Baarish - Via Darjeeling by Prabuddha Banerjee, K. S. Chithra

When Prabuddha Banerjee, K. S. Chithra recorded Baarish - Via Darjeeling, something special happened in the studio — and listeners have felt it ever since. Prabuddha Banerjee built the instrumental foundation carefully here — every element earns its place in the mix.

The performance by Prabuddha Banerjee, K. S. Chithra is the centrepiece here — controlled where it needs to be, open where it counts. Kay Kay Menon, Sonali Kulkarni, Parvin Dabas, Rajat Kapur, Simone Singh, Vinay Pathak, Sandhya Mridul, Prashant Narayanan, Rupam Islam gave the film its soul, and Baarish - Via Darjeeling is the song that most directly channels that feeling into music.

By the end of 2008, Baarish - Via Darjeeling had moved well beyond its original audience and into everyday playlists. The song rewards full attention but also works as company in the background — a flexibility that most tracks never achieve.

The 4:07 runtime feels perfectly judged — long enough to develop its ideas, short enough to compel a second play. It is, simply, one of the better songs to come from Hindi in recent memory — and the numbers agree.