When making the upcoming Hindi thriller, Murderbaad, debutant director Arnab Chatterjee knew that his Bengali roots would seep into the storytelling. The movie — that stars Sharib Hashmi and Manish Chaudhari, and is set in Rajasthan — features a reinterpretation of Rabindranath Tagore’s timeless Bengali song, Ami chini go chini. While late Kishore Kumar had voiced the song for Satyajit Ray’s acclaimed Charulata (1964), this time around, the singer’s son Amit Kumar has stepped behind the mic.

A still from Charulata

The decision to include Tagore’s song wasn’t just an aesthetic one. Chatterjee shares that the song, reimagined by music director Rickie, is tied to the story and appears at a pivotal point. “Tagore’s words have this timeless ache. When I imagined that moment in the film, I kept hearing Ami chini go chini, but not as a straightforward rendition. I wanted it to feel ghostly, like a memory that refuses to fade. That’s when Amit Kumar became the only voice I could hear,” says the director.