Aaryan Banthia’s burgeoning solo career has been great to see for the indie singer-songwriter space; he has released four singles that have done remarkably well, earning acclaim going past a million views on youtube et al. Two million is the number his latest, emotionally strong single ‘Paar’ hit within a couple of days of its release; that’s a lot of people. Listening to the song, it’s not difficult by any means to see why it has attained such fast popularity. In fact, it seems to fulfil everything that a strong and popular indie, rock or pop release has to do to be exactly that.

A quote that Aaryan seems to hold as the emotional centre of his song comes from Dire Straits’ ‘Why Worry’; There should be laughter after pain/ there should be sunshine after rain/ these things have always been the same/ so, why worry now. That’s a simple and strong idea and something he outlines on the track, touching widely on the pandemic, the struggles of marginalized communities in general society, unemployed people and so on. The hopeful air of the song seems to hint at this being the darkness before the dawn, and even though we all enjoy being doomers these days, that’s a great sentiment to have. This is of course helped by his broadcast-grade voice, rock and blues influences, guitar skills and subtle production. There are some wonderful little guitar licks and a chorus that will have thousands of people singing along if there is a future where that can happen again. Aaryan certainly thinks so, and that’s why his music is getting as popular as it is. People believe it too.