Nadia - by Nitin Sawhney.
A simple but beautiful song. A rough translation of the minimal lyrics would be :
“The river feels like a stranger now”
“My lover calls out to me”
“(but) I cant hear him”
—-
I think this song is about lovers torn apart, and specifically about the north indian tale of Sohni and Mahiwal.
Sohni would cross the river each evening to meet her lover. She’d use her clay pot upturned (for buoyancy) and cross the river. The family and villagers were against her affair. One day someone tricked her by replacing her baked clay pot with a raw clay pot. As she tried crossing the river with it, it melted, and she drowned.
Her lover called out to her, but she couldnt hear him. The river that was familiar to her, had now become a stranger.
