Mukti Dao by Nilayan Chatterjee, Sonu Nigam

The Mukti Dao album has several strong tracks, but Mukti Dao is the one most listeners come back to first. Credit goes to Nilayan Chatterjee for a score that understands exactly what the song needs and nothing more.

The performance by Nilayan Chatterjee, Sonu Nigam is the centrepiece here — controlled where it needs to be, open where it counts. The connection between Prasenjit Chatterjee, Dev, Isha Saha and this song is part of what makes it resonate beyond the film itself.

In 2022, Bengali produced many songs, but Mukti Dao was one of the handful that genuinely cut through. Listeners have described the experience of Mukti Dao differently — romantic, melancholic, uplifting — which suggests the song is large enough to hold many truths.

The concision of Mukti Dao — just 4:07 — is part of what makes it work. There is nothing here that should not be. It is, at the end of it, a very good song — and sometimes that is the only explanation that matters.