff that I have written – I have a small journal that I write my feelings and thoughts down on. I just go through the journal and then come up with a caption – as long as the caption is something that I am feeling or something that I felt, which I feel someone else can benefit from or make that person think twice about something they are doing, I put it up. The most important part in the process of creating content, for me, is to stick to who I am and stay true to who I am and what I am doing. I don’t want to lose my way in the midst of doing all these things. What would you say has been your biggest challenge thus far and what it taught you? The biggest challenge I have had till now is when I decided to work on and improve myself. I thought of accepting who I am as a person, and also accepting my past. It started with my past. I sat down and started analysing every situation and everything that has happened to me in my past; the people who have done wrong by me, the things that I have messed up myself, and the things that make me really sad – just everything. When I sat down and did this, I came to this point where I was okay with it. It was okay, it happened, and I accepted that it happened. When I got to that point, which took me about three to four months, it gave me this big relief, and this opened the door for me to analyse the situation even more. Once I accepted it, I would see the situation from a different point of view. I would think “if this person did this to me, it is because he or she was in this situation or he or she is just like this”, and I would accept that it is just who they are. It was quite hard, because it is like a mental battle, but everything got so much easier once I got to that point. I wasn’t thinking back all the time and I wasn’t weeping about my past or dwelling in it. Of course, there are some times where I do, but now I know how to work on it so I do work on it. It actually changed my life. I have learned to just accept things. Just accept people for who they are. I don’t judge anymore, but now I’m just like “that’s you and if you’re not you, what’s the point?” I just appreciate everything else that is around me. It makes me see the beauty of things, of people and the things that happen around me in everyday life. It made me a happier person. You are also a musician! What is your favourite genre and why? That’s a tough question. I like all types of music – I listen to any song that is on the radio, or if anyone plays anything, I will listen to it! But I favour alternative pop simply because it just makes me feel good; I don’t know why. Especially when I am going on long drives, I always listen to alternative pop and it really makes my drive so much better. Sometimes, I feel like I’m in a movie (haha), but in general, I like all types of music, so I can’t pick one! Any fun memories you can tell us about? This was quite a funny moment. My two best friends and I thought we would go to Arugam Bay. The bus is only at 9 p.m. from Maradana, but because we didn’t want to get late and miss the bus, and since it was the only bus to go to Arugam Bay, we thought we’ll just be early. We took the tuk at around 7.40 p.m. and reached Maradana at about 8 p.m. So we had to wait there for one hour. I had my guitar because I play gigs and stuff in Arugam Bay, so we just sat on the pavement and sang. There were so many people in their sarongs with their evening cigarette, just looking at us like “what the hell are these girls doing?” There was a part of me that was really scared, but there was also a part of me that really enjoyed the moment, and I just kept singing. The bus came about 15 minutes later, because we started singing at around 8.45 p.m. after contemplating it. I think that was one of the best and most fun moments in my life that I will never forget! Where would you want your platform and you to be in the next five years? So, for now, I want my platform to be in a place where people can reach out to me, watch a few videos, look at a few pictures, and read a few posts – just look at it and feel good about themselves. Not to be like “oh, she’s having a really good time, I wish I could do that”. I want the opposite of it. I want my platform to be a place where if you are having a bad day, you could watch a few stupid videos on YouTube and laugh or read a post and feel good about yourself. So that’s where I want to be in five years’ time. If I can do that for my audience, that is exactly where I would want to be. PHOTOS Anjum Hassen and Blanc Noir Studios


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