In
Gustaakh
Ishq,
longing
has
a
specific
sound
and
it
was
thus
that
Academy
Award-winning
sound
designer
Resul
Pookutty
was
brought
onto
the
film
early
in
pre-production.
His
mandate
was
unusually
difficult,
to
evoke
yearning
without
depending
on
background
score
or
conventional
cues.
The
swelling
violins
or
cascading
piano
lines
had
to
be
debunked
to
just
weave
the
world
Pookutty
describes
it
as
one
of
the
most
delicate
challenges
of
his
career.
“Vibhu
(Puri,
director)
told
me,
‘I
want
the
sound
to
ache,
not
speak.’ That’s
a
beautiful
brief,
but
also
a
terrifying
one.
You
can’t
hide
behind
music.
Everyday
things
become
a
part
of
the
emotional
grammar.”
The
idea
was
to
externalise
the
inner
state
of
the
characters.
Instead
of
leaning
on
dialogue,
Pookutty
constructed
a
minimalist
palette
of
ambient
cues
–
from
the
slow
creak
of
an
old
wooden
door,
the
uneven
sound
of
a
passing
horse
carriage,
the
soft
echo
of
a
distant
azaan
drifting
over
rooftops
at
dawn.
“These
sounds
carry
memory
of
people
and
we
tapped
into
that,” Pookutty
explains.
Pookutty
and
director
Vibhu
Puri
worked
scene
by
scene,
stripping
away
anything
that
felt
decorative.
The
result
is
a
BGM
and
sound
that
sits
almost
invisibly
under
the
film,
shaping
mood
without
ever
drawing
attention
to
itself.
“To
create
the
tonal
quality
of
longing,
we
embedded
these
subtly
under
natural
ambiences
so
the
audience
experiences
a
physical
pull
without
realising
why
The
creaking
door,
for
example,
was
layered
with
three
different
recordings.
When
combined,
it
behaves
almost
like
a
sigh.
The
trick
was
to
keep
it
organic
enough.
The
azaan
was
treated
with
a
reverb
based
on
the
acoustics
of
Old
Delhi
courtyards.
Longing
is
a
very
fragile
emotion
so
it
had
to
sound
a
certain
way.”
Gustaakh
Ishq,
produced
by
Manish
Malhotra
and
Dinesh
Malhotra
under
Stage5
Production,
is
headlined
by
Fatima
Sana
Shaikh,
Vijay
Varma
Naseeruddin
Shah
and
Sharib
Hashmi
and
releases
28
November
2025.