Assamese folk singer Papon releases his first Hindi album, The Story So Far. Yolande D'Mello talks to the artiste about boat racing, Bollywood hits and almost becoming an architect

What did you grow up listening to?
Assam is a great place to grow up in and has been a major influence on my music. There is so much variety in cultures, since a crossover takes place from India and the countries it shares its borders with. The Northeast has so much diversity in music that I could probably dabble in just about 20 per cent of the sounds.
It was great to be born into a family of musicians. My father (Khagen Mahanta) is very well known for his folk tunes and has a large fan following and my mother (Archana Mahnata) is into Hindustani classical. Subconsciously, I think I picked up music long before I realised I was doing so, simply because it was all around me.

You wanted to be an architect. How did you end up with a career in music?
Music was something that was part of life but I never thought about it as a career that I should work towards. Plus I was always busy doing other things. I love to paint and I was good at it. That was something new for my family and they were very supportive about it. I was never told to become a musician. I read The Fountainhead and I wanted to be Howard Roark, I applied at an architecture college in New Delhi but before I could join, I realised that music is what I wanted to pursue and that was it.