Obviously, our indie scene grew a lot in 2022. The last year saw much experimentation, but in times when we needed comfort and familiarity, some of us fans turned back to what we knew. Rock music... existed, which counts as a comeback. So did singer-songwriter music. Hell, so did metal and EDM, even. So, it’s probably a good time now to acknowledge a genre that has been huge for around five years but hasn’t got its own name yet; alt-Bollywood. Or HP, which in some timeline stands for ‘Hamare Pop’ (or Modern Culture/ Bollywood Culture, or whatever you want to call it). This music is clearly inspired by film songs, but isn’t part of a movie, so it’s still indie, but is it? This, then, is the cloth from which Kannauj-based musician AKG’s single ‘Kaali Kaali Raat’ is cut.

There’s not much to get into here as far as basics go. The song itself is a love ballad with great writing. What is of note is its instrumentation, which is full of nicely mixed acoustic guitars and warm drums. There’s strings and the clear-as-a-bell singing voice of Amit Kumar Gupta (that’s AKG, in case you were wondering; not the company), but it’s the influence that’s noteworthy. This, on first listen, is just a classic Bollywood-esque song with a nice horn section and packages a standard feel-good vibe into 3 minutes of music. It is exactly the same on the second listen too. But isn’t that the point? This is what many listeners in our country are influenced by, because it’s what they grew up with. At some point, we must admit the existence of our roots, and there is a generation making indie music influenced by songs that touched them; they just happened to be attached to film. Regardless of jaded-ness or snobbery, it would be strange to deny the sincerity in that pursuit. So don’t worry, no one has to know. Go ahead and add this tune to your private playlist.