On November 6, one of the biggest productions in Indian film history opened worldwide on the same day: Part 1 of director Nitesh Tiwari's two-part Ramayana. The music comes from A.R. Rahman and Hans Zimmer. The Indian film-music giant who won an Academy Award for Slumdog Millionaire and the composer of The Lion King, Interstellar and Dune are scoring one epic together. Around October 21, ahead of the release, Super Cassettes Industries (T-Series) put out a five-track soundtrack EP.

The film's Wikipedia page describes this as Zimmer's first full-fledged Indian film. How would a composer at the very center of Hollywood handle one of ancient India's two great epics? For score fans, this pairing has been impossible to ignore since it was announced.

The film: two parts, a combined budget of about ₹4,000 crore

Ranbir Kapoor plays Rama, Sai Pallavi plays Sita, and Yash plays the demon king Ravana. Yash also produces, alongside Namit Malhotra. Sunny Deol plays Hanuman and Ravi Dubey plays Lakshman. VFX are by DNEG, known for the Dune films, which is also credited as a co-producer. The combined budget for both parts, marketing included, is reported at about ₹4,000 crore (around US$420 million), which would make it the most expensive Indian film ever made.

The Indian release was first set for November 8 to line up with Diwali. It was moved two days earlier to November 6, matching the worldwide date. Sony Pictures is distributing in North America. We have not yet been able to confirm any release in Japan.

Line up the EP's five tracks and the division of labor shows

Here is the EP tracklist as reported by Film Music Reporter:

  • Jai Jai Ram (5:20): A.R. Rahman, Shreya Ghoshal, Arijit Singh, Kumar Vishwas
  • Ravana Tandav (3:14): A.R. Rahman, Vishal Dadlani, Kumar Vishwas
  • Sita's Aspiration (2:42): A.R. Rahman, A.R. Ameen and others
  • Jai Jai Ram (Orchestral) (3:02): Hans Zimmer, A.R. Rahman
  • Rama Theme (2:27): Hans Zimmer, A.R. Rahman

The first three tracks are credited to Rahman, with all lyrics by the poet Kumar Vishwas. Each of the main figures, Rama, Ravana and Sita, gets a song of their own. The last two are instrumentals credited jointly to Zimmer and Rahman. Rahman writes the songs and the two co-write the score, a split typical of Indian cinema, and that split is exactly how the EP is sequenced.

What I find most interesting is that "Jai Jai Ram" appears twice, once as a song and once as an orchestral version. Indian films often quote a hit song's melody again and again in the underscore, growing it into the story's main theme. Here the same melody is sung by two of today's top playback singers, Shreya Ghoshal and Arijit Singh, and then comes back in an orchestral version that has passed through Zimmer's hands. Even from just five tracks, you can see Rahman's song working as a leitmotif in the score. In scenes with no singing at all, the audience can still hear the lyrics in their heads. That is the kind of score this is.

"Thirteen iterations to come back to the second": a rollout over a year and a half

The music has been released in stages over a long stretch. A short version of "Ramayana (The Introduction Theme)" came out on July 3, 2025. "Rama Theme" followed as a standalone release in April 2026, and "Jai Jai Ram" arrived on September 14, timed to Ganesh Chaturthi. T-Series reportedly acquired the music rights to both parts in July 2026 for about ₹75 crore. According to Wikipedia, Sanskrit verses were added over the thematic soundscapes Zimmer first wrote.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter India (updated October 27), Rahman talked about how punishing the work was. Sometimes they went through 13 iterations only to come back to the second or first idea. They kept recording while moving between Los Angeles, London, Budapest, Mumbai and Chennai. In the last three months, some nights they slept only three or four hours. The two first met in 2009 through a shared agent, and Rahman says there was "a very friendly vibe" at Zimmer's studio. This is their first collaboration, seventeen years later.

What to listen for: Zimmer's depth and Rahman's melodic turns

Zimmer builds worlds out of low end and the sheer weight of sound, like the desert voices of Dune or the pipe organ of Interstellar. Rahman moves freely between South Indian classical music and electronica, yet always lands on a melody you can hum. On this EP, the biggest pleasure is comparing "Rama Theme" and "Jai Jai Ram (Orchestral)" to hear how those two sensibilities blend.

The story is only half told. In a sense, this EP is the sound of the epic's prologue. How big will the full score turn out to be, and will the film reach Japanese theaters? We will be watching for news.