“Random” seems to be Darshan Magdum’s favourite word. The 22-year-old says he “randomly decided to sing in English” while growing up in a village in Maharashtra’s Kolhapur, “randomly” began uploading his songs on social media, and got a “random call” last year from an all-American boy band Boy Throb in Los Angeles to join them. Now, he is in the US, even getting a chance to chat with New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani within weeks of arriving.Darshan grew up in Dundage village and pursued a Bachelor of Computer Applications degree in Belagavi, Karnataka. His parents are both teachers in the village: his father, B M Magdum, at a high school, and his mother, Rajeshree, for Classes 1 to 4. His elder brother, Omkar (27), works for a private firm.No one in the family pursued music professionally, Darshan says, but singing was a shared hobby. “Everyone loves singing, and I also loved listening to songs, music from my childhood. So my parents enrolled me for classical singing for four years when I was about 10, after which I continued practising myself,” says Darshan, speaking to The Indian Express from Los Angeles.Around 2018-19, he began posting samples of his singing on Instagram. “It wasn’t something I thought would be a career. It was just a hobby,” he says. While most young singers around him covered Hindi songs, “I thought let’s just start with English songs”, he says.After a few years, one video went viral, and others followed. Today, he has more than 200 videos on Instagram. Most people now know him, though, for his cover of “Blinding Lights”, originally sung by the Canadian singer-songwriter Abel Tesfaye, popularly known by his stage name The Weeknd.Back in the village, all the attention was baffling. “They had no idea what I was doing. It was very new for them,” he says. His father admits the family took time to understand it. “We come from a very simple background, so it took us some time to understand the kind of opportunities that content creation could offer. Even when Darshan started earning through his content, we weren’t particularly impressed by the income. We would still encourage him to pursue his master’s degree and find a stable job,” says his father.Story continues below this adAround September last year came the message from the founders of Boy Throb, who were thinking of starting a boy band. “I was like, ‘okay, man, is this real or are these just random texts from someone’? So I said, ‘let’s get on a call and check if it’s real or just fun’.”On the call, the band members, Anthony Key, Evan Papier, Zachary Sobania and Darshan, discussed how it would work. An obstacle came up almost immediately: Darshan had never been to the US and had no visa. “They said, ‘we got you’. We will do something for you,” he says. So he signed up, jamming with the others over video calls. They never left him out, he says — at performances, they carried a cutout of him or put him on a screen.Why did they choose him? “It’s the love I get from the people. I think the band members saw the fun people had listening to me and they thought they needed to take my singing global. When we posted our first video saying I’m a member, we got amazing love on that,” he says.Finally, an O-1 visa application — a temporary non-immigration work visa for those with “extraordinary abilities” — was submitted around December, with the US authorities asking for further evidence of his eligibility. The band performed more and gathered media coverage. As their campaign for the visa went viral, they rewrote lyrics and retitled covers to “Darshan is the man we need” or “Darshan coming to America”.Story continues below this ad“We also collaborated with Kesha (the American singer and rapper), which really helped us,” says Darshan. A lawyer advised that a million followers would do the trick, and it did. When the visa was announced on social media in August, the Internet erupted in joy.Darshan arrived in the US in October for the band’s first full performance together at New Jersey’s American Dream mall. The band celebrated the day they all stood together in the same room as “Darshan Day”. Soon came the moment that lit up social media back home: a meeting with New York Mayor Mamdani, who took the band, dressed in their trademark pink and yellow, around City Hall. Darshan introduced himself, in Hindi, as being from Kolhapur.“I just felt a connection with him. He’s just so amazing. I got a positive energy from him, so I felt I should talk with him in Hindi, like he’s my friend,” says Darshan. “I will never forget that.” Back home, the clip was circulated widely with a footnote on Darshan, saying, “He belongs to our village!”Since then, the band has been on what they call the Great American Road Trip, from New Jersey and New York to Los Angeles, stopping at Chicago, Denver and other cities. Darshan, who had earlier visited only Thailand, lives with the group in LA and has taken dance classes for the first time to keep up.Story continues below this adFor now, Darshan has a three-year visa but he doesn’t plan to settle in the US. He will work “as long as there is work”, and travel. The village is on board, and his parents couldn’t be happier. “Everyone is so proud of me and watching me doing amazing things here and there,” says Darshan. His plan is simple: “We want to make more music, give people joy. We see ourselves on a bigger stage.”