Soumya Vajpayee Tiwari (MID-DAY; December 26, 2017)

He is shy, almost to the point of being reclusive. But place a mic before him and Arijit Singh has the power to sway countless fans to his tunes. His performance at the recently concluded Enchanted Valley Carnival reiterated that he’s one of the biggest names in the world of Indian music today, but Singh humbly refuses to acknowledge the star status he commands. “The words ‘star’ and ‘celebrity’ are created; they are usually a state of mind rather that an actual thing. The words have gained more importance these days, especially in the [film] industry,” he says.

The Phir Le Aaya Dil, Zaalima and Channa Mereya hitmaker is pleased with the way the year shaped up for him, professionally. But he does have a grouse with the functioning of the music industry. Echoing the thoughts of his contemporaries, Singh says, “Not getting royalty for our songs is a drawback we face as singers in India.” Not one to wage a war, the soft-spoken singer points out that several artistes suffer in the absence of music royalties. “If we start getting royalty for the songs we sing, we can consider our future secure.”

For now, though, Singh has trained his sights on a 10-city India tour, titled Arijit Singh Live In Concert, The MTV India Tour. A Kolkata boy at heart, he kicked off the tour in the city on December 23. “It was the first city for the tour, so there was a lot of pressure. I performed some Bengali songs for the audience,” says the singer, whose itinerary includes performances in Guwahati, Pune, Indore, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Gurgaon, Ahmedabad, Mumbai [March 10] and Hyderabad.

Venturing into independent music is also a distant plan, but currently, the singer says, his “hands are so full that I am not getting time for myself”. So does his chock-a-block schedule allow him downtime with his wife and family? “Why do you have to balance your life? I’ve been pursuing music since childhood. Music is omnipresent in my life; it hasn’t affected anything,” smiles Singh.

Ask him which of his numbers are a favourite with his family, and he laughs, “My family isn’t allowed to play my songs. There is so much more music to listen to and learn from. So I feel my family should not limit their music listening to one artiste. They only listen to my songs when they are traveling.”