BERHAMPORE: About 220 kilometres from Kolkata, pop icon Ed Sheeran on Monday had a much smoother scooter and boat ride in Murshidabad‘s Jiaganj than the rocky reception he got from cops in Bengaluru the day before. Keeping him company all along was “good friend” Arijit Singh.
Sheeran and Singh hit it off last Sept, when the celebrated Indian singer was in London for his concert, with the duo belting out each other’s hits on stage. Now on a tour of India, the British singer took time out to pay his friend a visit in his home town in north Bengal on Monday. The two spent close to five hours together, vrooming down Jiaganj’s dusty roads – from the bustling Phulmore to the relatively deserted banks of the Bhagirathi – on Singh’s two-wheeler, with Sheeran riding pillion. At Shibtala ghat, they got on a mechanised boat for an hour-long ride on the Bhagirathi.
Neha Singha Roy, a teacher at Ghugridanga Adivasi High School, was returning home in a boat when she spotted the duo on the river. “I noticed Arijit Singh. He is a local boy, we can recognise him anywhere. He was with a few others and one among them appeared to be a foreigner, but I did not immediately recognise him from afar. A lot of important people visit Arijit in Jiaganj. The moment I reached home, I searched Internet and realised I had actually spotted Ed Sheeran,” she said.
Murshidabad SP Surya Kumar Yadav said, “We are aware that Ed Sheeran is in Jiaganj. Arijit specifically told us that they did not need any personal security but requested us to look into the law-and-order aspect in view of Sheeran’s celebrity status. We have ensured that. He is scheduled to leave for Shillong later in the evening.”
DIG (Murshidabad range) Syed Waquar Raza confirmed that Sheeran was at Singh’s residence for more than two hours. “It is a personal visit and Singh had not asked for any additional security,” he said.
During his concert in London in Sept, Arijit had sung Sheeran’s ‘Perfect’. Sheeran, too, had shared that he was moved by Arijit’s ‘Tum hi ho’. Sheeran is scheduled to perform in Shillong’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium on Feb 12. Singh, despite his celebrity status, spends a large part of time with his family in home town Jiaganj.