On Sunday evening while performing live in Oslo, Adnan Sami broke down and wept in front of 40,000 people.

The stunned audience which just seconds earlier was clapping and cheering and singing along, didn’t know how to react to Adnan’s sudden mood swing. They sat in pin-drop silence as Adnan stopped mid-way through a song and well, according to his wife Roya who was in the audience, he simply wept like a baby.

In all these 25 years as a live performer Adnan has never been known to let his emotions take over his professional judgement.

So what gave?

One rang up Adnan to get the details of the Oslo breakdown.

He said, “It was deeply embarrassing. And I’m grateful to the audience for bearing with my public display of very private emotions. I really don’t want to talk about it. I was performing my songs with full-on gusto. Then I came to the song ‘Meri yaad rakhna’ which I wrote for my father. I don’t know what happened. But somewhere after the few lines I simply lost control of my emotions. Luckily for me my audience understood. They waited in respectful silence until I regained my composure.”

Adnan’s father passed way three years ago, and he is yet to get over the loss. In fact Adnan plans to kickstart a charitable trust devoted to looking after destitute girl-children in Mumbai in his father’s name, provided the Indian government allows him to.