Photo: Free Press Journal
Taaruk Raina almost didn't pursue music at all. "I always wanted to pursue music, but I just thought the dream was too big," he's said. So he became an actor first — an assistant director on a Yash Raj Films production, then a working actor across streaming shows and films. Music found its way back in anyway, through the side door: a theme song he wrote for his own character on a Netflix show, which became a hit before he'd released a single note of music under his own name.
That song was "Kho Gaye." It's since crossed 200 million Spotify streams. His Instagram bio sums up the persona that grew out of it in four words: "Happy thoughts, sad songs." This is how an actor who thought music was too big a dream ended up on Rolling Stone India's Future 25 for exactly that music.
Key takeaways
- Taaruk Raina has been singing since age 6, self-taught via YouTube, and worked as an assistant director on Yash Raj Films' "Befikre" (2015) before his acting career took off
- He plays Anmol Malhotra in Netflix's "Mismatched," and wrote the character's theme song "Main Chala" for Season 1 before composing "Kho Gaye" for Season 2 — a song that has since crossed 200 million Spotify streams and landed on Apple Music's Top 100: India chart
- His debut independent single "Narazi" (January 2023), also starring actress Tanya Maniktala, took three years to write with collaborator Charan and has crossed 18 million Spotify streams
- He's continued releasing music (including "Lost and Found," 2024) alongside acting roles in "Sharmaji Namkeen," "Songs of Paradise," and the Kargil War series "Operation Safed Sagar," while "Mismatched" has been renewed through a fourth and final season
- He was named to Rolling Stone India's Future 25 in 2025, described as the "honorary sadboi of the indie pop scene"
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The Starting Point: A Dream He Thought Was Too Big
Taaruk Raina has been singing since he was 6 years old, raised on a genuinely wide mix of rock, rap, heavy metal, and ghazals, and singing in his school choir. Without formal technical training, he taught himself via YouTube and eventually started performing gigs at bars and weddings — the unglamorous, foundational work most working musicians do before anyone outside their circle notices.
Acting came first as a career, not as a preference. In 2015, he worked as an assistant director to Aditya Chopra on Yash Raj Films' "Befikre." He performed in theatre — including the lead role in an Indian adaptation of Disney's "Aladdin," singing iconic numbers live in front of an audience — before making his film debut in "High Jack" (2018) as Parth. It's a path that put him in front of audiences as a performer well before he built any profile as a musician in his own right.
When Acting and Music Collided
The turning point came through "Mismatched," Netflix's teen romantic drama, where Raina plays Anmol Malhotra starting with Season 1 in November 2020. He didn't just act in the role — he wrote his character's theme song, "Main Chala," a rare instance of an actor's own songwriting becoming part of a show's actual soundtrack rather than a separate side project. That same year, he released "Sukoon," his first single, featuring Aisha Ahmed.
He's been direct about how the two disciplines reinforce each other rather than compete: "For me acting and singing are inseparable... I love both so much," he's said, adding that the emotional demands of acting carry over directly into songwriting: "What acting does help with is amplifying the emotion. [As actors], we're constantly juggling between emotions."
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"Kho Gaye": A Song Written on Set
"Kho Gaye," the song that changed the trajectory of his music career, wasn't planned as a single. Raina wrote it on guitar for director Akarsh Khurana during the Season 1 shoot in Jodhpur — it sat unreleased for roughly seven months before being developed further with co-writer Himonshu Parikh and members of the band The Yellow Diary, then released as part of the "Mismatched" Season 2 soundtrack in October 2022. "It became a very emotional experience for me," he's said of the process. "Everything just fell in place."
The track reached Apple Music's Top 100: India chart — a genuinely rare crossover for a song that began life as incidental music for a streaming show rather than a deliberate music-career move.
Photo: Bollywood Hungama, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)
Narazi: Going Independent
"Kho Gaye"'s success gave Raina the platform to release music entirely on his own terms. "Narazi," his debut independent single, came out in January 2023 — a soulful, emotional track about heartbreak and reconciliation, co-written with longtime collaborator Charan, that he's said took three years to get right. The song's music video also starred actress Tanya Maniktala. Its origin is genuinely personal: he's described writing it from a childhood memory of watching his parents fight.
Taaruk Raina, on his songwriting instinct: "My music can come from anywhere it comes from, as long as it comes." (Rolling Stone India, 2025)
"Narazi" has since crossed 18 million Spotify streams — well past the 10-million milestone that marked its first major moment — and cemented his standing as an artist whose independent work could match the reach of his soundtrack placements.
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Lost and Found and Building a Catalogue
Raina followed with further releases, including "Kaise Banu" and "Kalleyan" (featuring Akasa Singh) in 2023, and "Lost and Found" (featuring Charan) in August 2024, with a video shot during Goa's monsoon season alongside Prajakta Koli. He's described the song's origin with the same casualness that runs through several of his creative stories: "It was just a random thought on a random night, and I created it in an hour."
He's been candid about the emotional function his songwriting serves, distinct from acting: "Everything I write is from a personal experience. My songs are the only place I just let it out." And he's said plainly that his artistic direction is shifting deliberately: "I'm trying to make happier music because I want to be a happier person."
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Screen and Song, Side by Side
Raina's acting career has run in parallel the whole time. He played Rishi Kapoor's son, Vinayak "Vincy" Sharma, in "Sharmaji Namkeen" (2022) — one of the veteran actor's final film roles. In 2025, he appeared in Amazon Prime's "Songs of Paradise" as "Rumi," and "Mismatched" has been renewed for a fourth and final season, making it one of the longest-running Indian Netflix Original series. He's also set to appear in "Operation Safed Sagar," a Netflix limited series about the Kargil War — the same 2026 production whose score was co-composed by fellow musician Siddharth Pandit, another name on this same Future 25 list.
He's honest about the discipline that dual careers demand: "I don't take pressure since I do both things out of joy," he's said, while also acknowledging the grind of sustained TV work specifically: "It is one of the hardest things to have regular work... You kind of grow with the show." That combination — acting and music treated as genuinely inseparable rather than one subsidizing the other — earned him a spot on Rolling Stone India's Future 25 in 2025, with a tagline that fits his Instagram bio almost too well: the "honorary sadboi of the indie pop scene."
What Other Multi-Hyphenate Artists Can Take From Taaruk Raina's Approach
A side project can become the main event. "Kho Gaye" started as incidental music for his own TV character — not a planned single — and it became his most-streamed song. Creative work made without commercial pressure can outperform work built specifically to chart.
Treat parallel careers as reinforcing, not competing. Raina's clearest advantage is that he doesn't frame acting and music as a trade-off — each skill visibly feeds the other, in his own account of how acting sharpens his emotional range for songwriting.
Personal material takes the time it takes. "Narazi" took three years to get right. Raina didn't rush a debut independent single just to capitalize on "Kho Gaye"'s momentum, and the song's specificity — drawn from a real childhood memory — is likely why it resonated as strongly as the soundtrack hit that preceded it.
A consistent creative identity is worth protecting. "Happy thoughts, sad songs" isn't just a bio line — it's a genuinely accurate description of his catalogue, and that consistency is part of what makes an audience trust an artist working across two mediums at once.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Taaruk Raina?
Taaruk Raina is an Indian actor and musician, best known for playing Anmol Malhotra in Netflix's "Mismatched" and for songs including "Kho Gaye" and "Narazi." He's been singing since age 6, worked as an assistant director on Yash Raj Films' "Befikre" before his acting career took off, and was named to Rolling Stone India's Future 25 in 2025.
What is "Kho Gaye" about?
"Kho Gaye" is a song Taaruk Raina originally wrote on guitar for director Akarsh Khurana during the Season 1 shoot of "Mismatched," later developed with co-writer Himonshu Parikh and members of the band The Yellow Diary, and released as part of the show's Season 2 soundtrack in October 2022. It has since crossed 200 million Spotify streams and reached Apple Music's Top 100: India chart.
Is Taaruk Raina primarily an actor or a musician?
Both, genuinely. He describes acting and music as inseparable rather than one being a side project to the other — his biggest music moment came directly out of his acting work (writing his own character's theme song), and he continues to actively pursue both careers in parallel.
What is "Narazi" about?
"Narazi," released in January 2023, is Taaruk Raina's debut independent single, written over three years with collaborator Charan. It's a soulful track about heartbreak and reconciliation, drawn from a childhood memory of watching his parents fight, with a music video also starring actress Tanya Maniktala.
What has Taaruk Raina worked on recently?
He appeared in Amazon Prime's "Songs of Paradise" (2025) and is set to appear in the Netflix Kargil War series "Operation Safed Sagar." "Mismatched," in which he plays Anmol Malhotra, has been renewed for a fourth and final season.
Taaruk Raina spent years thinking a music career was too big a dream to chase directly — so he built one sideways, through a song written for his own character that nobody planned to become a hit. Nearly four years and 200 million-plus streams later, "too big a dream" reads less like an accurate assessment and more like a story he tells about a version of himself that no longer applies.
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