Pratik Himal Rai is a Nepali singer-songwriter and former The Voice of Nepal contestant who represents Nepal at the first Eurovision Song Contest Asia with “Ananta Maya”, a song he wrote himself, from slot 10 of 11 in the Grand Final in Bangkok on Saturday 14 November. He won Himalaya TV’s Nepal Decides on 7 October, which makes him Nepal’s first act at Eurovision Asia. On Polymarket he is priced at 8.1% to win but only 6% to finish in the top three, a contradiction this page explains with the orders behind it. He rehearses on the One Bangkok Forum stage today, 9 November.
18+ | New customers only | T&Cs apply | Please gamble responsibly
Image: Pratik Himal Rai’s official artist card, Eurovision Song Contest Asia (eurovisionasia.com).
Key takeaways
- Who he is: Pratik Himal Mewahang Rai, a Nepali singer, songwriter and performer with more than a decade in music and a bachelor’s degree in the subject. He reached the Knockouts of The Voice of Nepal season 6 in 2025.
- The song: “Ananta Maya”, which Eurovoix translates as “Infinite Love”. He wrote the words and the music himself.
- How he got there: he won Nepal Decides on 7 October, ahead of Allam Aadesh and Bullet Flo x Preeti Kaur, on a 40% jury, 40% Nepal and 20% rest-of-world vote.
- When he sings: slot 10 of 11, after South Korea’s JUNHEE and before Malaysia’s Aina Abdul. The show starts at 20:30 in Bangkok and 19:15 in Nepal, on Himalaya TV.
- The odds puzzle: Polymarket has Nepal fourth of eleven to win, at 8.1%, but last of eleven for the top three, at 6.0%. The winner price is the midpoint of a 3.5c bid and a 12.7c offer, and the last trade was 3.5c.
- Rehearsal: his first rehearsal in Bangkok is today. No report of it has been published yet.
What’s on this page
Who is Pratik Himal Rai? · Biography and career · “Ananta Maya”: the song · How he won Nepal Decides · At the One Bangkok Forum · His odds · 8% to win, 6% for the top three · Where to watch and how to vote · By the numbers · FAQ · Sources
Who is Pratik Himal Rai?
Pratik Himal Rai is a Nepali singer, songwriter and performer. Eurovoix gives his full name as Pratik Himal Mewahang Rai, and the credits on his Eurovision Asia music video add a shorter form, Pratik M Rai. The organisers’ official announcement says he has more than a decade of experience in music, holds a bachelor’s degree in the subject, and “gained widespread recognition through his participation in various television shows”. His music, in their words, spans “ballads, slow rock, Nepali folk and folk-pop”.
| Fact | Pratik Himal Rai |
|---|---|
| Full name | Pratik Himal Mewahang Rai |
| From | Nepal |
| Occupation | Singer, songwriter and performer |
| Education | Bachelor’s degree in music |
| Experience | More than a decade in music |
| Genres | Ballads, slow rock, Nepali folk, folk-pop |
| Television | The Voice of Nepal, season 6 (2025): reached the Knockouts |
| Releases | “Chhaina maile” (debut single, a Karma Band cover), “Jhari” (2026), the album Poetry (September 2026), “Ananta Maya” |
| Eurovision Asia song | “Ananta Maya” (“Infinite Love”) |
| Broadcaster | Himalaya TV |
| Final slot | 10 of 11, Saturday 14 November |
| @pratik_himal_rai |
His age and home town are not on the public record: neither the organisers nor Eurovoix gives a date or place of birth, so this page does not either. Our reading: he arrives with a smaller commercial footprint than the established stars Vietnam, Malaysia and South Korea have sent, a songwriter whom television brought to a national audience.
Pratik Himal Rai’s biography and career
Most of what is published about his career comes from two places: the biography the organisers released before Nepal Decides, and a profile Eurovoix ran on 8 November as the ninth part of its “Who Is” series.
Television. According to Eurovoix, he competed in the sixth season of The Voice of Nepal in 2025 and reached the Knockouts round before he was eliminated. The organisers say only that he became known through “various television shows”, where his voice and stage presence impressed audiences.
Releases. Shortly after the show, Eurovoix reports, he released his debut single, “Chhaina maile”. It is a cover of a song by Karma Band that he had sung in the Knockouts. His second single, “Jhari”, followed this year, and in September he released his debut album, Poetry. The organisers’ biography, written for Nepal Decides, credits him with “two original releases”.
Pratik Himal Rai songs. The titles on record are “Chhaina maile”, “Jhari”, the album Poetry and “Ananta Maya”. Google’s results for his name point to his music on Spotify and YouTube Music. We have not found a track list for the album that we can cite.
“Ananta Maya”: the song
“Ananta Maya” is a Nepali-language song written and composed by Pratik Himal Rai himself. Eurovoix translates the title as “Infinite Love”. The credits on the official music video say the same about authorship: singer Pratik Himal Rai, lyrics and music Pratik Himal Rai.
That video premiered on 23 September 2026 on the SongGeet YouTube channel, the day the Nepal Decides songs came out, and had 11,901 views when we checked on 9 November. Its description calls the song “a soulful musical composition” that explores deep emotions through melody and storytelling. Bijay Karki and Manoj Poudel Khatri are credited for camera, and Sohan Manandhar as colourist and visual editor. No producer or arranger is named in any source we have seen.
What does “Ananta Maya” mean? On Eurovoix’s translation, “Infinite Love”. We have not found an English translation of the lyrics from the broadcaster or the organisers, and we do not reproduce lyrics, so we will not describe the song line by line.
It also has a famous fan. On 6 November the official Eurovision Asia Instagram account posted a clip of Delta Goodrem, who finished fourth for Australia in Vienna in May, singing “Ananta Maya”. The caption promised she would “make sure you remember its name”. By 9 November the clip had been played about 152,000 times, more than six times as often as either of the account’s other two recent videos about him.
View this post on Instagram (@eurovisionasia)
How Pratik Himal Rai won the ticket to Bangkok
Nepal chose its act and song together, at a televised national final. Nepal Decides was first set for 19 September and was moved to Wednesday 7 October after the August flash floods. Hosted by Roneeshma, the two-hour show started at 19:30 Nepal time (15:45 CEST) on Himalaya TV and OTT platforms in Nepal, and on the Eurovision Song Contest YouTube channel everywhere else. Eleven acts competed, and, as the organisers’ guide to watching and voting noted, all eleven songs were out before the show.
The result came from three pools under section 8.1 of the voting terms: a professional jury (40%), viewers in Nepal (40%) and a free Rest of the World vote (20%) open to anyone outside the country. Each voter could cast up to eight votes but had to spread them across at least three songs.
| Place | Act | Song |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pratik Himal Rai | “Ananta Maya” |
| 2 | Allam Aadesh | “Byakta” |
| 3 | Bullet Flo x Preeti Kaur | “Golden Danphe” |
| 4–11 | Amit Baral, Amrita Limbu, Beyond, Meghna Gewali, Nirmala Ghale, Prithvi Khanal, RC Rimal, Suraj Tamang | Order not published |
Only the top three was published, with no points and no split between the jury, the Nepali public and the rest-of-world vote. So nobody outside the production knows whether he won on the jury, at home or abroad. We covered the result and its gaps in our Nepal Decides report. Beforehand, our preview of the last four selections called Nepal the biggest open question left in the contest: eleven songs, and no artist named in advance.
The organisers announced him as the winner on 7 October, making “Ananta Maya” Nepal’s first-ever entry to Eurovision Song Contest Asia. The Eurovision Song Contest channel’s video of his winning song had 85,113 views when we checked on 9 November. On 2 November the official Instagram account reposted the moment he won, as a reminder ahead of Bangkok.
View this post on Instagram (@eurovisionasia)
Pratik Himal Rai at the One Bangkok Forum
Nepal rehearses today, 9 November, Bangkok time. It is one of seven countries on the second day of first rehearsals, with Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, South Korea, Vietnam and Mongolia. Laos, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Cambodia went first on 8 November. No report or clip of his rehearsal has been published yet, so we cannot say anything about how it went.
There was little to go on beforehand either. Eurovoix’s 7 November round-up of what was known about the Bangkok performances said Pratik Himal Rai and the Nepalese delegation had not revealed any details of what viewers can expect. Other acts had: Mongolia’s Beck, for one, had announced a revamped song, a traditional Mongolian instrument and dancers.
The build-up so far has come from the organisers, including a 3 November interview clip in which he offers advice to aspiring performers, with the full interview on ZOOP. Nepal’s whole season is on our Nepal country page.
Pratik Himal Rai Eurovision Asia odds
No fixed-odds bookmaker prices Eurovision Asia. The betting is on prediction markets, mainly Polymarket, which runs six books on the contest. Nepal’s prices were read at 03:14 UTC on 9 November. The headline figure is the mid, halfway between the best bid and the best offer.
| Book | Mid | Bid / offer | Last trade | Traded on Nepal | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winner | 8.1% | 3.5c / 12.7c | 3.5c | $1,748 | 4th of 11 |
| Jury winner | 5.0% | 0.3c / 9.7c | none | $5 | 6th of 11 |
| Public-vote winner | 0.1% | 0c / 0.1c | 0.3c | $371 | joint 7th (five at 0.1%) |
| Top 3 | 6.0% | 3c / 9c | 11c | $644 | 11th of 11 |
| Second place | 4.2% | 0.3c / 8.2c | 3.4c | $93 | 9th of 11 |
| Third place | 7.5% | 1c / 14c | 8c | $330 | 7th of 11 |
Two things stand out. First, apart from the public-vote book, where Nepal is quoted at next to nothing (0c / 0.1c), every quote is wide. The narrowest of the rest, on the Top 3 market, is six cents across; the winner market quote is more than nine cents across, wider than the price itself. Second, the money is small. Nepal’s winner line has taken $1,748, about 5% of the $33.7K traded on the winner book, and its jury line just $5.
The winner price has also moved without trades. On 7 November Nepal was about 3.9% to win. By 9 November the mid had roughly doubled, while the last trade stayed at 3.5c. Our 9 November odds report summed it up as “quotes, not money”.
Ranked by the Top 3 book, Nepal is last of eleven, a fraction behind Bangladesh. Ranked by the winner book, it is fourth, behind only Malaysia (54.5%), the Philippines (25%) and Vietnam (8.4%).
Kalshi. On the other venue, Nepal’s contract, read at 01:48 UTC on 9 November, shows a last trade of 5c, no bid and a 44c offer, on 61 contracts traded since the market opened on 14 September. That is the same 5c on the same 61 contracts we recorded in October: no trading since, and no current view.
Why Pratik Himal Rai is 8% to win but 6% for the top three
A Top 3 contract pays out if Nepal finishes first, second or third. A winner contract pays only for first. So the Top 3 price can never sensibly be the lower of the two. Nepal’s is: 8.1% against 6.0%. Our predictions for all eleven acts picked it out as the price we think is wrong. The orders behind the two numbers show how it happens.
| Nepal | Winner book | Top 3 book |
|---|---|---|
| Best bid (what a buyer will pay) | 3.5c | 3c |
| Best offer (what a seller will take) | 12.7c | 9c |
| Mid (the quoted price) | 8.1% | 6.0% |
| Last trade | 3.5c | 11c |
| Traded on Nepal | $1,748 | $644 |
The mid is not a trade. Nepal’s 8.1% winner price is the halfway point of the gap between a 3.5c bid and a 12.7c offer. Nobody has traded at 8.1c. The high offer drags the mid up: if the best offer were 4c, the mid would be under 4%.
The last trades are in the right order. The last winner trade was 3.5c and the last Top 3 trade was 11c. On those, Nepal is about three times as likely to make the podium as to win, which is coherent.
There is no free money in the gap. An arbitrage would need someone willing to pay more for Nepal to win than someone else asks for Nepal to make the top three. The best winner bid (3.5c) is below the best Top 3 offer (9c), so nobody can lock in a profit by trading one book against the other. The contradiction lives only in the mids.
The podium books do not add up either. Polymarket also prices Nepal at 4.2% for second place (0.3c / 8.2c, last trade 3.4c) and 7.5% for third place (1c / 14c, last trade 8c). First, second and third together should match the Top 3 price. On mids they make 19.8%, more than three times 6.0%. On last trades they make 14.9c against an 11c Top 3 trade, which is much closer.
The split books point the same way. In the jury book Nepal is 5.0%, sixth of eleven, but that quote runs from 0.3c to 9.7c with $5 traded and no last trade. In the public-vote book it is 0.1%, with $371 traded and a last trade of 0.3c. The Grand Final is 50% jury and 50% public, and Vienna in May showed how hard it is to win with one weak half: Romania came second on the televote with 232 points but took only 64 from the juries, and finished third. A country priced at 0.1% to top the public vote would need an exceptional jury score to win.
How we would read it: the bids and the last trades are the better guide. They put Nepal in the low single digits to win, and somewhere between the 3c Top 3 bid and the 11c last Top 3 trade for the podium. The 8.1% winner mid is the product of one high offer on a thin line, not of money backing Pratik Himal Rai. Rehearsal clips could move all of these books, and Nepal rehearses today.
Where to watch and how to vote for Pratik Himal Rai
Pratik Himal Rai sings tenth, after South Korea’s JUNHEE and before Malaysia’s Aina Abdul, who closes the show. The Grand Final at the One Bangkok Forum starts at 20:30 in Bangkok on Saturday 14 November, hosted by Woody Milintachinda and Cindy Bishop.
| Where | How to watch | Start time |
|---|---|---|
| Nepal | Himalaya TV | 19:15 |
| Thailand (host) | Channel 3 | 20:30 ICT |
| Everywhere | Eurovision Song Contest YouTube channel, free | 13:30 UTC (13:30 GMT, 14:30 CET) |
| One Bangkok Forum, Friday 13 November | Preview Show, for ticket holders | 20:30 ICT |
Voting is on the web at eurovisionasia.com/vote, for over-18s who sign in with Google, Apple or Privy. Each voter gets eight free votes and can buy up to ten more, to a maximum of 18, with no more than 16 for any one entry. Votes must be spread across at least three countries, or none of them count.
Viewers in Nepal cannot vote for Pratik Himal Rai: under section 3.3 of the voting terms, nobody may vote in the Grand Final for the country they live in. His public vote has to come from the other ten countries and the Rest of World bloc. On our reading of the rules, that is where Nepali communities abroad count. A Nepali voter living in Malaysia, say, votes in Malaysia’s public vote, and one living outside the eleven countries votes in the Rest of World bloc, and either may vote for Nepal.
Start times for all eleven countries are in our guide to watching the Grand Final.
What people search for: Pratik Himal Rai by the numbers
Google search data from DataForSEO, checked on 9 November, shows how new his name is to search. “Pratik Himal Rai” averages about 10 searches a month in the United States, and DataForSEO returns no figure for it in Nepal or the United Kingdom. “Ananta Maya” averages about 10 a month in Nepal. “Eurovision Asia” itself gets about 30 a month in Nepal, with 90 in the latest month, against 2,400 a month in the Philippines.
On 9 November Google’s top results for his name in the United States were IMDb, Facebook, ESCToday, YouTube Music and Spotify, with no Wikipedia article. In Nepal they were YouTube, ESCXTRA, ESCToday and Facebook. Google lists his own YouTube channel with 3.4K+ followers. Video numbers are larger: 85,113 views for the official Nepal Decides video and about 152,000 plays for Delta Goodrem’s cover. Every act in the contest is profiled on our Eurovision Asia hub.
FAQ
Who is Pratik Himal Rai?
A Nepali singer, songwriter and performer, full name Pratik Himal Mewahang Rai, with more than a decade in music and a bachelor’s degree in the subject. He reached the Knockouts of The Voice of Nepal season 6 in 2025, and represents Nepal at Eurovision Song Contest Asia 2026 with “Ananta Maya”.
How old is Pratik Himal Rai?
His age has not been published. Neither the organisers nor Eurovoix gives a date of birth, and we have not found one in a source we can cite.
Where is Pratik Himal Rai from?
Nepal. His home town has not been published in any of the sources we have used.
What does “Ananta Maya” mean?
Eurovoix translates the Nepali title as “Infinite Love”.
Who wrote “Ananta Maya”?
Pratik Himal Rai wrote and composed it himself. The official music video credits him for lyrics and music.
What are Pratik Himal Rai’s songs?
His debut single was “Chhaina maile”, a cover of a Karma Band song he sang on The Voice of Nepal. It was followed by “Jhari”, the album Poetry in September 2026, and his Eurovision Asia entry, “Ananta Maya”.
When does Pratik Himal Rai perform at Eurovision Asia?
In slot 10 of 11 at the Grand Final on Saturday 14 November 2026 at the One Bangkok Forum. The show starts at 20:30 in Bangkok, 19:15 in Nepal on Himalaya TV, and 14:30 CET on the Eurovision Song Contest YouTube channel.
Can Pratik Himal Rai win Eurovision Asia?
Polymarket’s mid price is 8.1%, but it sits between a 3.5c bid and a 12.7c offer, and the last trade was 3.5c. He is 0.1% on the public vote and 6.0% for the top three. Our reading is that he is a long shot, and that the 8.1% overstates his chance.
Sources
- Eurovision Song Contest Asia: the 7 October winner announcement and the “Nepal Decides: how to watch and vote” guide (biography, result, format); the how-to-watch page; the 29 October running order.
- Eurovision Song Contest Asia voting terms, sections 3.3, 6, 6.1, 8.1 and 8.2, last updated 28 August 2026.
- Eurovoix: “Nepal: Who Is Pratik Himal Rai?” by Neil Farren, 8 November 2026; the 7 November performances round-up; the 9 November rehearsal schedule.
- YouTube: the Eurovision Song Contest channel’s Nepal Decides video (7 October 2026) and SongGeet’s official music video and credits (23 September 2026). Views read 9 November.
- Instagram: Eurovision Song Contest Asia’s official account, posts of 26 October, 2, 3 and 6 November 2026. Plays read 9 November.
- Polymarket, 03:14 UTC on 9 November 2026, all six books; mids are bid and offer midpoints. 7 November figure: this site’s 7 November odds report. Kalshi, read 01:48 UTC on 9 November 2026.
- Google search data from DataForSEO, monthly averages, and Google results for his name, both checked 9 November 2026.
- Vienna 2026 results: this site’s Eurovision 2026 results data. Background: this site’s October reports and Nepal country page.
18+. Prediction-market prices are not bookmaker odds. Thin books like Nepal’s can move without trades, so check the live board before acting.