“Who do you need/Who do you love/When you come undone?” – ‘Come Undone’ by Duran Duran

ometimes, music becomes the backdrop to a moment in time where everything that is unfolding in your environment begins to form a pattern that has a habit of repeating itself.

How does anyone make sense of the senselessness that hurts too much? At such a juncture, some songs begin to make more sense than they did when first released.

For example, a quick look at the news and you will learn about a tortured 14-year-old soul in Lahore who is in a critical medical condition (as this article is being written).

A massive blast at a rally in KP (Bajaur district) killed at least 44 people, and wou-nded nearly 200 people, flash floods in Chitral Valley, more torture cases and pretty much everyone saying all the right things in the halls of power but not really doing anything. We all know how such cases end.

You can’t help but weep if you watch the now-viral videos of some cases, let alone find the courage to visit and meet your fellow countrymen and countrywomen who are suffering in a way we cannot even begin to understand.

At such a time, you also have to find the strength to go on with your own life and find some sense of optimism.

Since ‘Mein’, Meesha Shafi has provided that balm with her originals.

Singer, songwriter, composer, producer and actor, Meesha Shafi wears many hats and has done so thro-ughout her career.

When moving beyond thrilling cover songs because eventually they were covers that allowed her to learn music from her peers and predecessors to original mu-sic, she has redefined herself as an innovative, thoughtful and fierce artist, who was unafraid to approach any topic.

Since the last several years, she began to develop a narrative that enviably offered us to two things: a brand of potent, ferocious and fragile songs and a sneak peek into her inner world.

Her songs attempt to tell what she feels is true in subtle, vulnerable and sometimes playful manner. Because she is an artist, a graduate of National College of Arts (NCA) from Lahore, when she started painting her own music, stories of empowerment and longing, spiritual elements and tracks that somehow found a way to allude to the ground realities of Pakistan emerged. But not quite in a way you’d think. There is more heart to it than a nod to trends.

During her run in the first season of Velo Sound Station, she emerged as the only person in modern musical history to do justice to a Nazia Hassan song in the form of ‘Boom Boom’.

In the same season she also dropped ‘Amrit’ that appeared with profound meaning as the verses were embedded with metaphors that continued to provide a personal and universal context. That Meesha took over the stage and danced with reckless abandon told us she is an artist who does not hold back the emotion[s] driving her songs.

So, as Velo Sound Station appeared two years later with Bilal Maqsood moving on and the country’s most prominent music producer, Rohail Hyatt signing on as executive producer - who insists he has designed the framework but the credits belong to the artists and the co-directors Kamal Khan and Zeeshan Parwez – watching some artists return, including Meesha Shafi, was a pleasant surprise.

The weeping reality of this country somehow finds a correlation in ‘Saranjaam’. In fact, as an audio alone, it’s merged with observations that are both individual and collective and under the bloody sky, it will pull you away from the stories of children, in the name of domestic staff, being beaten with batons. Without question, it is the song of this bloody season because it expresses what many of us feel, sitting at home, wondering if the guilt and powerlessness will ever go away.

‘Saranjaam’ comes along and reminds us that some things are beyond our po-wer but what we can do, if not to save others, is to save our own selves that are at a precipice of an edge.

Shafi, at what is a very dark time, brings a song that says that it is okay to disconnect from all of it meta-phorically and literally – depending on who you are – and escaping to what appeals to us for a little while. (Trust me, the depression based on learning about the daily horror happening in Pakistan is not going away anytime soon).

However, and this must be remembered, it is also the narrative of an artist. And you will see those moments, not in the lyrics alone. It is embedded in the music video, directed with craft, and an aesthetic that elevates the artist’s story by Kamal Khan and Zeeshan Parwez. Watch the video multiple times and it will feel like a door to another universe is opening, one you didn’t see before.

In the end, ‘Saranjaam’ is an important song because (a) it helps as a balm during a very difficult moment the country is going through, (b) it shows that sometimes spacing out of the real world and channeling your inner self towards whatever your real passion is, is how you save yourself, and (c) the larger narrative of Meesha Shafi as an artist, who is growing and reaching new heights with each release.

‘Saranjaam’ can be interpreted in many ways but ultimately, it is a chapter from the Meesha Shafi songbook and it shows that while she is not releasing a single every month, when she does release a song, it is worth the wait.

– Photographer: Nadir Firoz Khan