Biroho Anole Jole by Alivia Jasim

There is an honesty to Biroho Anole Jole that separates it from most Bengali songs released around the same time. Piyush Chakraborty sets the tone from the very first bar — it is clear from the opening notes that this song means business.

Every line Alivia Jasim sings feels considered, as though the performance was thought through long before recording began. On screen, Priyanshu Chatterjee, Ankita Chakraborty, Barun Chanda, Biswajit Chakraborty, Moumita Gupta bring the emotional world of the song to life in a way that enhances rather than competes with the music.

2017 marked the release of Biroho Anole Jole, and Biroho Anole Jole was the track that ensured the album would be remembered. The emotional register of Biroho Anole Jole is wide enough to fit celebration and solitude equally well.

The 2:34 runtime feels perfectly judged — long enough to develop its ideas, short enough to compel a second play. It is, at the end of it, a very good song — and sometimes that is the only explanation that matters.