It is a lazy Sunday morning, and Bengaluru city is still bleary-eyed. The previous night, city dwellers were up late grooving to K-pop at India’s first open air festival dedicated to Korean food, music and culture. While K-pop has a huge following in the country, fans at the festival had another reason for their frenzy—one of their own was performing: Indian K-pop idol, Aria.
THE WEEK met Aria at her hotel room. As the door swings open, a chirpy voice greets us: “Anyohaseyo” (“Hello” in Korean). Seeing the blank expression on our faces, the lovely girl before us switches to Malayalam, her mother-tongue. Aria—the first Indian K-pop star to perform onstage—hails from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. Sitting across us, dressed in lounge pants and tee, Aria has a girl-next-door innocence about her. One might not think that she is home from her first overseas tour as part of the five-member Korean girl band, X:IN, exactly a year after she set out to pursue her dream. Or that her fan base extends even to China and Pakistan. The rest of the band members flew back to Seoul a few hours ago, but Aria, 20, stayed back to spend some time with her family, who had arrived the previous day.
“I am happy to be able to perform here this soon,” says Aria. “I missed my family a lot, and now I got to see them all. I missed our food, too. Now that I have come, I want to visit again often.”
Korean music caught Aria’s attention in 2017. “After school, I used to watch songs on TV,” says Aria. “One day, I turned on the TV as usual, and was going about my chores when I heard music in an unfamiliar language. It was fun to hear, and much more to watch. I sat fixated by the TV. Later on, I realised I was listening to the song ‘Blood, Sweat & Tears’ by BTS. It changed my life.”
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