Once upon a time, if it didn’t exist on a Bollywood track audio cassette, your song would be christened an ‘album song’ in India. Nineteen-year-old singer-songwriter Nandini Nayal aka Gini might not remember a time before ‘indie’ became a byword for her genre, but the teen pop star is an old soul at heart. “On road trips, my parents would play everything from Harry Belafonte and Cliff Richard, to Geeta Dutt and Adele. I just sang along,” she reveals. Come January 2026, it might be Mumbai’s audience who will sing along to the Dehradun-born artiste at her big Lollapalooza debut.

“I was talking to my manager, and she told me there was a chance I would make it to the festival line-up. It was hard to believe because I had been dancing in the living room earlier that day, performing my songs and imagining it was the Lollapalooza stage. It’s what dreams are made of. I’ve always been a sceptic, but perhaps manifesting does work,” she laughs. It takes a bit more than wishful thinking, we’d say. In the past three years, Gini has gained nearly three lakh monthly listeners on streaming platforms, sold out a multi-city India tour, and become Instagram’s favourite teen pop sensation.