When Gandhi Talks was first narrated to Nirmika Singh, it didn’t sound like a conventional Hindi film at all — a silent film, no dialogue, driven entirely by expressions, music and mood. “When Rahman sir called me in and told me it was a silent film, we were struck by how ambitious the project was,” she says. “In a silent film, the artistic responsibility doesn’t just lie with the composer or the writer but with every artist involved and their expression.”

That responsibility shaped every decision she made while writing Zara Zara, the song composed by AR Rahman for Gandhi Talks, starring Vijay Sethupathi and Aditi Rao Hydari. With no dialogue to explain longing, conflict or sacrifice, the lyrics had to carry narrative weight without ever announcing themselves. “There was nothing but expressions to rely on,” Singh says. “So I watched the film to really grasp the characters and build their world.”