Akash Bhatnagar (MUMBAI MIRROR; July 5, 2019)

Chaiyya Chaiyya singer Sukhwinder Singh while on The Kapil Sharma Show, informed that his musical career had kicked off not with the Dil Se chartbuster which had Shah Rukh Khan serenading Malaika Arora atop a train, but with an accidental song, “Eid Aayi, Mera Yaar Nai Aaya”. He then revealed that he likes recording songs in dim light as it cools his mind, allowing him to focus on the lyrics. Interestingly, this made him lose out on a film when Aamir Khan, on learning about Sukhwinder’s quirk, challenged him to sing a song in dim light, with the incentive that he could record a song for him if he didn’t falter. Unfortunately, luck wasn’t on his side. “I couldn’t do it at first go and lost the chance to do a film with Aamir,” he rues.

Sukhwinder also spoke about his admiration for his “Jai Ho” composer A R Rahman and how his habit of working late into the night made him ignore the maestro for a year. “But then, I ended up working with him for five years. One day, I curiously asked him the reason behind his nocturnal work habits and he said that he likes to explore his creativity in the silence of the night,” he recounted, adding proudly that he is the only one who can make the maestro laugh with his Punjabi jokes translated in English. He then got Archana Puran Singh emotional with his rendition of the Punjabi song “Saada Chidiya Na Chaamba”. As she teared up, he admitted to his crush on her, ending things on a lighter note.