For a budding romance, Himesh bhai gave Aashiq Banaya Aapne, to kickstart a party, there was Jhalak Dhiklaja and for heartbreaks, there was the eternal Tera Tera Tera Surroor. 

What was it about that annoyingly-croaky, nasal-voice that had us associating our life’s instances with his songs? 

The man held the mic at a particular angle, casually dressed in a jacket with that iconic red cap placed on his head and trust you me, I knew of girls who went weak in their knees at the very sight of him.

From 2005 to 2008, Himesh Reshammiya’s music was everywhere. His peculiar style of singing had people mesmerized. But unfortunately today, nobody acknowledges it.

I understand because I’m a part of that group. His song from the glory days might be playing somewhere, but there’s no way that I’d hum along, despite knowing every word of it.

I mean, the man came up with stuff like, “I love you o sayyoni. Koi shaq? Wassup?”. Now, who’s to be blamed for that except for him and only him?

But that wasn’t as bad because he still went on to make some decent music in his peculiar voice. 

What really put everyone off was when Himesh bhai went on a quest to prove that he could act. 

The only good thing to have come out of this film was that even Himesh realized that it was very difficult for the world to take a fully-grown man seriously when he walks around in a cap like that.

And for some reason he realized that the best way to compensate for the cap was to thin down and pop out some abs. 

Now, that’s a healthy life choice, except for the fact that watching the man walk around shirtless wasn’t something we were prepared for.

Then, there was his gig as a judge on Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge, which gave the world an extremely-inspiring phrase. In the meme-scarce time of 2007, ‘Jai Mat Di Let’s Rock!’ was some real-solid meme material. 

And how can we forget his iconic ‘mujhe iske ghar mein roti chahiye’ speech? I believe it was after watching himself in that episode that Himesh realized he could one day give competition to Oscar-winning actors!

And now he does things like this:

And this:

And makes movies like these that can put you to zzz: 

No wonder people don’t want to admit that once upon a time, they too were fans of Himesh Reshammiya. 

The man didn’t leave us a choice. Today, when I revisit that phase of my life, wait, who am I kidding? I never revisit that phase of my life and I know, neither do you!