Songs that break your heart and mend it too

Agents of Ishq asked me for a list of sexy songs and I decided to bare my heart.

Break-ups can be so sexy. So many of us realize what our love relationship has been all about only when it is time to break-up. We crash into nothingness and discover how many books, movies and web series we have been neglecting all along. We find the time to attend to our toe-nails, neglected Substack and other friends.

Some lovers never discover their feelings or how to express them till their relationship reaches the point when the other is ready to say, “No, thank you, I must leave now.” The departing lover often gets his/her first dose of real attention from the other at this time.

1) KUCHH NA KAHO, KUCHH BHI NA KAHO
The break-up of my first romance in my University years was almost scripted into our relationship from its very beginning. First year of college coinciding with a first love and the first year of post-graduation coinciding with the realization that we had many journeys in us that would take us to destinations that were not going to co-incide. Not now, and perhaps never.

At exactly that time, came Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s 1942, A Love Story with Javed Akhtar, R. D. Burman and Lata Mangeshkar collaborating to create Kuchh na kaho, kuchh bhi na kaho, a tender song about separation and longing that gave words to my sense of loss. It was a sadness laced with gratitude for a love that had cushioned and protected us. There was no bitterness as we let each other go, just recognition of what was predestined.

”Khoi sab pahchane, khoye saare apney,
Samay ki chhalni se gir gir ke, khoye saare sapne,
Aur is pal mein koi nahi hai, bas sek main hoon, bas ek tum ho
Samay ka yeh pal tham sa gaya hai…”

“All our dreams have fallen through the sieve of time
In this moment, there is no one else, there is only me and there is only you
This moment in time seems to have stopped here…”

2) HUMNE DEKHI HAI UN AANKHON KI MAHAKTI KHUSHBOO
We are a society who have traditionally not given centre space to our love lives. Love remains a 4 letter word, that is often flung at us as an accusation that one must defend oneself from.
Humne dekhi hai un aankhon ki mahakti khushboo, written by Gulzar and sung by Lata Mangeshkar is that gentlest of songs that asks for true love to be let off the hook. It is a song that almost says, never mind the relationship, just let me keep my love as I know it.

”Pyaar ko pyaar hi rahne do, koi naam na do.”
“Love is not words, it is not a voice. It is a silence, that listens as well as speaks…”

3) TADAP KE TADAP KE IS DIL KI AAH NIKALTI RAHI
What’s a list that doesn't honour that which is raw and unadulterated and brings with it the familiarity of deeply felt, self-destroying heartache?

Tadap tadap ke is dil ki aah nikalti rahi, sung by K. K. and Dominique Cerejo for Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, is my all time favourite break-up song because it expresses unashamed passion - letting it all hang out, without restraint. It is the fearless voice of the lover, speaking straight to the creator, bypassing the rest of the world who are but mere bystanders in this emotionally highstrung dialogue.
This is an expression that defies the judgement of silence and death. It screams at the sky, embraces rock bottom, lets the tears roll, and remains nattily dressed throughout, even as the lover cries that he has been looted and ruined in love. Kitschy and true.

"Tadap tadap ke is dil ki aah nikalti rahi
mujhko sazaa di pyaar ki aisa kya gunaah kiya
ki lut gaye haan lut gaye…hum teri mohobbat mein"
Honestly, I shudder to translate these tormented words. I will leave key phrases here:
Suffering heart, painful lament, punished for love, what is my crime, I am ravaged, plundered… in your love.

4) IK KUDI JIDA NAAM MOHABBAT
In other break- up scenarios, we discover to our shock that being by ourselves - dressing up, eating alone, laughing with friends, staying up till our smartphone crashes on our nose - is quite a fantastic love affair in itself.
We didn’t know we could define this freedom from despair and independence from uncertainty as love, but by God, it feels like the real thing.

Ik kudi jida naam mohabbat, the Punjabi song written by Shiv Kumar Batalvi - resurrected in the film, Udta Punjab – is a great song about finding love within ourselves.

Ik Kudi speaks to the inner waif in me - the flower girl, the free child who is still in touch with her essential self. One with nature, with the creator, with love itself. Among other things, raising my daughters and watching them play has given me a second chance to know the inner child in me.

5) KABHI HUM KHUBSURAT THEY
Punjabi and Urdu are the two languages of my grandparents - the languages of the undivided Punjab that both my parents come from. Raising my brothers and me in cities far away from where they grew up, English and Hindi became the only languages that were considered relevant for us. As a young adult, I realized I pined for Urdu and Punjabi and would feel deep connections to poetry and song in these languages even when I didn’t have the vocabulary to express my own self in them.

Kabhi hum khubsurat they sung by Nayyara Noor is a song about rediscovering self-love that makes my soul come alive. It stirs something in deep recesses where stories of my childhood and lost cultural legacies are buried. This is also a visual song that makes one experience intense synesthesia. You will see ponds and butterflies and the first light of morning slicing through a courtyard. You will see a mother and a child, and one of them will be you.

Listening to this rendition makes me realize how we can receive meaning from songs even when we don’t understand so many words.

"Naye din ki musafat rang main goondi hawa ke saath khirki sai bulaati hai…humain maathay pai bosa do…" “Give me a kiss on my forehead.”

Break ups are the most intense time in some relationships. Sometimes we need the shock of loss to bring up all the feelings that we have kept hidden from our own selves.

Go ahead, be inspired and break up with your love. I highly recommend it. So do my judgy cats.

PS: This list of songs was first compiled for Agents of Ishq.