The Leonine Ananya

Ananya Birla talks about her love for cars, tattoos and doing music with meraki in an exclusive conversation with Ramesh Somani.

RAMESH SOMANI: Ananya, you’re back again on our cover! We definitely have a lot of catching up to do, right?

ANANYA BIRLA: God! So much has happened in the last one year, so definitely, loads of catching up to do. It’s a funny coincidence that we did the cover in April last year and we meet in April this year too. So I guess it’s meant to happen and it’s really sweet of you to have me again!

First things first, how is your music career coming along? your latest song Hold On went viral and has around 5.8 M views already which is massive!

Thank you so much! Hold On nailed it in the industry, got 5.8 M views in two days and is being streamed extensively. The video turned out really well and we were trending on all the platforms. It is really nice to see such a response. I’m very grateful for all the love from my fans. Currently, we’re working on my next music video.

Oh, so looks like we’ll have to ‘hold on’ for some new music from you?

Yes (beams), but just until May. This time, I’m going for a more acoustic feel for the song.

Last time we discussed your business ventures ‘Svatantra Microfinance’, ‘CuroCarte’ and ‘MPower’ too. Catch us to speed on any new developments.

All the businesses are doing really well. The team is amazing, the vision is great. We just touched 500 Cr and we’re projecting for around 1000 Cr by next year. However, music is my priority at the moment, and I’ve been giving it a lot of time. There’s already a lot on my plate, so no new developments are taking shape currently.