Arijit Singh + Shloke Lal – Rihaa

Fandom: “Let my thirst be quenched by your beauty. Let me soak in your infinite kindness. My heart wants to sing with you, the song of my soul.” – Arijit Singh + Shloke Lal, “Rihaa” (translated from Hindi and Bengali)

Verses: Psalm 107:1-3, 9, Jeremiah 31:25, Psalm 13, Psalm 73:23-26, Isaiah 61:1, Psalm 42:5, Psalm 27:4

Nugget: Fellowship with and worship of a good and holy God is the answer to our lonely and seeking hearts.

This song isn’t in English, but the universal language of music is such that you can tell almost immediately what it’s about. The emotion in the singer (Arijit Singh)’s voice conveys the meaning: a search for something more. Here are some of the lyrics translated to English:

My mind soars ahead without stopping,/ Wandering behind every new thing that it sees./ I am a prisoner of my mind/ It doesn’t open its chains and let me free.

I have moments of happiness/ And then I am consumed by melancholy/ Tell me o mind, what you seek?/ I am a passing moment in time full of fresh life./ Yet I am lonely in many more moments./ Tell me o mind, what you seek?

Make me yours./ Make me one with your soul and set me free./ I am the darkness within./ Let us meet and bring in the dawn./ Make me one with your soul and set me free.

Read more at LyricsRaag.Com: Rihaa Lyrics Translation – Arijit Singh | Shloke Lal https://lyricsraag.com/?p=122025

Here’s what this song can tell us about God and the Gospel:

We are all lonely, restless, and searching for something more.

I used to think that the Bible was all sunshine and rainbows, but the truth is, there’s some really deep emotional content. The book of Psalms has some pretty raw verses, written by David, whom the Bible describes as “a man after God’s own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14, Acts 13:22). David was so in love with God that he felt okay with confessing his deepest emotions to Him, like “Why are you cast down, oh my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?” (Psalm 42:5) or “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?… Light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death” (Psalm 13:1-3). See what I mean? Deep stuff, and more than a little dark.

The point here is that it’s okay to feel sad, and lonely, and restless sometimes. You don’t have to pretend that everything is okay when you talk to God. He wants all of you, and that includes the roughness and the pain and the sadness.

Arijit Singh expresses that honest emotion in the same way that David does in the book of Psalms:

“Restlessness takes over my body, and your absence makes me ill./ The notes of your tune run through each of my veins./ The void in me remains My loneliness remains.“

For more thoughts about our search for meaning, check out this post featuring Disney’s Moana. You might also enjoy this one, which breaks down the entire Gospel in the words of Owl City : ).

God promises to satisfy our longings by giving us access to Him.

Jeremiah 31:25 is the perfect foil (answer or contrast) to this Arijit Singh’s lyrics. “For I will satisfy the weary soul, and every languishing soul I will replenish.” This verse is a beautiful response to the prayer of the song lyrics: “Make me yours. Make me one with your soul and set me free.” Isaiah 61:1 personifies this freedom-maker: “he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
    and the opening of the prison to those who are bound…”

God is rushing to meet each one of us, to satisfy our longing for fulfillment and acceptance and purpose and joy. All we have to do is ask for it. Which makes this stanza of “Rihaa” a perfect prayer to God:

“Let my thirst be quenched by your beauty;/ Let me soak in your infinite kindness./ My heart wants to sing with you;/ The song of my soul.”

Lost in the beauty of good and holy God, we begin to lose our loneliness too.

One thing to note about the book of Psalms: David shares his intimate and deep emotions, but at the end, he almost always turns back to praise. This shows that giving our emotions to God doesn’t immediately solve our problems, but it does help.

In short, Praising God’s goodness, even when we can’t see or feel it for ourselves, builds our trust in Him. I could say it a million different ways, but the message will always be the same: God is with us, God is for us, God loves us and wants to fellowship with us. He is the only answer, the only way to be truly happy and satisfied, the only steady foundation in the turmoil of life.

Let’s sing with Him today. Let’s soak in His infinite kindness, and let our thirst be quenched by His beauty.

“One thing I have asked of the Lord,
    that will I seek after:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
    all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord
    and to inquire in his temple.” (Psalm 27:4)

Side Note: Arijit Singh’s original thoughts

Side note: Since this song comes from another culture (other than Western/American Evangelical Christian), I think it’s important to acknowledge the singer’s original intent, as listed on the site I used to translate the lyrics:

“In this sensory truth, the projection of self in a restricted way prevents us from recognising that we are fully inside. It is a prayer that is sung on behalf of all human beings. May we be mindful that we are the master of our mind and body. Growing we be aware enough to use our own body and mind to work for the well-being of the world and all the forces of life. May we be in search of the true self that is free from all suffering. Can we fall in love with everything, or with the absolute, the higher self? It’s a song to pray to the absolute so that we can pass from the deepest ignorance to the light of the truth and be complete. Can we free ourselves?”

This is a way to respect other cultures while conversating on equal ground. This quote seems to speak to finding fulfillment in our own soul, and looking to God, who created our soul, would seem a natural extension of that idea. We often have more in common than we think! I’d also like to give a huge thank you and shoutout to Manoj Mehra at Believe Strong for recommending this song. You can read the post I found here :).

Happy fangirling!