Singer-songwriter Bharat Chauhan has by no means been eager about making music that tells folks what they need to hear. His songs have at all times come from a extra private place, formed by love, loss, reminiscence and an everlasting reference to Urdu poetry and ghazals. From Shayar and Tu Hoti Toh to Vasl, Ghar and his 2022 album Qurbat, Bharat has constructed a musical world that feels intimate with out attempting too arduous to be understood. His newest album, Uns, launched on July 21, 2026, takes that honesty additional. The 12-track album strikes via affection, longing and relationships earlier than regularly descending into grief, ending with Meri Maaye, a deeply private dialog along with his mom. Sonically, it additionally marks a shift for Bharat.
In contrast to his earlier, largely acoustic work, Uns is fuller, heavier and extra band-driven.The album can also be the second chapter of a bigger seven-album journey Bharat has imagined for himself, with every report documenting a special section of his life. In an unique dialog with Hindustan Instances, he opens up about discovering the sound of Uns, writing about his mom, his relationship with Urdu, collaborating with Seedhe Maut, hip hop duo from Delhi, and why making music for an viewers can come at the price of authenticity.
Turning life into music
Bharat didn’t start Uns with a set sonic blueprint. The sound advanced as he labored on the album, though he knew he wished to maneuver away from the acoustic-heavy preparations of his earlier work. “No, I found it whereas making it. I additionally wished these albums to be extra band-heavy and never simply have acoustic track. My earlier songs have been fairly acoustic and deep, however on this album, there is just one acoustic track. That was a acutely aware choice. After the primary album, I made a decision that the second ought to be barely heavier when it comes to instrumentation and preparations,” he says.
The larger concept behind the album, nevertheless, was at all times private. Slightly than making a fictional narrative, Bharat is documenting what occurred to him between Qurbat and Uns. He provides, “The period is definitely my very own. I need to discuss in regards to the life I lived between the albums. No matter I felt between the primary and second album, I wrote about on this album. It’s simply documenting my very own life via songs.” That additionally explains why the album appears like an emotional development relatively than merely a group of particular person tracks.
From happiness to grief
Bharat personally dealt with the sequencing of Uns, intentionally shaping it like a journey. The album begins on a lighter notice earlier than regularly turning into extra emotional and ultimately deeply unhappy. He explains, “I do the sequencing myself. With the earlier album, I made a decision on the manufacturing side and the tempo of the songs. I did not need it to be that there have been very quick songs adopted immediately by very sluggish songs. However with this album, I made a decision that it ought to be a journey. The start has songs which might be fairly glad. Then, within the center, it turns into emotional and, by the tip, it turns into barely unhappy. By the final track, it is extremely unhappy. It’s a journey from happiness to unhappiness.”
That journey ultimately leads again to his mom. The singer says, “In the end, it’s about sleeping in your mom’s lap. When there may be a lot grief, you change into unhappy and, ultimately, you bear in mind your mom. That is why the twelfth track is Meri Maaye, the place I’m having a dialog with my mom.”
The track is about one thing so simple as rising older collectively: “I’m telling her, ‘You’re ageing, I’m ageing’. That’s the dialog I’m having with my mom within the final track.”
For Bharat, writing about grief is just not essentially tough. Writing about his mom was. “For me, writing about grief and ache is definitely simple. I get this a part of my music fairly simply.” he provides.
However Meri Maaye took him someplace he had by no means anticipated to go. “That was probably the most tough track to put in writing. I by no means thought I might write Meri Maaye. I at all times thought that so long as my mom was alive, I would not have the ability to write a track for her. However ultimately, sooner or later I used to be alone and I wrote it.”
The Urdu connection
Bharat’s love for Urdu poetry started lengthy earlier than he began making music. He studied Urdu as a 3rd language at school between fifth and eighth normal, the place his instructor Roshan Lal sir launched him to the language.
“I studied Urdu at school. From fifth to eighth normal, we had Urdu as a 3rd language. There was a instructor, Roshan Lal sir, who used to return and train us Urdu. It was fundamental Urdu, however he taught us pronunciation, phrases and their meanings. I assume it in some way developed from there,” he reveals.
His musical influences grew alongside that connection. He grew up listening to songs from the Fifties and Sixties, together with ghazals by Jagjit Singh, and Ghulam Ali. For Bharat, good writing stays the center of a track. “I’ve at all times felt that writing is the soul of a track. If the writing does not hit you in the correct spot, the track turns into very flat. The manufacturing could sound good, however I really feel the writing must be good for a track to change into stunning,” he explains.
That can also be why he refuses to reshape his music round what is likely to be extra commercially interesting. He says, “Some folks do, however only a few. I inform them that if I begin making music from the viewers’s perspective, I’ll lose my very own perspective as properly. As a result of I’ve to say what I need to say. If I begin pondering, ‘Individuals will like this,’ then I’ll lose the genuineness that comes naturally to me. I’ve to inform my story—what occurred in my life, how I see life and the way I see folks.”
He has by no means approached songwriting with the viewers in thoughts: “If I make a track from the viewers’s perspective, then I’ll lose my perspective as properly. I’ll lose my genuineness. I need to inform my very own story.”
Why Seedhe Maut clicked
Uns additionally options Bazaar, Bharat’s collaboration with Seedhe Maut. Whereas their musical kinds are totally different, he believes the connection labored due to what they share emotionally. He says, “I feel it occurs as a result of, as folks, Seedhe Maut—Encore ABJ (Abhijay Negi) and Calm (Siddhant Sharma) and I are emotionally related. They make that form of music and I make this type of music, however as folks, the three of us share the same form of power. That’s the reason the collaboration occurred very naturally for us.”
There was no elaborate plan behind the track. The singer provides, “It is usually not like we have been sitting down saying, ‘We’re engaged on one thing.’ We simply make songs for enjoyable. We made it in the identical approach—only for enjoyable.”
What Bharat admires most about Seedhe Maut is their refusal to filter themselves for an viewers. “Their genuineness in direction of their artwork. No matter they really feel of their hearts, they are saying. There is no such thing as a filter round it. They do not assume, ‘Individuals want to listen to this, so we are going to write this.’ They write from the center,” he asserts.
He believes that honesty is in the end what makes music join. “One thing written from the center attracts folks as a result of human feelings are the identical. No matter I’m feeling, virtually everybody has felt it sooner or later—whether or not I’m unhappy or glad. Should you write what your coronary heart is telling you, it can resonate with folks,” he says.
What comes after Uns?
Bharat has already began writing his third album, though recording is but to start. “Really, I made a decision on the third album final 12 months. I began writing songs for it as a result of no matter I felt after that, I began writing about it. I have not began recording but, however I’ve began writing songs,” he says.
He desires the subsequent album to sound totally different, even when that presents a brand new problem: “Sonically, although, I need to strive one thing totally different subsequent time. That shall be a bit of little bit of a problem.”
The seven-album plan, in the meantime, remains to be intact, though Bharat admits the concept now feels extra demanding than it did initially. The singer-songwriter says, “I considered doing seven albums a few 12 months in the past as a result of I do not need to do an excessive amount of work. I need to do good work and do much less of it. However now I feel even seven is loads as a result of writing songs is private. Whenever you put a lot of your self on the market, it takes one thing from you. However I’ve stated seven, so we are going to do seven albums.”
And he doesn’t plan to avoid wasting tales for future data. If one thing must be stated, he says it when he feels prepared. He provides, “No matter I really feel at present that I ought to say, I say it. There are some issues which might be very private and can’t be stated, so I will not say these issues. However I do not assume, ‘I am going to preserve this for the long run and inform it later.’
In the end, he doesn’t need listeners to stroll away from Uns with a prescribed message. He merely desires them to search out one thing of themselves in it. “There is not something particular. I would like folks to expertise it and discover themselves someplace in it, if they will. I assume they’ll discover themselves in it,” he concludes.
And maybe that’s the easiest method to perceive Uns: it’s Bharat’s story, however he leaves sufficient area for it to change into another person’s too.