Tere Ishk Mein’s Aawaara Angaara: AR Rahman delivers a heartbreak track that struggles to distinguish its pain from every other sad song

Aawaara Angaara song review: The song has every bit of sadness shoved into it, before you realise that there is nothing unique about this AR Rahman creation.

Aawaara Angaara song review: AR Rahman doesn't challenge singer Faheem Abdullah at all.

The idea of being estranged from your love should be something gut-wrenching. It is an asphyxiating feeling, and it is extremely difficult to portray that through art. Even though that’s the case, love and heartbreak are probably the two most used topics by all kinds of artists: painters, poets, writers, directors and composers. Composer A. R. Rahman is one of those composers who can bring to you that aforementioned feeling. His work on films like Imtiaz Ali’s Rockstar, Subhash Ghai’s Taal and Mani Ratnam’s Roja is unparalleled. However, his latest work on the Aanand L. Rai directorial Tere Ishk Mein feels easy, and it is put together like IKEA furniture (great chairs though). It’s almost as if the ingenuity of the genius has eluded himself, and the track “Aawaara Angaara” is the perfect example of it.

Take, for example, the song “Din Dhal Jaaye” from Vijay Anand’s magnum opus Guide. Composed by S D Burman, the words of Shailendra are accompanied beautifully by Mohammad Rafi’s vocals. The song invites you into a world of pain that can’t be escaped and can’t be reasoned with, hence building a bridge between the character and the listener. A bridge which will eventually fall down, but its shadow shall remain on the crevice that it leaps. But Rahman loses in his battle to maintain that shadow, because that bridge never truly gets built. It’s a heartbreak song which is about everyone, and that’s why the narrative it pushes doesn’t seem very personal.

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This is obviously an opinion which comes after disregarding the visuals behind the track, because I wish to judge the song itself. Singer Faheem Abdullah gained popularity after his album, Lost and Found, hit streaming platforms, the kind of popularity that gets your songs on the playlists of the lesser-known but much cooler cafes and galleries. Then he literally burst onto the scene after he performed the title track of Saiyaara. His song “Behad” from The Ba***ds of Bollywood was again a disappointing venture, but not because of him. The vocals have been on point since his track “Jhelum” from 2019; it’s the quality of music he is working with. For a vocalist like him, “Aawaara Angaara” just doesn’t pose enough of a challenge.

As we are working our way backwards, we now come to AR Rahman. A composer who deserves to be in the conversation for one of the greatest to ever do it, but just like Michael Jordan in the Wizards, he seems to be falling off. I am sure that Rahman is still capable of composing a mind-boggling album in the middle of the night; all I am saying is that this isn’t it. There are no crescendos which take your breath away and no pauses that make you lean in. Even though, from a technical point of view, there are a few chords here and there that change things up, they just get repeated in the next chorus, taking away any uniqueness of the original thought.

Lyricist Irshad Kamil is responsible for such great songs in his storied career, but in this case, he found a rhyme scheme, he thought of an idea, and he made sure that he was going to stick with it till the end. Songs like this are the perfect example of why independent artistes are making and producing better music in a fifth of the budget. They don’t have to adhere to the script and idea of a film which doesn’t have anything unique to it. You can change scenes, dialogues, and certain aspects about the character’s identity, but if the film is again going to be about a deranged relationship that is justified through some kind of shared pain and an arc of retribution, then we’ll keep getting the same music to go with it over and over again.

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Bollywood as an industry has always heavily relied on its music, and there are so many films that didn’t do well at the box office or weren’t even that good, but their music is remembered to this day. Now this isn’t a plea to producers to completely ignore the brief given by your director and do whatever you want. This is actually a plea to writers and directors to come up with fresh and exciting ways to get to those end credits. Once we do that, the musicians will be forced to change their ways; they will have to take on the uncharted waters. Because out of all the people who have been mentioned in this review, I don’t think there is a single one who is even capable of walking away from a musical challenge. So, let’s see whether we can finally erect that proverbial bridge between the artiste’s impatient pen and the listener’s desperate heart.

Directed by Aanand L Rai, Tere Ishk Mein stars Dhanush and Kriti Sanon in the lead roles. It is slated to hit theatres worldwide on November 28.

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