KhoslaRaghu On Aawara And The Art Of Emotional Wandering: 'Didn't Want To Make Another Sad Boy EP'

News18

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KhoslaRaghu explore heartbreak, freedom, and vulnerability in Aawara. 'We're not lost—we're unanchored by choice,' they tell News18 in a candid chat.
Some artists chase genres. Others chase trends. But KhoslaRaghu chase feelings—feelings that don't quite sit still, that linger just outside the lines. With their latest EP Aawara, the Delhi-based duo dives headfirst into a world of emotional restlessness, poetic rebellion, and sonic unpredictability. It's music that doesn't ask for your attention; it slips into your subconscious, wearing the scent of bar smoke, heartbreak, and half-healed wounds.
Sanchit Khosla and Rishabh Raghuvanshi aren't trying to be your next indie poster boys. They aren't writing sad boy anthems for viral reels. What they're doing instead is far more interesting. They're building a soundscape around a character—the Aawara. Not a vagabond in the literal sense, but an emotional drifter. A man untethered not by misfortune, but by choice. One who smiles with charm, runs from intimacy, sips through loneliness, and finds solace in his own undoing.
The EP unfolds like a five-chapter emotional novel. From the flirtatious detachment of Phir Kho Gaya to the charming descent into chaos in Barbaadi, from the performative numbness of Dil Behra to the inward reckoning of Tanha, and finally, the quiet ache of unspoken love in Naqaabil—every track holds a mirror to an unnamed part of you. Together, they don't just tell a story. They confess a truth.
What's remarkable is the way these songs avoid melodrama. Pain is whispered, not wailed. Longing isn't romanticized—it's examined. Even when they sing of heartbreak or self-destruction, there's restraint, there's dignity. Perhaps that's because KhoslaRaghu are not just collaborators. They're opposites in perfect friction. Sanchit brings Western jazz chords and hip-hop instincts. Rishabh weaves Indian classical phrasings and poetic sensitivity. What results is a musical push and pull that feels completely original, yet comfortingly familiar.
Aawara doesn't try to fit in. It wanders. Just like its namesake. Just like its creators.
In this raw and revealing interview, the duo opens up to News18 Showsha about emotional detachment, writing pain without self-pity, the freedom of being indie, and how every musician is, in some way, a wanderer looking for meaning in sound. They talk about experimenting with lyrics like kameena, using harmoniums alongside rap verses, and crafting one-sided love songs that hold no bitterness—only tenderness.
Here are the excerpts:
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Aawara is described as unbound, free-spirited, and emotionally restless. What were you both emotionally navigating while creating this EP, and how did that shape its sonic identity?
Our previous EP was rooted in heartbreak—it was full of sad songs and post-breakup emotion. After that, we felt the need to shift gears. We wanted to break away from that emotional heaviness and explore something more fun, more experimental—something that hadn't been done before, at least by us.
That's really how Aawara started. We began thinking about what happens when someone tries to move on. Often, a guy detaches emotionally and drifts—a little lost, a little wild—and that's where the idea of being an 'aawara" came from. The word itself carries this sense of emotional restlessness, but also freedom and recklessness. So the sound had to reflect that. We needed the sonic identity to feel just as untethered, playful, and emotionally free as the name suggests.
You've called this project an experiment and a break from comfort zones. What musical or lyrical 'rules" did you consciously decide to break?
For starters, we've never used a word like kameena in our lyrics before. It's raw, a little cheeky, and not something we would've dared to say in our earlier songs. Similarly, we brought in instruments like the harmonium—which has such a classic, earthy sound, but it's not something we'd typically use in our sonic palette. That alone was a big shift.
This EP was about exploring things we hadn't touched before—whether that was in language, instrumentation, or even perspective. Take a line like Barbaadi mein maza hai—it's almost toxic, but there's a strange joy in it. It's like someone addicted to their own downfall, like being hooked on alcohol. That emotional contradiction—that's where we wanted to go.
How do your individual musical sensibilities—Sanchit's Western influences and Rishabh's classical grounding—interact in this EP? Was there more conflict or synergy this time around?
There's always a bit of creative conflict in our compositions—it's inevitable because we come from such different musical worlds. But we've learned to treat that tension as a strength. Usually, we try to find a common ground where those differences can resolve in a way that feels fresh.
Take Barbaadi, for example. The entire song is built around jazz chords and a progression that's very much rooted in Western harmony. But then, Rishabh's melodies—especially that semi-Qawwali section—are completely informed by his classical grounding. And then there's the rap verse, which pulls things further toward my Western influence. So, instead of choosing one direction, we found a way to let both coexist—and that push and pull is what defines a lot of this EP.
The EP plays with unpredictability and movement. How do you interpret the word Aawara in the context of your own lives right now?
I think every musician, in a way, is an aawara. We're constantly wandering—through sounds, through emotions, through experiences—trying to make sense of it all. So in that sense, Aawara isn't just a theme for us, it's a reflection of who we are.
Right now in our own lives too, we're figuring things out as we go. There's no fixed path or formula. And maybe that's what makes us aawara—not lost, but unanchored by choice. Open to where the music takes us.
Phir Kho Gaya is playful yet reveals a deeper pattern of emotional detachment. Is this song a critique of escapism or a celebration of it?
We think it's both. The song definitely feels like a celebration on the surface—it's playful, charming, and almost carefree. But then you have a line like 'Dil jaanta hai ki yeh gunaah hai," which acknowledges that there's something wrong, maybe even selfish, about constantly running away or avoiding emotional depth.
So while the heart is doing what it wants, the song also critiques that behavior in a subtle way. It's about recognizing the flaw while still being stuck in it. That contradiction is what makes Phir Kho Gaya emotionally complex.
The character in Phir Kho Gaya is a charming runaway—how do you build empathy for someone who refuses to commit without villainizing them?
We think that to become someone who refuses to commit, you probably have to go through a series of really painful, even traumatizing breakups. It's not a personality trait you're born with—it's something life shapes into you.
This character isn't avoiding commitment because he's careless or selfish. It's because every time he's committed in the past, it's ended in loss. And that's how you start to build empathy for him—especially if you've listened to our previous EP Aao Bhula Dein, which captures the depth of heartbreak he's gone through. Phir Kho Gaya almost feels like the emotional aftermath of that story.
Dil Behra explores the disconnect between performance and emotion. How much of that duality comes from your own lived experiences in the music industry or personal life?
Honestly, this one wasn't drawn from our own experiences—neither from the music industry nor our personal lives. Dil Behra was written entirely from the point of view of the Aawara character.
We imagined someone who looks like they're having fun, maybe even performing joy on the outside, but inside they're still carrying emotional weight. That disconnect felt true to the Aawara persona—someone who has learned to mask vulnerability with charm or distraction.
The line 'Sunta nahi hai, unchi pukaarein…" is so quietly devastating. What inspired that lyric, and how do you write pain that doesn't sound melodramatic?
When you're trying to write pain without it sounding melodramatic, it's all about contrast. If one element is emotionally heavy—like the lyric—then the other needs to be simple or lighter to balance it out.
Take 'Sunta nahi hai, unchi pukaarein, dil behra hua." On its own, it can feel very sad. But the way we approached it musically changed how that sadness is received. The melody in that section is actually playful. And we chose to sing it in falsetto rather than a raw, open voice—which softens the emotional blow and keeps it from tipping into melodrama.
Barbaadi captures that obsessive phase post-breakup when you're stuck in a loop. What's your personal relationship with nostalgia and how do you prevent it from consuming you creatively?
We believe all artists are ultimately just trying to express themselves. Nostalgia is a powerful emotion—and instead of avoiding it, we try to channel it through our art. That's how it becomes a strength rather than something that holds us back.
So rather than letting nostalgia consume us or stall our creativity, we use it as fuel. It gives us emotional depth to write from—but the key is to express it in a way that feels fresh and honest, not repetitive.
The production in Barbaadi feels both haunting and intimate—how did you approach the sound design to reflect that bittersweet obsession?
Honestly, the music came first for Barbaadi. The production—the haunting and intimate feel—wasn't a calculated decision. It was just us experimenting and exploring sounds that felt right in the moment.
We didn't set out to create something dark or obsessive, but that's where the emotion naturally led us. The sound design became a reflection of that feeling, almost unintentionally. It was more about instinct than strategy.
Tanha is almost philosophical—it's less about heartbreak and more about quiet reckoning. What was the most difficult truth you had to admit to yourselves while writing this track?
Tanha is really a song about introspection. While writing it, the most difficult truth we had to face was that, in the end, only you—and your own heart—can make sense of what you're going through. No one else can do that for you.
Your mind has to come to terms with your feelings. And once that happens, there's a kind of surrender—like, 'whatever happens, happens." But until you find that inner alignment, there's restlessness. Tanha is about realizing that you're your own boss—you're the only one who can truly calm your mind.
The song feels like a conversation with oneself. Did you write it that way—like a monologue? Or did it evolve into that during production?
That actually evolved during the production process. Tanha was one of the last songs we worked on for the EP, and by that time, we had already created a few tracks and were deep into the emotional journey of the project.
So the introspective, almost monologue-like quality of the song came naturally. It wasn't planned from the start, but as we wrapped up the EP, it felt like the right way to close that emotional arc—quiet, inward, reflective.
Naqaabil speaks of one-sided love with such dignity and restraint. How do you write longing without bitterness?
Naqaabil is essentially a one-sided love story, where one person never even confesses his feelings. He holds his lover in such high regard that he truly believes he isn't worthy of her love. That's where the sense of dignity comes from—and it also explains the absence of bitterness. There's no resentment or heartbreak from a breakup, because they were never together in the first place.
The 'unnoticed guy" in the song watches from the sidelines—have either of you ever been in that position? How does it shape how you now write about vulnerability?
No, not really. And except the creativity side of it, we'd never want to be in that position…haha. That's the beauty of art, actually… not everything that you say or write has to be your story. You can get inspired from someone else's story and That can act as a catalyst for your inspiration and then you can build upon that and write so many different stories. for us its all about staying true to the inspiration. Then if its vulnerability, so be it.
The EP feels like a five-part emotional arc—restlessness, denial, obsession, reflection, and acceptance. Was that structure intentional or something you noticed in hindsight?
No, that was absolutely exceptional. That's actually a very nice way to put it because we had tried to build a story through five different characteristics of a so called Aawara person. And that is how we planned the EP and especially the order of the songs because we wanted to tell the story in that particular way through these songs.
You've spoken about not fitting into a mold—what's one stereotype about indie artists or love songs you hope this EP shatters?
We feel there are a lot of stereotypes, but one such stereotype that we hope that shatters with this EP is that indie music is not just about acoustic songs or, you know, just a singer-songwriter act. Indie basically comes from independent. So it can literally be any genre or form of music which has been put out there without associating to a record label or a film company, and it is indie.
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