All right, let’s reiterate something that has silently been the biggest musical influence on the indie scene for years and years now. It’s Bollywood and film, of course! Music from movies has been India’s mainstream pop for a century now; there’s nothing wrong with admitting that it’s a big part of our culture. What comes with that is a strong current of listening habits that has gone from generation to generation, which obviously then seeps into artists as inspiration. Sourav Dey’s indie single ‘Par Na Karoon Main Bayaan’ is an example of this that really pulls out all the stops.

This is one of those tunes that you can identify with a few seconds of it starting or within the first minute of watching the music video (which is stylistically precisely what you’re imagining it to be as you read this). That’s right – it’s a rootsy, cutesy and sort of shy love song. The production has more gloss that a car showroom, there is a whole host of instrumentation (flutes, strings, guitars keys, loads of percussion, piano… and that isn’t even scratching the surface), and the vocals from Aathira Gopi and Hardik Sawhney are soaked in reverb. You’re not going to find a release this faithful to its influences too often.

So, here, we have a song that ticks every box on the very long checklist of small-town-sweet-innocent-romance that turns unrequited love into catharsis and lost connections into strong bonds. It’s a ballad in 6/8, it’s that exact tempo that elicits emotion during a vulnerable moment, and it’s executed every inch as well as a piece of music in this lane ever can be. But… this is just a film song then, is it not? This right here is an interesting interpretation of Indian indie pop music to consider; in a scene where new genres come to the fore every year, rock bands are doing interesting things every week (and playing covers every weekend - just kidding), singer-songwriters can be found in every café, and there are loads of electronic subcultures in every club on weekdays, where does the humble inspired-by-film song stand?

Yes, many conversations can be had about style and originality, the one thing that’s for sure is ‘Par Na Karoon Main Bayaan’ is a particularly well-made example of a genre we do not discuss very often but is far more popular that most silo-ed listeners might think. So give it a listen; it’s exactly what you expect, and that is its virtue.