India, May 18 -- The first time Yajur Madan wrote a song for someone was in 2018. It was a gift for a friend on her birthday, and he spent six hours composing it, recording it and creating a video to go with it, featuring highlights from their years as best friends.

He was 17 at the time, still in school, but the memory of her reaction stayed with him. "She had tears of joy in her eyes," he says. Back then, as he dreamed of a career in music, this gift showed him, first-hand, the impact that his art could have.

But life had other plans.

By 2021, Madan was pursuing a degree in business management at Singapore Management University, majoring in entrepreneurship. As he considered what kind of business he would eventually like to run, his ...