Musician Ayaan Agnihotri, who is the nephew of actor Salman Khan and goes with the stage name Agni, made his Bollywood playback debut this year with C’mon Baby in the Bobby Deol-starrer Bandar. But before the release, he had to keep the project a secret from his uncle.

“I was not allowed to tell Salman Mamu that I was doing this song for Bobby uncle’s film. Nikhil (Dwivedi, co-producer), swore me to secrecy. He said, ‘When this song goes through, then I will play it to your Mamu and tell him I’ve discovered a new voice. What do you think of this guy?’,” Ayaan recalls.

Salman’s response, he says, was encouraging. “He liked it, and when he met me the next time, he told me I did a good job and should stay at it,” the 33-year-old shares.

The son of Salman’s sister Alvira Khan Agnihotri and filmmaker Atul Agnihotri, Ayaan had once planned to become an actor but life had other plans. He shares, “I went to university to do acting and world theatre. As I went on, I realized that it’s just performing in general that I enjoy. Around the same time, I started writing and found a special connection with music. I felt I could express things that I wanted to through my writing. Music helped me relate to things I was going through and get through them. That really made an impact on me.”

While music is taking up all his time currently, acting is still on his radar. “Maybe sometime in the future. It’s definitely not off the agenda because I do love acting. But right now, the focus is on the music,” he ends.