Zehen’s Debut Song ‘O Raahi’ Offers Up Anime-Inspired Video

A time machine goes a long way in storytelling, as Bengaluru band Zehen’s music video for their debut song “O Raahi” shows.

Created by Shaun Fernandez at the production house Curious Cactus in Mumbai, the video for “O Raahi” literally adds colors to a story in which Zehen ponders the hypothetical of going back in time and speaking to the child version of oneself. In the music video, an older self who is an arena-filling musician, travels to the past, a simpler time, and takes the younger version of herself into the bright future.

The artists say in a statement, “‘O Raahi’ expresses both the angst of a child wishing to be anywhere but here, and the calm reassurance from a future where everything turned out just right.” Singer-songwriter Tanushree Dwivedi says it was during the recording process that she suggested to co-founder Ashley Joseph that they could commission an animated video. “The initial lyrics for the song came from me imagining a forlorn little girl under a tree who wants to be anywhere but here. And as she watches a traveler go past, she calls out to them hoping they take her along, wherever they may be going,” Dwivedi says.

Joseph says that just as he’d heard Dwivedi’s suggestion for an anime-style video, he met filmmaker Fernandez who also wanted to bring in anime-style aesthetics. “This was too much of a coincidence and now there was no other direction in our minds,” Joseph says.

The song and music video mark the first original by Zehen, whose calling card since 2016 has been multilingual fusion covers and mashups. The band says their style was evolving over time and the eventual goal was to release an original album. Dwivedi says she wrote the lyrics for “O Raahi” in 2018 and shared it with her co-founder in 2019. “We then took it to the rest of the band who added their individual flair to it and we started performing the song to live audiences. Over the years, our listeners asked us when the song was coming out and we kept promising them ‘soon.’ Thanks to the global pandemic, that ‘soon’ came four years later,” she adds. In addition to Dwivedi and Joseph, artists on “O Raahi” include backing vocalist Shambhavi Dwivedi, pianist and synth artist Denvin Lawrence, guitarist James Stephenus, drummer Rahul Rajesh, violinist Krishnaraj MP and percussionist Ramkumar S.

Capturing hope, self-discovery and all kinds of positivity with their debut song, Zehen are working to release a new song soon enough. Dwivedi says releasing “O Raahi” has made her much more confident about her upcoming material. Joseph adds that their next release is called “Pankhudiyaan” (petals) and concerns itself with ideas of roots and growth.

Along the way, Zehen will continue performing and working on more mashups for concerts alongside their own songs. “As much as we enjoy doing our originals, we also enjoy seeing the audience’s faces when they don’t know what song we are going to break into mid-song, to create the mash,” Joseph adds.