इश्क जैसा कुछ

Ishq Jaisa Kuch (इश्क जैसा कुछ) is the second single from Siddharth Anand's Fighter (2024), composed by Vishal-Shekhar and sung by Vishal Dadlani, Shekhar Ravjiani, Shilpa Rao and Mellow D, with lyrics by Kumaar. Released on 22 December 2023, a month ahead of the film, its Sardinia-shot music video and viral Hrithik Roshan-Deepika Padukone hook step turned it into one of early-2024's most recreated Bollywood dance moments, peaking at No. 16 on the Billboard India Songs chart and earning Shilpa Rao an IIFA nomination.

Composed by Vishal-Shekhar (Vishal Dadlani and Shekhar Ravjiani), who also lend their own voices to the track alongside Shilpa Rao and rapper-singer Mellow D, Ishq Jaisa Kuch blends dance-pop production with Western classical and soft-rock textures. It was recorded at Future Sound of Bombay in Mumbai between 2022 and 2023, produced by Abhijit Nalani, with Eric Pillai mixing and Rhythm Shaw on guitar. The four-voice arrangement — two composer-singers trading lines with a female lead and a rap interlude — gives the track its layered, celebratory build, engineered for a big hook-step moment rather than a quiet ballad.

Kumaar's lyrics (with Mellow D credited on the rap verse by several lyric platforms) circle a single, deliberately imprecise phrase — 'ishq jaisa kuch,' something like love — to capture the disbelief of a feeling too new to be named yet. The song opens not with the hook but with a quieter admission: 'Jab saath hote hain, jaage saari raat hote hain, sapne tere aayenge kaise ye' (When we're together, we stay up all night — how will your dreams even come). It is a lyric built for a generation that reaches for 'kuch' (something) before it reaches for 'pyaar' (love).

Ishq Jaisa Kuch was released on 22 December 2023 as the second single from Siddharth Anand's Fighter, a month ahead of the film's 25 January 2024 release. The picturisation, choreographed by Bosco-Caesar, was shot at Phi Beach on the Italian island of Sardinia in September 2023, with Hrithik Roshan and Deepika Padukone — reuniting after Bang Bang! (2014) — cast opposite each other, while Anil Kapoor, Karan Singh Grover and Akshay Oberoi round out the film's cast. The video's hook step, danced by Roshan and Padukone, was widely imitated online and became one of the song's biggest talking points independent of the film itself, which chronicles the Balakot airstrike-era India-Pakistan aerial conflict.

The song peaked at No. 16 on the Billboard India Songs chart and reached No. 79 on the UK Official Video Streaming Chart, and its 'Full Video' alone has drawn tens of millions of YouTube views. Shilpa Rao's vocal earned her a Best Female Playback Singer nomination at the 25th IIFA Awards (2025). Beyond the numbers, Ishq Jaisa Kuch is remembered chiefly as a hook-step song — proof that in the short-form video era, a film's soundtrack can go viral on the strength of a few bars of choreography as much as the melody itself.