Hear Tanmaya Bhatnagar’s Ode to Her Mother with New Emotional Single ‘Raat Adhoori’

Since the last time we spoke to New Delhi singer-songwriter Tanmaya Bhatnagar for her heartening single “I Can’t Go Back To Sleep,” the musician has gone on to star in fellow singer-songwriter Sanjeeta Bhattacharya’s music video for “Khoya Sa” and has also been working heavily on her own music. She says, “As soon as you release a song, I think you pretty much indulge yourself in the next thing. So, it’s been nice, slow, and emotionally very rewarding.”

The next thing on Bhatnagar’s plate is her just-released poignant new track titled “Raat Adhoori.” The singer-songwriter tells us that she recorded the song in November last year. According to her, the song’s meaning evolved over time. She says, “I didn’t quite know what it meant to me, till I started recording it and started peeling off layers and was suddenly transported back to how I felt, emotionally, when I wrote it and how it still makes me feel.” She adds, “Overall I think it started with writing about how loneliness is part of us and how we learn to accept the difficult realities of life and still carry on.”

When we spoke to Bhatnagar in an earlier interview, she’d opened up to us about how her mother lives with schizophrenia. In the description for the track’s music video, the singer-songwriter has mentioned that it’s “For Ma.” She says, “’Raat Adhoori’ is like a memoir I wrote for my mother, and she is also very much present in the audio and the visuals of the song.”

Scenes in the music video take inspiration from a poem written by Bhatnagar’s mother as well as a picture from a birthday party. Photos: Courtesy of the artist

While the tender song was recorded at New Delhi’s Ghar Ka Studios with musicians Amar Pandey and Ritwik De, the video came about after Bhatnagar reached out to director Ramuna Pun. “The two characters in the music video depict my mother and me,” says Bhatnagar. There are also scenes in the clip that take inspiration from visuals such as a poem written by Bhatnagar’s mother as well as a picture from a birthday party. “Every frame means something,” says the artist.

Watch the music video for “Raat Adhoori” below: