Bengaluru engineer Nihar Chitnis shares his ‘dream-come-true moment’ of being invited on stage by Chris Martin in Mumbai

Ever since the Coldplay concert happened in Mumbai, life hasn’t been the same for Bengaluru-based software engineer Nihar Chitnis. Among the massive crowd of around 70,000 people in the concert that happened at DY Patil Stadium, Nihar was invited by lead-singer Chris Martin to sing along with him on stage. While the viral video of him with Chris is making waves on social media, he is still busy cherishing the once-in-a-lifetime moment he had.

Nihar, an ardent Coldplay fan, visited the concert in a custom-made jacket and a placard that said, ‘Chris can we sing Magic together, please’ with little hope. “I did not have hope that he would still call me on the stage but once he read my poster completely, he was like, ‘Why don’t you come on the stage and let’s sing it together’; after that I was completely in shock,” explains Nihar about his surreal moment.

Like any other Coldplay fan, he did his homework before attending the event. He analysed what type of posters generally Chris calls up on stage, noticed his one act where he sings with one of the fans in the audience and carefully chose his favourite one among them and created a poster. “I think mine was the last poster he read that day and while reading, he also said that this was the first poster he saw and I think it is why he started circling back to me while reading,” he adds.

Among all the messages he got, he recalls the showering love he received from fellow Bengalureans. “The amount of love I received from Bengaluru people was overwhelming, even though I moved to the city just three years ago I would like to trademark myself as a Bengalurean so it was quite overwhelming with the responses I received after the concert, it made me feel quite emotional that people are quite attached to the city,” says Nihar.

His DMs are now flooded with notifications popping up every second. “Before, it was like 300 likes per post and now I can see like 300 likes on a single comment that a random person has put up on my post,” he says explaining the change after the event.

Nihar is a passionate musician, who has played instruments like the violin, the guitar and the piano since his childhood. He was part of an orchestra as a child and honed his musical skills from there. “While singing he just turned the microphone towards me and I sang in a completely off-key note and Chris went like ‘Nihar, I think you should stick to software engineering’,” he recalls his memorable interaction with the musician, with a wry laugh.

When asked about what he would do if he got a chance to witness Coldplay again, he says, “Next time probably I should practice the song thoroughly so that I can go off and maybe next time Chris might say ‘okay now there’s a chance’,” says Nihar.

Written by: Anjali Ram