Houston, we have feelings: Kashmir and Hasan Raheem hard launch ‘Jana Hai Wahin’
The fuzzy guitars and animated space rescue mission do a lot of the heavy lifting in this interstellar collaboration.
Hasan Raheem, the national Gen Z poet of heartbreak, has released his latest single, ‘Bewajah’. A ballad of grief with a soul rooted in the mountains of the singer’s native land, it fuses the music of northern Pakistan with the all too familiar feeling of miscommunicated emotions.
Set to traditional percussion tunes as a pair of monologues between two lovers, the first verse of the song sees a man asking his beloved to part ways before they end up hurting each other with disloyalty.
He describes a relationship without emotional care, one in which the man waits and waits but never receives the reassurance he needs from his partner. He tells her she’s a great conversationalist, but her “sarkashi (rebellion)” made her leave him without a second thought.
Then for the second verse, the vantage point shifts to the woman, who has the same question for the man: did you ever even love me? She asks where she had fallen short in the relationship, if her eyes were not “intoxicating enough” and why he couldn’t satisfy her when all she needed out from him was a smile.
She says he couldn’t handle his own emotional baggage and that she had suffered through his misery and deceit. As for their parting, she blames him for disconnecting first, emotionally.
Aside from the verses, written in a kind of Urdu some of Raheem’s listeners might be unfamiliar with, the bridge is written in Shina, a language spoken in Gilgit-Baltistan.
While the song is great and the lyrics are meaningful, the best part is probably the equestrian-themed music video.
Yes, the music video for this song about love and loss is set largely in a polo match, with the singer bejewelled and dressed in white, contrasting sharply against the rest of the black-clad crowd.
As the horses gallop in front of them and snow-capped peaks stand guard behind, Raheem seems initially lost in thought before getting fully engrossed in the strong emotions of the game.
In the caption of his Instagram post, he explained the game being played wasn’t the gentrified style of polo played internationally. This was freestyle polo, a variety played famously at the Shandur Polo Festival without rules and referees.
He encouraged people to learn more about the sport, even telling them they’re missing out in life if they haven’t seen a game in-person.