In an industry that measures success in terms of virality, ghazal singer Vipin Aneja offers a counter-narrative. His song, Jaane Tere Shehar Ka, didn’t explode overnight when it released in 2015, but slowly found listeners who keep returning to it even a decade later. Such is its popularity today that the singer is set to release its reprised version this month. “Many music company heads approach music as a business metric, not as an evolving art form. As a result, ghazals are quickly labelled niche. Ironically, the longevity of songs like Jaane Tere Shehar Ka tells a different story,” argues Aneja.

The singer is critical of how platforms use the excuse of “audience preference” to boost one genre over another. According to him, the term is nothing but a shield against artistic courage. “Today’s music platforms and labels often claim they are responding to ‘audience preference,’ but in reality, they are actively shaping taste while using the audience as a convenient alibi to avoid artistic risk. Streaming platforms reward what performs fast, not what lasts. When similar-sounding songs are repeatedly promoted, listeners aren’t choosing them freely. They’re being conditioned through repetition,” he asserts.

Ghazals may not lend themselves easily to speed-driven metrics. But pointing to Jaane Tere Sheher Ka’s success, Aneja notes that gems in the genre far outlast overnight  chartbusters. As he puts it, “Some songs are like fast food — widely consumed and quickly forgotten. Others are like a slow-cooked meal and they take time to be appreciated. But once they are appreciated, people keep coming back to them for years.” 

For Aneja, who started his career with the Hindi pop album Teri Payal in 2000, shifting gears to ghazals has been organic. He believes that the genre “nourishes” listeners like few others do. For him, the disappearance of ghazals would mark a deeper cultural loss. “If ghazals disappear, we won’t just lose a genre; we’ll lose the art of feeling deeply without explaining ourselves.”