Singer Abhijeet Bhattacharya defends Udit Narayan: Let him enjoy his success

After singer Udit Narayan was criticised when videos of him kissing a female fan during a live concert surfaced on social media, his contemporary singer Abhijeet Bhattacharya has come out in his support stating that Udit “didn’t pull anyone close to him” and we should let him “enjoy his success.”

During a conversation with News18, Abhijeet also reminisced about a similar incident that happened with him. “Udit is a superstar singer, and incidents like these keep happening to us singers all the time. If we aren’t properly guarded or surrounded by bouncers, people tear our clothes apart. It has happened to me in the past too. When I was relatively new in the industry, during a concert in South Africa, teen-chaar ladkiyon ne mere gaal pe itna khatarnak kiss kiya ki main stage pe jaa hi nahi pa raha tha (Three or four girls kissed me on my cheeks so roughly that I couldn’t go on stage again). And all of this happened right in front of Lata (Mangeshkar) ji. I had lipstick marks on my cheeks.”

The singer added, “He’s Udit Narayan! Ladkiyaan unke peeche padhi thi (Girls were after him). He didn’t pull anyone close to him. I’m sure that every time Udit performs, his wife accompanies him as a co-singer. Let him enjoy his success! He’s a romantic singer. He’s also a big khiladi, and I’m an anari. Koi unke saath khelne ki koshish mat karo (Don’t try to play games with him).”

In the video, Udit is performing the song ‘Tip Tip Barsa Paani’ from Mohrra (1994) and a female fan comes close to his stage for a selfie. As they are taking the picture the woman kisses Udit on the cheek and he then proceeds to kiss her back on the lips. The video received a lot of flak on social media, where many netizens called out Udit for being indecent.

The singer, however, in a recent interview defended his actions. “Fans itne deewane hote hain na. Hum log aise nahi hain, hum decent log hain. (Fans are crazy. We are not like this. We are decent people.) Some people encourage this and show their love through this. Udaake kya karna hai ab iss cheez ko? (What is the point of spreading this?) There are so many people in the crowd, and we have bodyguards present too. But fans think they are getting a chance to meet, so someone extends their hands for a handshake, some kiss the hands… yeh sab deewangi hoti hai. Uspe itna dhyaan nahi dena chahiye. (This is all madness. We should not pay attention to this).”