Breathless (Shankar Mahadevan album)

Breathless is the 1998 Indi-pop album by Indian singer-composer Shankar Mahadevan featuring lyricist Javed Akhtar. It was the album that first made Shankar Mahadevan famous. The title track, "Breathless," is a steady stream of a song that goes on without a break, stanzas, verse or apparently even a pause for breath. The length of the part of the song which is 'breathless' is about three minutes(he took breaks while singing and it was edited to make it seem really breathless). Mahadevan made the album in collaboration with Akhtar, a reputed lyricist in the Indian music industry. Renu Desai was a model and appeared in the music video of Shankar Mahadevan's "Breathless". The album won the award for Best Non-film Album at the 1998 Screen Awards.

Reception
The music album was a huge success, selling over 300,000 copies and topped all major music charts in India for about 10 straight weeks.

Music video
The music video of the title song "Breathless" was directed by Farhan Akhtar and his sister Zoya Akhtar. This was the beginning of a long association, as Shankar, along with Ehsaan Noorani and Loy Mendonsa (as Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy), went on to score music for all of the films directed by Farhan and Zoya Akhtar.

In popular culture

 * The song appears in the 2002 Indian Assamese-language film Tumiye Mor Kalpanar.
 * An adaptation of the song appears as the jingle in a series of advertisements for Pakistani biscuit brand Sooper.
 * The title song has inspired many covers.

Breathless Reprise
Both Shankar and Javed Akhtar later reunited to come out with "Breathless Reprise," a similar song whose story takes off from where "Breathless" ended.

Recreation
In 2018, Mahadevan recreated the song to highlight the programmes and initiatives of the Narendra Modi-led government.