After retiring from playback singing, fans are revisiting Arijit Singh’s only stint as a music composer for Netflix’s Pagglait and why the project happened unexpectedly.
Arijit Singh, who has won millions of hearts with romantic tracks like Tum Hi Ho, Channa Mereya, Gehra Hua, and Hum To Tere Hi Liye The, announced his retirement from playback singing on January 27, 2026, through a social media post.
However, not many fans know that during his Bollywood playback singing career, he also made his debut as a music director. The film he composed music for was Pagglait.
Arijit Singh’s only film as a music composer
Directed by Umesh Bist, Mukesh Kumar, and Chaudhari Mitesh, Pagglait stars Sanya Malhotra, Sayani Gupta, and Sheeba Chaddha. Pagglait was released on Netflix in 2021. Notably, this move into composition was unplanned. In a conversation with Hindustan Times, Arijit Singh shared that his interest in composing music grew out of his admiration for the 2015 film Haraamkhor.
Following that, he mentioned to producer Guneet Monga that he would love to work on strong scripts if the opportunity came up. When Pagglait came his way, he instantly connected with the story and started creating musical pieces organically.
He said, “It’s very interesting, how it happened. I really liked one film called Haraamkhor (2015), and spoke to Guneet (Monga, producer), requesting that if she has good scripts like this, she must tell me, I would try to do it. That was my intention, and then she came up with this script. I read and loved it, and then I started making pieces.”
He further added, “They wanted four songs first, but I said I don’t know how many I’ll be able to do, as I have never done this before. I told them that I would try, and if they like it, they can use them, and if not, they were free to speak to other composers. I was definitely going to do the background score anyway, but fortunately, they liked the songs.” For the unversed, Pagglait features 24 tracks, with a collection of eight songs.
Why Arijit Singh has decided to retire from playback singing
On Tuesday late evening, Arijit Singh announced his retirement from playback on his private X account. He wrote, “There is not one reason behind this, there are several reasons plus I have been trying to do this since a long time. Finally I have gathered the right courage,” he explained. He admitted restlessness as one of the reasons. “One of the reasons were simple, I get bored pretty quick, that’s why I keep changing arrangements of the same songs and perform them on stage. So here is the thing, I got bored. I need to do some other music to live.”
Even as he steps back from Bollywood playback singing, Arijit Singh clarified that music remains an important part of his life. “I am going to go back to Indian Classical Music. I wanna go back to making music. I wanna start again, I will make my own music. Will come up with my music whenever I am ready. “Ab aayega maza!!,” he added.
