Nasha - Shaitan by Prashant Pillai, Bindu Nambiar

The Shaitan album has several strong tracks, but Nasha - Shaitan is the one most listeners come back to first. Credit goes to Prashant Pillai for a score that understands exactly what the song needs and nothing more.

The performance by Prashant Pillai, Bindu Nambiar is the centrepiece here — controlled where it needs to be, open where it counts. The story told by Rajeev Khandelwal, Rajit Kapoor, Kalki Koechlin, Shiv Pandit, Neil Bhoopalam, Gulshan Devaiah, Kirti Kulhari in Shaitan finds its musical expression here — Nasha - Shaitan is where the film's heart beats loudest.

When it came out in 2011, Nasha - Shaitan felt timely. Years later, it feels timeless. Some music is background. Nasha - Shaitan demands attention — not aggressively, but in the way a good conversation does.

The 3:15 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.