Sonu Nigam’s Keno Ei Mone: A Decade-Long Dream Comes Alive at Yash Raj Studios

Year of Release: 2025

Lyrics: Rajiv Dutta

Composer: Debojit Dutta

There are songs you write… and then there are songs that feel like they’ve waited patiently in some quiet corner of the universe for the right people to bring them alive.

‘Keno Ei Mone’ belongs to the second category.

A Bengali romantic ballad released in February 2025 to welcome the season of spring, this is Sonu Nigam’s first independent Bengali release under his own label, I Believe Music – and what a stunning beginning it is.

How It Began

Composer Debojit Dutta first creates this tune way back in 2013, when he’s just starting out. The melody stays with him for years – something about it feels sacred. When lyricist Rajiv Dutta writes to it, the song quietly becomes what it was always meant to be: a love letter destined for one singer.

In Debojit’s words, the tune and the lyrics are created “keeping our ever-beloved God of Music, Dr. Sonu Nigam sir, in mind, heart and soul.”

Years pass. The world survives Covid. Sonu launches his own label in 2020. And on Ram Navami in 2023, Debojit finally gathers the courage to send him the song. He sings just the mukhda and antara, to the accompaniment of his electronic tanpura, a bare-bones demo and WhatsApps it to Sonu late at night.

Within minutes, the reply arrives –

“Bahut achha composition hai… theek hai, I will sing it when I have time.”

Those words are enough to set everything into motion.

A Recording Destined to Happen

Months pass. Dates don’t sync. Life gets in the way.

And then one night in September 2024, right after Ganesh Puja, Debojit receives a message from Sonu's manager, Saira Makani – “Your song with Sonuji will be recorded tomorrow at Yash Raj Studios. Be ready.”

Debojit describes what happens next as a dream you’re afraid to blink through. He flies Rajiv in from Kolkata, gathers all track and session files overnight, and walks into Yash Raj Studios the next day with the kind of hope that makes your hands tremble.

Inside the studio, Sonu Nigam does what only he can. He pours his entire heart, soul, passion and emotion into the song. He treats the composer with respect so deep, it feels unreal. As Debojit recalls, at one point he even says – “Debojit, I know you love me a lot and I also love you like anything. But here you are the music director and I am your student. If you want any extra improvisation, say it. I’ll do it immediately.”

This is the part that always gets me. Anyone who has followed Sonu’s career knows this: his humility is not an act. His dedication to music is absolute. He serves the song before he serves himself.

The Song Itself

On the surface, ‘Keno Ei Mone’ is a modern romantic ballad – soulful, passionate, textured with longing. But emotionally? It is a confession set to melody.

Through the lyrics, the lover keeps trying to make the girl understand the depth of his feelings – his dreams revolving around her, his desperation to be seen, the madness of loving someone with his whole being. Rajiv Dutta summarises it beautifully –

“He is wanting to let the girl know how crazily he is in love with her.”

The arrangement by Shubham–Saurabh keeps this intensity in mind – clean, contemporary, atmospheric. Nothing distracts from the voice. Every layer seems designed to hold the emotion rather than decorate it.

Rajiv’s spontaneous words capture the pulse of the song better than any formal review – “Ki dārun উচ্চারণ… ki feel ki bolbo… shunte shunte dube jachhi… ei gaan hit hobei. Ei hochhe gaan. Ei gaan shobai nijer kore nebe. Soja mon’e giye hit korbe. Kya baat kya baat kya baat.”

The Gesture That Says It All

There’s one more detail – small but enormous.

After recording the song with all his heart, Sonu Nigam gifts the entire project to Debojit. No charge. No conditions. Just pure affection and respect.

He releases it through his own channel and label, I Believe Music, as a gesture of love for a composer who waited eleven years for this moment.

Tell me, how often does something like this happen?

A Song That Already Feels Like a Classic

Today, as 'Keno Ei Mone' plays on, you can feel why it stood the test of a decade before finding its singer. It carries a kind of innocence Bengali music has been missing for a while – a return to melody, emotion, and unfiltered devotion. As Debojit and Rajiv both say –

A truly unique, unparalleled song. A blessing for Bengali music after a very long time.

And honestly… when Sonu Nigam sings in Bengali with this level of sincerity, the language itself feels like it melts.

A spring release, a decade-old melody, a composer’s dream, a singer’s generosity…Some songs are not just heard.They are received.

‘Keno Ei Mone’ is one of them.

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