Indian Indie Love Songs: A Listening Guide

Hindi film music has given India a century of love songs, most of them enormous: strings, choirs, a hero on a hilltop. Indian indie love songs work at the opposite scale. They are usually one voice and one guitar, written by the person singing, about a specific person and a specific room. That smallness is why they spread. A Prateek Kuhad or Anuv Jain song feels less like a performance than like something overheard.

This guide is arranged not by year but by the arc of a relationship: the crush, the falling, the together, the distance, the ending and what comes after. Every song is a released track by an independent artist with a page on Discography. We give the year where we could confirm it, and we never quote chart or stream figures. If you want a broader list first, read Indian indie songs: 50 essential tracks; for Hindi only, Hindi indie songs.

1. The crush

The first stage is all nerves and imagination, and the best indie songs about it are light on their feet.

Lucky Ali – "O Sanam" (1996). From Sunoh. Desert imagery, a drifting melody and the sense that the person being sung to might be a mirage. It set the tone for three decades of soft Hindi romance outside film. Lucky Ali; more Lucky Ali songs.

Silk Route – "Dooba Dooba". From Boondein. Mohit Chauhan singing about a girl he cannot stop watching; gentle soft rock that became a late-1990s campus anthem. Silk Route.

When Chai Met Toast – "Firefly". Kochi folk-pop that sounds like the first warm evening of a season. Start the band with When We Feel Young. When Chai Met Toast; members and story.

Mitraz – a song from Zehen. The Gorakhpur duo's soft-focus Hindi pop is crush music by design: short, sweet, and in no hurry to say anything too direct. Zehen; Mitraz.

2. Falling

Prateek Kuhad – "Tum Jab Paas" (2017). One of the defining Hindi indie love songs of its decade: barely sung, close-miked and very simple. Apple lists it as a stand-alone single from April 2017, two years after his album In Tokens & Charms. Prateek Kuhad; Prateek Kuhad songs.

Anuv Jain – "Baarishein". Rain, longing and a voice that sounds like it is talking to one person on the phone late at night. The song that made Anuv Jain. Anuv Jain; profile.

The Local Train – "Choo Lo" (2015). Love song as rock anthem: a quiet verse and a chorus that crowds have been shouting back for a decade. From Aalas Ka Pedh. The Local Train.

Osho Jain – a song from Saar. A gentle baritone and lyrics that move like conversation. Saar; Osho Jain.

Vaibhav Malhotra – "Afreen" (2026). Urdu-leaning romance with a warm voice; read our review. Earlier work: the EP Afsana. Vaibhav Malhotra.

3. Together

Prateek Kuhad – "Kasoor" (2020). Not a song about falling but about staying: a list of small confessions to someone already beside you. Prateek Kuhad.

Taba Chake – a song from Bombay Dreams. Fingerstyle guitar, three languages, and a contentment rare in Indian indie, where heartbreak sells. Bombay Dreams; Taba Chake.

Easy Wanderlings – a song from As Written in the Stars. The Pune eight-piece's crowdfunded debut is full of shared-life songs with ambient-soul warmth. As Written in the Stars; Easy Wanderlings; songs guide.

Garvit–Priyansh – songs from Musafir Cafe. Classical-tinged pop written for the Netflix series, built around companionship on the road. Musafir Cafe; Garvit–Priyansh.

Ritviz – "Liggi" (2019). Desi electronic pop about a crush that turns into a dance; the playful end of this list. Ritviz; Ritviz songs.

4. Distance

Long-distance love is the great subject of Indian indie, written by a generation that left home for college and work.

The Local Train – "Aaoge Tum Kabhi" (2015). A song of waiting, from the same album as "Choo Lo", and the one fans sing back loudest. Aalas Ka Pedh; band history.

Prateek Kuhad – "cold/mess" (2018). English-language, but the most-cited Indian indie song about two people losing each other slowly. Prateek Kuhad.

Faheem Abdullah – a song from Lost;Found (2024). A Srinagar voice carrying ghazal phrasing into indie-pop; distance as an ache rather than a plot point. Lost;Found; Faheem Abdullah.

Ali Saffudin – a song from Home Recordings Vol. 1. Kashmiri love songs recorded at home, plain and unguarded. Home Recordings Vol. 1; Ali Saffudin.

Indian Ocean – "Jhini". A Kabir-flavoured song about the fragile weave between people. From Jhini. Indian Ocean.

5. The ending

Peter Cat Recording Co. – "Floated By" (2019). Grief and leaving, sung by Suryakant Sawhney like a lounge singer at closing time. From Bismillah. Peter Cat Recording Co..

The Yellow Diary – a song from Marz. Big, sad Hindi pop-rock with a chorus built for heartbreak. Marz; The Yellow Diary.

Coshish – a song from Firdous. Long-form Hindi progressive rock with Urdu-poetry lyrics about loss. Firdous; Coshish.

Aswekeepsearching – a song from Rooh. Post-rock dynamics applied to heartbreak: the quiet before the wall of guitars. Rooh; Aswekeepsearching.

Vardaan Malhotra – "Khatt" (2026). A letter that never gets sent. Review; Vardaan Malhotra.

6. After

Lifafa – a song from Superpower 2020. Sawhney's solo project approaches romance sideways, with synths and dry humour. Superpower 2020; Lifafa.

Mitraz – a song from Neendein. Sleeplessness after a break, in Mitraz's softest register. Neendein.

Shriya Rao – a song from In a Box. English-language pop about the small, private work of moving on. In a Box; Shriya Rao.

Anika – a song from Five Foot Three (2025). Self-possessed bedroom pop; a good place to end. Five Foot Three; Anika.

Love songs beyond Hindi

Indian indie romance does not only happen in Hindi, Urdu and English. Some of the most affecting love songs in the archive are in languages that national playlists overlook, and they are worth seeking out precisely because they do not sound like everything else.

Kannada. The Raghu Dixit Project has always written tender songs between its big folk anthems; the unplugged Courtyard Jam Sessions is the best place to hear them, because the arrangements fall away and the melodies stand alone. Vasuki Vaibhav brings a theatre-trained voice to Kannada romance; start with our review of "Gira Gira". More: Kannada indie music.

Malayalam. When Chai Met Toast mostly sing in English, but Kerala's indie scene is full of Malayalam love songs, from folk-band ballads to rap hooks. Thaikkudam Bridge slow the pace on Namah. More: Malayalam indie bands and artists.

Bangla. Fossils are a loud rock band, but their numbered albums, such as Fossils 5, carry some of Kolkata's most-sung heartbreak songs. More: Kolkata music scene.

Kashmiri and Tulu. Ali Saffudin writes plain, beautiful Kashmiri love songs; Alva Kuuto do the same in Tulu on their self-titled album. Neither sounds like anything on a national chart, and both reward close listening.

Punjabi. Independent Punjabi music is dominated by swagger, but there is a softer strand; see Punjabi indie artists beyond bhangra.

Why indie love songs sound the way they do

Three things set Indian indie love songs apart from their film cousins. The first is scale. Without an orchestra or a film's budget, songwriters reached for detail instead: a particular rain, a particular train, a phone call at two in the morning. The second is language. Writers like Prateek Kuhad, Faheem Abdullah and the lyricists of The Lost Symbols and Coshish borrow freely from Urdu poetry, so even simple love songs carry the vocabulary of the ghazal. The third is voice. Indie singers are rarely trained in the playback style, and their imperfections — Anuv Jain's fragility, Kuhad's near-whisper — make the songs feel truthful. We cover that idea at length in Indian indie singers.

There is also a reason love dominates. In a scene built on singles, songs about love travel furthest: they are shared between couples, used in reels, and played at weddings. That is not a criticism. Some of the best writing in Indian independent music is in these songs, and the ones above have outlasted the moment they were released.

Make it a playlist

Play the six sections in order and you get roughly ninety minutes that moves from the crush to the aftermath. If you want a shorter version, take the first song of each section: "O Sanam", "Tum Jab Paas", "Kasoor", "Aaoge Tum Kabhi", "Floated By" and a song from Lifafa. For more playlists built the same way, see our Indian indie playlist, Indian lo-fi artists and Indian indie folk and acoustic artists.

What we left out

We left out film songs, even when an indie artist sang them, because this is a guide to music made on the artists' own terms. We also left out covers and "reprise" versions, unreleased live favourites, and anything we could only find described in a press note. A few much-shared songs are missing simply because we have not yet confirmed their release details; they will be added once the artist's catalogue page on Discography lists them. If a song you love is not here, check the artist's page from the artists hub — it may already be there with its full release history.

Common questions

What is the most famous Indian indie love song? "Tum Jab Paas", "Choo Lo" and "Baarishein" are the three most widely recognised in the streaming era; "O Sanam" is the older touchstone. We do not cite stream counts we have not verified.

Are these songs suitable for weddings? The "Together" section is; most of the rest is better for headphones.

Why are there so few English songs? Because Hindi and Urdu became the main language of Indian indie love songs after 2015. "cold/mess" and the Shriya Rao and Anika picks are the English exceptions.