▶ Watch the cover: Yeh Honsla on Instagram
Why Salim-Sulaiman
Some composers write songs you enjoy. Salim-Sulaiman write songs you lean on. Their music has a particular kind of strength to it: it does not shout at you to be brave, it simply stands beside you until you are. Yeh Honsla, from Dor (2006), is the purest example of that for me. Twenty years on, it still does exactly what it did the first time I heard it. It sits with you when things are falling apart and quietly tells you to keep going.
This cover is my thank-you to Salim and Sulaiman Merchant for that.
The short film
I did not want to just sing this one. I wanted to tell a story with it, the kind of story their music has always seemed to be scoring.
The film follows an astronaut. His spacecraft is hit and catches fire in orbit, and he is suddenly alone, a long way from anywhere. In his hand is a crayon drawing his daughter made for him: a family, a house, a sun. He holds on to it through the fire, through the repairs, through the moments where it looks like there is no way back.
And then there is a way back. The last shot is a wheat field at sunset, a capsule resting in the grass behind him, and his little girl running into his arms.
That is the whole idea. Love is the honsla. It drives you through the difficult stretch when nothing else makes sense, and it always leads you home.
How it was made
The vocals are mine, sung over the instrumental of the original, so every note of the arrangement you hear is Salim-Sulaiman's. The visuals were made with AI tools, scene by scene, and cut together with my vocal performance. I kept the film simple and warm, so that each scene carries one feeling the music already gives you: fear, holding on, and finally relief.
What the song means to me
"Honsla" is a small word for a big thing. It is not the loud kind of courage. It is the kind that shows up quietly at 3 a.m., when you are tired and scared and still choose to try once more. For most of us, what gives us that is the people waiting for us. A drawing on a fridge, a voice on the phone, someone who will run across a field when they see you.
Salim-Sulaiman put that feeling into music, Mir Ali Husain gave it words, and Shafqat Amanat Ali gave it a voice. I just wanted to hand it on.
Thank you, Salim-Sulaiman, for music that keeps people going. Tell me in the comments which of their songs I should cover next.
Credits: Yeh Honsla from Dor (2006). Music by Salim-Sulaiman. Lyrics by Mir Ali Husain. Original vocals by Shafqat Amanat Ali. Label: Universal Music India. Cover vocals and short film by Aviral Bajpai, with visuals made using AI tools. This is a non-commercial fan cover; all rights in the original song remain with its composers and rights holders.