It was 20 years ago when two young dreamers gave Hindi cinema one of its biggest musical hits — Tum Bin. The romantic film marked the successful debut of the film’s writer-director Anubhav Sinha and producer Bhushan Kumar of T-Series. The film featured Priyanshu Chatterjee, Sandali Sinha, Raqesh Bapat and Himanshu Malik. From trusting and supporting each other’s dreams 20 years ago to banking on each other’s strengths to create content-driven cinema today, their association has become stronger.

After Tum Bin, Bhushan Kumar and Anubhav Sinha collaborated on films like Aapko Pehle Bhi Kahin Dekha Hai and Tum Bin 2 to the recent Thappad, which was appreciated by critics and audience. Their forthcoming films include Anek and Hansal Mehta’s directorial.

Tum Bin’s music broke records instantly. The songs, composed by Nikhil-Vinay and written by Faaiz Anwar, not only became instant hits then, but top several playlists even today. Bhushan Kumar says, “This feels surreal. From taking ahead my father’s vision to today producing films and continuing the main goal of T-Series as a music label, my team and I are grateful to God for a successful 20 years. Tum Bin will always remain special to me. I trust Anubhav’s vision and his faith in me helped us make a film and music that broke records. I am glad we are working together even today and giving our audience films that they will love.”

Anubhav Sinha says, “I remember it was early 2000 when I was shooting a music video for T-Series at 3 am, and Bhushan called me. He asked me, ‘Sir shall we make a film?’ Eighteen months later, we released one. Looking at the crowd thronging the box office, our Mumbai distributor, Vimal Agarwal, with all his experience, said, ‘Sir, yeh toh opening lag gayi apni’. That was Tum Bin. Bhushan and I didn’t know that night that one day we would celebrate the 20th anniversary of the film. That was the beginning of a relationship with Bhushan, which has reached a stage where none of us can instantly answer how many films we are doing together today. Thank you, Bhushan for the break and everything thereafter.”