The song brings back the Aashiq Banaya Aapne pairing of actor, composer and director two decades on, ahead of the film's November 27 release.
Twenty-odd years after Aashiq Banaya Aapne turned Emraan Hashmi into Bollywood's kissing-scene poster boy, the same three names are back together. Emraan, composer-singer Himesh Reshammiya and director Aditya Datt have reunited for Gunmaaster G9, and the first song from the film, 'Afsaana Banaaya Aapne', drops Wednesday, September 23.
The track features Emraan opposite Genelia Deshmukh, with Himesh handling both composition and vocals. It's not a one-off pairing. Emraan and Himesh go back to Aashiq Banaya Aapne, Aksar and Dil Diya Hai, films that defined a whole stretch of mid-2000s Bollywood music. Datt directed Aashiq Banaya Aapne too, so this is less a reunion and more a full reassembly of the old unit.
Emraan announced the song himself, posting a teaser on Instagram with a caption that leaned hard into nostalgia and noise: "THE FIRST BEAT HITS TOMORROW. 🔥 #AfsaanaBanaayaAapne, the first song from #GunmaasterG9, is OUT TOMORROW. A Himesh Reshammiya Musical. Romance. Music. Action. Get ready for an Afsaana that brings all three together. In cinemas 27th November 2026. #Gunmaaster #G9."
That teaser had already given away a glimpse of the track, so Wednesday's release is really the full unveiling rather than a surprise.
Gunmaaster G9 itself is being sold as a mix of romance and action, with Aparshakti Khurana rounding out the principal cast alongside Emraan and Genelia. Deepak Mukut, Hunar Mukut and Sangeeta Ahir are producing.
What's interesting here is the bet the makers are making. Himesh's musicals from that era worked because the songs did the heavy lifting, sometimes more than the plot. Putting his name on the soundtrack, and putting it front and centre in the marketing, is a signal that Gunmaaster G9 wants to sell itself the same way those films did. Whether audiences in 2026 respond to that formula the way they did in 2005 is the actual question, and one song won't answer it.
The film has a November 27 release date locked in, which gives the marketing team roughly two months to build momentum off this one track. Expect more songs before then, and probably a trailer that leans just as hard on the Emraan-Himesh history as this Instagram post did.
For now, the only confirmed thing is Wednesday's release. Everything else, including how the film actually turns out, waits till the last Friday of November.
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