These lines pretty much sum up the song- the longing for a haven, where love flows free from boundaries.

While most love songs celebrate either a deep passion or a breezy romance, this is one of the few ditties that focus on the societal sin that love is.

The song opens not with evocative, but somber strums, signifying the doom that hangs over protagonists’ love. Yet there’s a stubborn resistance in “Hazaron mein Kisi ko..” which spells the pride, to be destroyed by love; like some kind of martyrdom almost. But this is quickly followed by silent angst in “Na Jaane yeh zamaana…”

It is the refrain that’s most multifaceted- “Kalank Nahi, Ishq hai kajal” – it is denial and defiance, but also hope and pleading, to turn sin into something pure.

With dour beats and a considerably high scale, the antara is more of an outcry- the agony of something so pure and serendipitous being criminalized.

The song ends with Tabla beats and a Sufi-esque chorus of “Main tera…” conveying a hypnotic devotion, one that will unite the lovers, in death if not in life.

By: Aadya Sharma