परिंदा

Parinda (परिंदा) is a reflective resilience anthem from Karan Malhotra's Shamshera (2022), composed by Mithoon and sung by Sukhwinder Singh with Abhishek Nailwal — notable for its lyric credit going to director Karan Malhotra himself rather than a dedicated lyricist, an unusual but not unheard-of arrangement in Hindi film music. Built around the repeated reassurance that 'you'll feel fear, yes, you'll shatter... but you'll gather yourself and shine — you're that bird who will fly again,' the song functions as an emotional counterpoint to the film's louder anthems (the title track, Hunkara), addressing the internal cost of Shamshera's — and by extension Balli's — long fight against betrayal and captivity. Released as part of the Shamshera soundtrack ahead of the film's 22 July 2022 release, Parinda has a comparatively modest streaming footprint relative to the film's higher-profile tracks like Fitoor and Kaale Naina.

Mithoon keeps Parinda's arrangement comparatively restrained and mid-tempo, allowing Sukhwinder Singh's textured, world-weary vocal delivery — paired with Abhishek Nailwal's voice in support — to carry the emotional weight of the reassurance-lyric rather than leaning on the percussive intensity of the soundtrack's other rebellion anthems. The result sits closer to a rock-inflected motivational ballad than a full battle-cry, giving the soundtrack tonal variety between its louder set pieces.

Unusually, Parinda's lyrics are credited to director Karan Malhotra himself, built around a simple but effective progression — fear, shattering, gathering, shining — that reframes falling apart not as defeat but as a necessary stage before renewal. The recurring bird (parinda) metaphor for an unbreakable, sky-bound spirit is a well-worn but effective device in Hindi film lyric-writing, here doing direct narrative work by mirroring the film's own hero, whose imprisonment and betrayal are answered, a generation later, by his son reclaiming the freedom the metaphor promises.

Parinda underscores the emotional cost beneath Shamshera's arc — the tribal leader (Ranbir Kapoor) betrayed and imprisoned by the British and the corrupt officer Shuddh Singh (Sanjay Dutt) in 1871, and twenty-five years later, his son Balli (also Ranbir Kapoor) carrying forward the fight to free the surviving Khameran tribe and reclaim the freedom — the 'sky' — the lyric promises. Rather than scoring an action set-piece, the song serves as an interior, reflective beat in the film's two-generation story of oppression and resistance. Directed by Karan Malhotra and produced by Yash Raj Films on a reported ₹150 crore budget, the film released theatrically on 22 July 2022.

Parinda remains one of the lesser-streamed tracks from the Shamshera soundtrack, with its official video (hosted on Sukhwinder Singh's own YouTube channel rather than YRF's main channel) drawing a comparatively modest view count next to the title track and Hunkara. Its chief point of distinction within the soundtrack's credits is the unusual lyric-writing credit for director Karan Malhotra, a rare instance of a Hindi film director taking a songwriting credit on their own production.