Singer Sonu Nigam will be travelling to the United Kingdom for a musical tour next month. While he’s happy about hitting the stage after long, the 10-day quarantine rule in the country for Indians who’ve taken the Covishield vaccine has got him worried.

“I am hopefully travelling to the UK in November for a concert, called Rafi, Kishore Aur Main, which will be the beginning of my world tour. I hope by then Covishield is recognized in the UK and we don’t have to go through the quarantine. I am being optimistic about it,” shares Nigam. As of now, Indians travelling to the UK are required to undergo the mandatory quarantine, even if they are fully vaccinated with Covishield.

The 48-year-old singer has started with live performances back home, but admits that the pandemic has been really tough for musicians.

“My heart goes out to all the musicians, the daily wage earners, the sound engineers and instrumentalists, whose livelihood depends on the live scene. I am making sure that I take care of my musicians. We do online concerts sometimes, at really low costs, so that inn musicians ka kaam chalta rahe,” adds Nigam, who was in Dubai recently to receive the special UAE Golden Visa.

The singer, who spent the last two years in Dubai and also has a home there, says he is shuttling between Mumbai and Dubai for work. “There are many new songs that have come out and there are more in the pipeline. I’ve done a lot of indie work, as film music is hardly happening, given the current situation,” he says.

News reports of Covishield vaccine getting excluded from the new EU Covid ‘Green Pass’ eligibility list has received mixed reactions in the country, with Europe-bound denizens wondering when would they be able to travel next! Nine European countries have accepted Covishield and India has asked other EU member states to individually consider. Some big ticket films, which are scheduled to be shot in European cities, might also be at the receiving end of this debate, alongside those who need to travel for business and education.

According to sources, parts of Salman Khan-Katrina Kaif starrer Tiger 3 as well as Shah Rukh Khan’s Pathan are scheduled to be shot in certain cities of Europe. Film trade analysts, however, are of the opinion that these films won’t lose out. “This vaccination issue will be resolved with the higher authorities coming together. Then, film teams will travel, following all protocols and formats like maintaining a bio bubble,” says trade analyst Atul Mohan.

Trade analyst Komal Nahta agrees with him: “This is just a matter of time; it’s at most a procedural problem and is not reala big hitch.”

Commoners who were planning to travel are feeling stuck now. “Since the European cities are returning to normalcy, we hoped to get our businesses back on track,” says Neeharika Leekha, a Delhi-based entrepreneur, adding, “Face to face meetings are needed... We hope that we are allowed to move freely in different European cities.”

Ashwin Mushran didn’t expect his funny take on the Sputnik vaccine coming to India to go viral. He in fact clarifies that he didn’t even take the vaccine to begin with.

In the funny video, he starts off by telling that he has taken the first dose of the said vaccine and soon starts speaking in a Russian accent, the country where it was made, as one of the after effects. “I had got my first Covishield shot in April, and will get the second shot any time now. They had announced the Sputnik vaccine for India and I thought of a video in the context of Indians,” he says.

The 49-year-old adds that he didn’t see the kind of response coming at him. “I woke up in the morning and went ‘okay what happened?!’ A lot of people actually believed I took it. I got messages from my own family saying ‘where did Ashwin take this vaccine?’ One just posts what they feel about. You don’t really think what other people think about it, I didn’t do it for that purpose. I just thought it was funny,” says Mushran, who also battled Covid successfully and got back to work.

Not many people know that he is the voice of the character of Professor in the Hindi dubbed version of the show Money Heist. He will also be seen in the Akshay Kumar-starrer Bachchan Pandey.

He adds internet is one place full of unpredictability. “You can’t control how people will react. You don’t always write things that people will react to. The fun is that I put out what I want to, not thinking about the reaction,” he concludes.