Dressed like an old man in tatters, renowned Bollywood singer Sonu Nigam took to the Mumbai streets and started to dish out some of his songs as part of a social experiment conducted by Culture Machine’s digital channel, Being Indian.
Titled ‘The Roadside Ustaad’, the video showed Nigam singing the famous song from the SRK-starrer Kal Ho Na Ho and other ghazals which caught the attention of many passersby. ‘Being Indian’ tells us in the video that the reason behind this experiment was to find out ‘how Indians react to beauty when it is just around the corner’, The Hindu reported. “It was a humbling experience. One man gave me Rs12 after listening to my song. I have the rupee note framed now. I would like to meet him again and give back something,” the paper quoted him as saying.
The video has been posted online. It captured the reaction of Mumbaikars as they stopped by to listen to the melodious voice of the old man, without realising it was Sonu.
“I went without any expectations, totally bereft of any awkwardness for the way I was looking and what I was about to subject myself to. For the first time, I was not me, the make-up was so good and authentic,” Sonu said in a statement.
“People, who were standing so close to me, couldn’t recognise me. I was carrying the harmonium that my parents bought when I was born. It was all so humbling. From such an unfamiliar zone, I managed to procure something,” he said.
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”><a href=”https://t.co/D6Pl4mEpq1″>https://t.co/D6Pl4mEpq1</a> <br>My most uninhibited & surreal crooning experience ever. Thank u <a href=”https://twitter.com/Beingind”>@Beingind</a> for Being Responsible for all this :)</p>— Sonu Nigam (@sonunigam) <a href=”https://twitter.com/sonunigam/status/732488748512874496″>May 17, 2016</a></blockquote>
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