Sixteenth-century Kashmiri poet Habba Khatoon’s Chol Homa Roshay gets a fresh lease of life as a song in Ashvin Kumar’s No Fathers in Kashmir. The track has been sung by Kashmiri singer-songwriter Ali Saifuddin. French composers Loik Dury and Christophe ‘Disco’ Minck have arranged the music, using instruments such as the obscure cristal baschet, according to a press release. A video, released on Thursday, shows the film’s young leads, Zara La Peta Webb and Shivam Raina, getting close to each other over time.
Saifuddin had performed the song and released a video in 2016.
The popular poem has been performed numerous times by several artists. Most recently, Vibha Saraf crooned a version, set to music by Dub Sharma, for the Amazon Prime series Made in Heaven.
Another recent and popular version includes a piano and cello-backed take by Mohammad Muneem of the band Alif. Kashmiri singers Kailash Mehra Sadhu and Mehmeet Syed have also sung the song in the past.
No Fathers in Kashmir was cleared for an April 5 release after an eight-month tussle with the Central Board of Film Certification over the adults-only certification. The film is about a British-Kashmiri teenager Noor (Zara La Peta Webb) who returns to the Valley in search of her father. Also starring in the film is its writer and director, Shivam Raina, Kulbushan Kharbanda, Soni Razdan and Anshuman Jha.
