Stargazer: Jasleen Royal, Manjinder Virk, Kunchacko Boban and Darshana Rajendran

Singer and composer Jasleen Royal is making waves with an unusual partner. The girl with the golden voice has come out with a new song, ‘Inaam’, which she performs with Badshah. Anchored in delicate production and stripped-back instrumentation, ‘Inaam’ is written by Ansh Chahal. Royal calls it a very personal song. She says “It is about the kind of love that walks into your chaos and quietens everything. It is the feeling of being held, like coming home, even when everything else feels uncertain. There’s a quiet kind of love in it, where their happiness matters just as much as your own.” Royal adds that the song also presents a different side of Badshah. “We’ve all seen his high-energy side, but here, you get to hear something much more vulnerable and real.”

Manjinder Virk’s Family Tale

Since her debut in Holby City, British-Asian actor and filmmaker Manjinder Virk has been a regular on TV shows such as Doctors, Runaway, Skins, Hunted and Midsomer Murders. In her new short film, Dekho, Virk leads the cast along with her son, playing a mother and child whose lives are upended when the boy’s grandmother—suffering from dementia—comes to live with them. Dekho will be screened at the Indian Film Festival in Los Angeles this month. Virk’s earlier short films include Out of Darkness, starring Riz Ahmed and Tom Hiddleston, and Things We Never Said, featuring Shazad Latif.

 Song Break

Kunchacko Boban and Darshana Rajendran make for a refresh­ing pair in ‘Kaattu Thottappol’, a new song from the much-awaited movie ‘Patriot’. The star-studded film sees Mammootty and Mohanlal reunite after 18 years. ‘Kaattu Thottappol’ will be one of the lighter moments in the spy thriller. With much of the song set in Ladakh, the scenery will give audiences some­thing to look forward to. How it will fit into the film’s high-octane action is still a mystery.