Andharer Ghomtay by Emon Mukherjee

Few songs from 2022 have held their ground as well as Andharer Ghomtay, a track that keeps finding new audiences. The arrangement here is the work of Emon Mukherjee, and it shows genuine craft in how it builds and releases.

Emon Mukherjee delivers the lyrics with a nuance that turns an already strong song into something genuinely moving. Kharaj Mukherjee, Debesh Roychowdhury, Biswajit Chakraborty, Abhishek Chatterjee, Biswanath Basu, Kalyan Chatterjee, Santana Bose are at the heart of Andharer Ghomtay, and Andharer Ghomtay captures their dynamic at its most compelling.

The song dates from 2022, but nothing about it sounds dated — the emotions it captures are not tied to a moment. Listeners have described the experience of Andharer Ghomtay differently — romantic, melancholic, uplifting — which suggests the song is large enough to hold many truths.

The concision of Andharer Ghomtay — just 1:50 — is part of what makes it work. There is nothing here that should not be. It is, simply, one of the better songs to come from Bengali in recent memory — and the numbers agree.