Filmmaker Vishal Bhardwaj on Friday urged singer Arijit Singh to reconsider his decision to retire from playback singing, calling the announcement “unfair” and “unacceptable”.

Sharing a video from a jamming session with Arijit, Bhardwaj wrote on Instagram, “Hey Arijit.. Till a few days back while we were jamming on this song (you were shooting the video) I didn’t know that this will be my one of the last film song with you. This is unfair.. #TakeBackYourSanyaas.Its unacceptable.”

The video shows Bhardwaj singing a song from one of his films at a gathering, with Arijit, who had originally sung the track, recording him. Rekha Bhardwaj also features in the video.

Reacting to the post, a fan wrote, “#takebackyoursanyaas make Arijit Sir realise that Hindi music is incomplete without you (him).” Another fan commented, “Yes, please keep telling him to take back his statement.”

Aditi Rao Hydari reacted with a heart emoticon and wrote, “Sir.”

Arijit announced his retirement from playback singing earlier this week in a long Instagram post.

While no clear reason for Arijit’s decision has been made public, there is chatter within music and movie circles that the announcement was made after some deliberation, with the singer wanting to step away from the Bollywood playback industry to completely and solely focus on making music on his own.

Arijit began shifting his base from Mumbai to his hometown Jiaganj in Murshidabad around 2021-2022. At that time, the pandemic was cited as a reason, as well as the passing of his mother. In the last few years, he has made Jiaganj his primary home, prioritising spending time with his family, setting up a home studio and enrolling his children in a local school.

He has, of course, been travelling to Mumbai — the singer maintains a residence there — honouring his playback singing commitments while also touring the world with his music.

Over the last few years, a number of prominent musicians have popped into Jiaganj to make music with Arijit on his home turf or simply to spend time with him. The most prominent among them was Ed Sheeran.

In February last year, Sheeran visited Jiaganj during his India tour. Even while the two — who had met at a concert in London and become good friends — jammed together in Arijit’s studio, a video of Sheeran riding pillion as Arijit drove him around the nooks and corners of Jiaganj quickly went viral.

On the work front, Bhardwaj is currently awaiting the release of his upcoming film O’ Romeo. Starring Shahid Kapoor, the movie is scheduled to hit theatres on February 13.