Two hundred takes. That's the number doing the rounds for how many times Arijit Singh sang Jai Jai Ram before anyone called it a wrap.

A source told Pinkvilla that Singh got completely absorbed in the devotion of the track, running through take after take, chasing something in the feeling rather than the notes. At some point, per the source, he stopped worrying about technique altogether and just surrendered to it. Whether the number is exactly 200 or a round figure someone's using to make a point, nobody outside the studio can confirm. But the story fits a singer who's built a career on sounding like he means it.

Jai Jai Ram came out on Ganesh Chaturthi, the makers' way of using a festival date to put Ramayana back in the conversation. It's sung by Singh and Shreya Ghoshal, composed by AR Rahman, with words by Dr Kumar Vishwas. The track gives audiences their first proper look at Ranbir Kapoor as Rama and Sai Pallavi as Sita, and going by the reactions since, it's done its job of building anticipation for the film itself.

Ramayana is Nitesh Tiwari's version of the epic, produced by Namit Malhotra, and it's coming as two instalments rather than one film. Part one lands in theatres worldwide on November 6, with the story spilling into a second chapter across Diwali 2026 and 2027. Yash plays Ravana opposite Kapoor's Rama, Sunny Deol is Hanuman, and Ravi Dubey plays Lakshmana. The supporting cast is stacked: Arun Govil, Lara Dutta, Kajal Aggarwal, Rakul Preet Singh and Vivek Oberoi all show up in key roles, which tells you how much this production is banking on scale to go with the mythology.

For Kapoor, this is one of two big-ticket releases stacking up back to back. He's also got Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Love & War, co-starring Alia Bhatt and Vicky Kaushal, with the shoot having wrapped recently. That one's slated for January 21, 2027, which means Kapoor is looking at a stretch where he's on screen as a mythological king and then, within months, in a Bhansali period drama. Not a bad problem to have if both land.

What happens next is simple enough on paper. Ramayana needs its November 6 date to hold, needs the first instalment to justify the two-part structure, and needs Jai Jai Ram to be the kind of song that still gets played once the film's actually out. Two hundred takes or twenty, that last part is the only number that'll matter by Diwali.