The Emotions of Bhairavi: When Love Waits

My wife will be back from work soon. The house is quiet in her absence—just the gentle ticking of the wall clock, the low rustle of leaves outside. It’s in this silence that I find myself humming Rahat Fateh Ali Khan’s Aa Ja O Aa Sajna. A Raag Bhairavi composition. A plea. A waiting.

There is a particular ache Bhairavi carries, the kind that does not shout but simmers gently just beneath the voice. In Indian classical music, every raag is more than a melodic framework; it is a living, breathing emotional state. And Bhairavi? Bhairavi is longing incarnate. It is the sound of someone missing their beloved so deeply that music becomes prayer.

This isn’t just poetic interpretation. While textbooks and academic systems tend to reduce raagas to their scale structures—ascending and descending notes, permitted ornamentations—the deeper tradition, especially among vocalists and folk musicians, holds on to something more essential: bhaav, the emotion.

Raag Bhairavi, with its flattened notes (komal re, ga, dha, ni), evokes pathos. But not the heavy, somber kind of grief we hear in Raag Darbari or the majestic pain of Raag Todi. Bhairavi’s sorrow is more personal. It's the sound of a woman at her doorstep, glancing down the road again and again. It's a village girl carrying her earthen pot to the well, humming Main To Paniya Bharan, her voice both gentle and full of unspoken yearning. It’s the song of Heer, waiting for Ranjha, echoing through Punjab’s fields at dusk.

Consider Ka Karoon Sajni, the timeless Bhairavi composition first immortalized by Bade Ghulam Ali Khan. The translation is simple: What am I to do, my love? Yet every syllable, every glide between notes, carries the depth of someone whose heart has gone searching beyond the physical world. It’s a universal question wrapped in an intimate melody.

The Freedom of Thumri

Part of what allows Bhairavi to carry such richness of emotion is the flexibility of the genre in which it often appears: the thumri. Unlike the strict and rule-bound khayal or dhrupad, the thumri gives the artist freedom to explore raag beyond orthodoxy. In thumri, the raag is not a cage but a suggestion—a fragrance more than a formula.

This is why in thumri, Bhairavi can flirt with notes outside its formal structure, sometimes borrowing shuddha (natural) notes, sometimes gliding into neighboring raagas. You’ll often hear elements of Khamaj, Pilu, or even Sindhu Bhairavi making an appearance. But the soul of the piece—the longing, the bhairav-ness—remains.

This is where Bhairavi differs from Sindhu Bhairavi. While Sindhu Bhairavi is a modern, more malleable cousin that openly accepts all twelve notes of the scale, it lacks the anchored emotional gravity of the original. Sindhu Bhairavi is excellent for devotional and film compositions because of its inclusiveness, but it often feels like a patchwork of possibilities rather than a singular emotional current.

Kirwani, on the other hand, belongs to the Carnatic system and has found popularity in film and fusion contexts. It’s closer to the harmonic minor scale in Western music and carries a darker, more melancholic feel. Kirwani is sadness with sharp edges—sophisticated, intense, and brooding. Bhairavi’s sadness is warmer. It’s rural. It has dust in its feet and anklets in its rhythm.

Bhairavi as a Feeling, Not a Scale

This is why Raag Bhairavi appears everywhere—from classical concerts to folk festivals to Bollywood to Qawwali. Because its emotional register is universally understood. Even if a listener doesn’t know the raag by name, they recognize its feeling. That’s the true power of Indian music—it bypasses the brain and walks directly into the heart.

When Rahat Fateh Ali Khan sings Aa Ja O Aa Sajna, he is not merely performing notes; he is channeling centuries of separation songs, Heer’s whisper, Meera’s cry, Radha’s ache. Bhairavi isn’t just a sound—it’s a state of being.

So yes, while I wait for my wife to return from work, it is Bhairavi that comes to me. Because love, even when it’s just a few hours late, always carries a thread of longing. And music, like love, doesn’t need permission to break the rules—only devotion to follow the feeling.

Suggested Listening Playlist:

  • Ka Karoon Sajni – Bade Ghulam Ali Khan

  • Main To Paniya Bharan – Girija Devi

  • Aa Ja O Aa Sajna – Rahat Fateh Ali Khan

  • Mohe Panghat Pe Nandlal – Lata Mangeshkar (light classical Bhairavi)

  • Heer – Various Punjabi renditions, including Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan




Here is a poem inspired by the song:

Come, My Love


Your laugh—still folded in my sleeve—
returns in the hush between breaths.
You took my heart,
left the ache behind to pace the room.

My eyes, sleepless,
turn like tide toward the door.
What a trick,
this beautiful curse of love—
to light the soul
and leave it burning.

I do not know what waits ahead,
only this quiet calling:
Come, my love. Come.

Some of my Favorite Bhairavi Songs:





And here my own composition in Bhairavi which both I and Kaushiki Chakraborty has sung:



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