“Pesamale” by Siri Xander and Arra Aria Khayal released quietly on July 31, 2026. In the months after, it steadily climbed Spotify’s ‘Top Songs India’ chart, moving from 117 in August end to 15 at the time of publishing, with over 24 million streams. It’s also a new entrant at no. 17 on Billboard’s ‘India Songs’ chart, for the week of October 17. The music video – released on September 22 – already has over 10 million views.
The Tamil indie pop track, backed by Sony Music, became the breakout release for its makers. Siri has released a few songs prior to “Pesamale,” with Aria having co-composed and produced every track she has released so far. The duo already had a fan base, built by creating songs Live on Instagram.
This success, however, is something else. They speak to Billboard India about making music together, how “Pesamale” was made, and their future plans.
You two have known each other since childhood and have made music together before. Tell us more about your journey together and how Pesamale happened.
Siri: We live in houses opposite each other, and we’re cousins. I’ve been watching him and learning a lot from him since childhood. He’s been making music for 10 years. One day I randomly went to him and asked, “How do I make music? I want to know how to compose and how to produce.” He said, “Go meet people and start writing lyrics.” That’s how Devaloka Sundari started. I came home and told him the story, and we produced and released it. After that it’s been a nice journey. We thought, “Let’s make a song every day,” and we’ve been at it ever since.
How long did Pesamale take to happen? Did it take a while?
Aria: The moment we think of a song, we put it out on Reels. That’s the problem with us (laughs). Kidding aside, the song just happened. The idea for Pesamale started only a month before its release.
Siri: Once the song was fully created, we released it the next week.
What did you think of the final version of the song?
Siri: We put out two versions on Instagram and asked people which was better. Aria had done some different percussion and I had done some layers, so we asked people what worked best.
Did you add elements after deciding which version was going out?
Aria: The way it works is that we get the composition done first. The composition and the songwriting come on top. Whatever we add after that is the body of the song, while the soul is the composition and the songwriting. Once the song is fully conceptualised, we go into production.
When did the violin and guitars come into the song?
Siri: It happened randomly. Shravan anna messaged me saying we’d collaborate, so we sent him the song, said “this is the idea,” and asked him to jam and add whatever he felt.
Aria: We were producing the song’s backing layers on an Instagram Live. While we were live, Shravan sent us what he had recorded, and we played it on the Live itself. After that we casually jammed with our guitarist John at our place and added those parts too.
Why did the video come two months after the song?
Aria: Nothing like that. Everyone is going after the “release the song with a video” format. Actually, we were rejected in multiple places initially for the genre we do. We chose not to follow the stereotype set for indie music. We wanted to break the format being set for non-film music here. Non-film music has to be carried by the artist first, so we put the audio out first.
The video was directed by Manu Hassan and stars Upasana Raghu and Maahir Mohiuddin, with a large dance ensemble. Whose idea was it to tell the story through actors and dancers?
Siri: The director came up with the concept, and we were part of all the discussions.
When did you realise Pesamale was actually breaking out, and which fan reaction will you remember?
Aria: We played both versions to my mathaji and asked her to choose one, and she picked the first version.
Siri: She’s very honest. We’ll be making music, and she’ll walk in, say “this is not nice,” and walk away.
Aria: Yes, she asks, “Is this what you guys have been making all day?” and writes it off after we’ve worked day and night on a song.
Siri: So when she said this song was nice and started humming it, we knew it was a good track. That was our first reaction.
Aria: Another thing happened too. We put this song out as a reel first, just the “Manamozhiyil pesum” part. We were on our way to the Sony office to play them the whole track, and if they liked it, we’d release it. On the way, we were riding the scooty when a guy in an auto stuck his head out and said, “My wife loves you guys, say hi!” He was filming us on his phone from the auto. We were thinking, “Dai, we’ll fall if I take my hands off the bike to say hi!” It was so fun that this happened.
The comments section has asked why the “Sa” in Pesamale is a Hindi letter.
Aria: The interlude of “Pesamale” is “Santhapadasi,” a Marathi word, so we used the “Sa” in that script. We got a lot of questions like “Why did you bring Hindi into a Tamil song?” but it isn’t even Hindi, it’s Marathi.
Why did you want to include this?
Aria: We like including a different language in all our songs. In our songs, the two people in the song speak different love languages. We have that language difference between them because it sounds and looks beautiful.
Your fans have watched you since the earliest Reels, and the success feels shared with them. How do you keep that closeness as the audience grows well beyond your core followers?
Siri: We haven’t thought about it fully yet, but we have some plans. One idea is a blind concert: no phones, no lights, just music, so people can simply feel the music in the room.
Aren’t you worried about your ideas being stolen?
Aria: All of these are things that already exist. If we get an idea, I’m sure it already exists somewhere, so we don’t think about that. When we do it, we’ll do it our way. If we do something with honesty, I think it will reach people.
Where do you see yourselves in the Tamil indie scene?
Aria: I feel music has been divided too much. A lot has been happening in the hip hop space, and there should be more in the melodic space. I feel the gates will open to more genres. We don’t want to be put in one genre box.
Siri: We want to explore and learn, and eventually we want to slowly explore other languages too.
Any film industry plans?
It will probably happen suddenly. We’ll probably drop that news on an Instagram Live too (laughs). We’ll ask the live audience which tune is better before we give it to the director.
What would you like to tell your fans?
Siri: That we love them.
