Anuv Jain has released “Arz Kiya Hai” for Coke Studio Bharat season 3. Photo: Coke Studio Bharat
If you’re looking for that grandiose, glittering and punchy sound that Coke Studio is often associated with, singer-songwriter Anuv Jain and Lost Stories’ Rishab Joshi aren’t really about that on “Arz Kiya Hai.” Instead, the song from Coke Studio Bharat season three is an understated ode to poets in love that leans on Jain’s distinctly tender vocals.
Released on Aug. 20, 2025, “Arz Kiya Hai” has accrued over 1.9 million views on YouTube and over a million streams on Spotify in less than a week. At its core, Jain takes a shot at vocal versatility while also adding an instrument like a harmonium (played by Joshi) for the first time. Jain pens a song that, in a playful, possibly self-deprecating way, pays homage to Urdu poetry’s greats, including Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Mirza Ghalib, and more.
Jain tells Rolling Stone India over a video call, “The protagonist [of the song] knows he’s not even near Faiz nor Mirza and admits that he’s not an expert, but just an ordinary person who fell in love and has now turned into a poet.” He invoked the poets that he knows are “literally the benchmarks when you think about poets, shayars and shayaris.” Jain adds, “It’s a bit of humor in the middle that I’m nowhere close to these guys, but look at what I’m doing. I’m way out of my depth, but I’m still here. I’m still writing for you because I’m in love with you.”
Jain wrote the track in a span of 20 days and then developed it further with Lost Stories’ Joshi, with whom Jain has long been friends. Having first admired Lost Stories as a fan thanks to their 2023 electronic-fusion EP Marigold Soundsystem (“I genuinely think that’s one of the best musical pieces out there,” Jain says), the singer-songwriter felt that Joshi’s production touch could elevate the idea he had for “Arz Kiya Hai.” Jain recounts, “We pretty much built the entire soundscape for the song. I was in Spain at that time, and I was listening to it, but I was telling him [Joshi] that, ‘Bro, there’s something missing. I don’t know what, but there’s just, like this one element missing.’”
Once the artist was back from the holiday, he sat down with Joshi and says it took about five minutes to figure out that they wanted a harmonium in the song. Joshi emulated the harmonium on his studio gear, and Jain was convinced that it was now sounding “epic.”
Like many Indian artists, Jain says he always considered a Coke Studio Bharat song to be on his wish list. “Saying it was on my bucket list would be an understatement. This was the number one thing on my list. I’ve finally checked it and hope to check it a couple of more times in my lifetime.”
Was he daunted by the discography that had given the music project its popularity and millions of followers? He cites songs like “Madari” (by Clinton Cerejo, Vishal Dadlani and Sonu Kakkar), “Ki Banu Duniya Da” (Gurdas Maan with Diljit Dosanjh) and “Khalasi” (Aditya Gadhvi and Achint) as his favorites, even throwing in a shoutout to the latest season’s Haryanvi song “Ishq Bawla” by hip-hop artist Dhanda Nyoliwala and Xvir Grewal. But for “Arz Kiya Hai,” Jain says he didn’t have to make “too many changes.” He explains, “There is always a framework that Coke Studio works within, and there are said rules and some unsaid rules as well. I understand there’s something to it.”
Trying to fit within the Coke Studio Bharat sonic aesthetic is what led to elements like the harmonium feeling right at home in the song, along with Jain taking on harkats (vocal melodies) in the song. “There’s also a sargam [vocal harmonies] in the middle, which Sarthak Kalyani did, and he did such an amazing job. So it was just trying to find a good balance between what I like to do and what Coke Studio stands for,” he adds.
“Arz Kiya Hai” is a first of sorts for Jain, but it also follows another first—the artist’s collaboration with Punjabi-Canadian star AP Dhillon on “Afsos” earlier this year, which became a chart-topper. Ask Jain if he ever feels daunted by these new paths of collaborations and different song formats, and he’s quick to respond. “I think my life is daunting all the time. I’m just always concerned, and I’m always worried, because I do care about what I do, and obviously I want to give people something that they like, but I also don’t want to compromise on what I want to do, so that it’s very difficult to find that balance as well,” he says.
The fact that “Afsos” went to the top of the streaming charts in the country and his 2024 single “Jo Tum Mere Ho” was among the most-streamed songs of that year is reassurance enough for Jain. “I wanted to just experiment this year a little bit more and just see if I can give people something a little different from what I usually do, and [see] whether they accept it or not,” he adds.
To that end, Jain promises that his next song will be “a little different as well.” He says, “I think those monumental milestones gave me the courage to try something different, at least this year. This is a very transformational year for me, that way.”
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