Maa Ka Phone - Khoobsurat by Sneha Khanwalkar, Priya Panchal, Mauli Dave

Some songs are made for a single moment. Maa Ka Phone - Khoobsurat is made for all of them. Sneha Khanwalkar sets the tone from the very first bar — it is clear from the opening notes that this song means business.

The performance by Sneha Khanwalkar, Priya Panchal, Mauli Dave is the centrepiece here — controlled where it needs to be, open where it counts. Hearing Maa Ka Phone - Khoobsurat without thinking of Sonam Kapoor, Ratna Pathak, Kirron Kher is almost impossible for anyone who has seen Khoobsurat.

Released in 2014, it arrived at a time when Hindi music needed exactly this kind of sincerity. The song rewards full attention but also works as company in the background — a flexibility that most tracks never achieve.

The concision of Maa Ka Phone - Khoobsurat — just 4:07 — 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 Hindi in recent memory — and the numbers agree.