No. 073 - Ali Sethi & Shae Gill’s “Pasoori” changed my life
Salena Malhotra on the 1947 Partition of India, ancestral stories never fully told, and the invisible borders we cross in search of self
This Song Changed My Life is an independent music publication featuring essays from people all around the world about the songs that mean the most to them. Created (and illustrated) by Grace Lilly.
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• 3 min read •
I grew up with the silence of borders — ones that weren’t drawn on maps but on skin, on words, on ways of being. The India of my ancestors was torn long before I was born, but its jagged edges still cut through me. I was taught to never speak about the pain of Partition; it was a silence, a scar etched in the ancestral stories my parents carried but never fully told. The histories of loss and forced migrations — of my grandparents’ homes being razed, and of siblings parted by fate and geography — were whispered in the way we kept our heads down, the way we didn’t talk about the past unless it was framed as nostalgia for a lost golden age.
Between the desi-ness of my parents’ history, fractured by Partition, and the whiteness of an American world that sees me as neither here nor there, I learned to live in the spaces where identities surge together. My blood carries the weight of migration. Of violence that didn’t end with the last gun shot, but seeps into every glance, every whispered word. Partition wasn’t just a moment, it was an echo; a song of separation that still haunts the spaces between us. It is a song I hear every time I listen to “Pasoori,” by Ali Sethi & Shae Gill.
“Pasoori” is not just about love or longing — it’s about the invisible lines we cross in search of ourselves. The borders between two worlds, between tradition and rebellion, between desire and shame. In essence, while “Pasoori” isn’t about the Partition directly, its themes of separation, longing, and the fluidity of borders evoke the lasting emotional and cultural impact of the Partition. It resonates with the experiences of those who still carry the generational trauma of that division. The song’s emotional depth reflects the ongoing complexities of identity in a world shaped by historical ruptures, and its fusion of old raga-esque and contemporary Bollywood reggaeton styles speaks to a desire to reconcile the past with the present. The genre blending creates a fluid and ever-shifting soundscape moving between melancholy, longing, excitement, and freedom. The incorporation of traditional South Asian instruments, melodies, and rhythms with modern pop, electronic, and ambient elements not only broadens the song’s appeal but also enriches its sentimental depth, invoking the same yearning that I feel when I think of my parents’ divided past. Their migration from a land that no longer exists in the way they remember it.
There is a gap where my identity should be, a hollow where the trauma of an entire people echoes. I wear a color that time hasn’t yet learned to name, between the red lines of the map and the white skin of the empire. I was born from that fracture, a child of both the wound and the healing that never came. My existence is the space between the before and after, the half-lived truth of a legacy that never fully arrived.
And yet in these spaces between, I exist — not as a half or a maybe, but as a full woman. A full daughter, a full lover, shaped by every part of myself. Even those parts I was told to hide. Like the song that echoes the voices of many generations, my own story is one of love and resistance. Of claiming the fragments of myself that were scattered across continents, across time, across borders. It is a story written in the language of longing, of separation, of yearning for the places and people lost to history — and yet, somehow, still here. Still alive in the spaces between, in the words we dare not speak, and in the love we dare to live. ◆
Categories
Friendship • Family • Coming of Age • Romance • Grief • Spirituality & Religion • Personal Development
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About Salena
Salena is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Jersey City, where she lives with her wife and pup. Her work, inspired by advocacy and nature, explores the intersection of social justice and environmental issues, using a variety of mediums to create pieces that encourage reflection. Through her art, Salena strives to foster deeper connections between humanity and the natural world.
Website hitheresalena.wixsite.com/create
Instagram @zonked_art
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This is so moving and inspiring. Its rarely talked about but we all have something inside us that is a representation of our history. Whether it be the history of a family, a people, a country, everyone has it to some degree and its deeply personal. The way you just took us through yours was really artful and it took courage. Thank you. This is beautiful.
Beautifully written!