With his trademark soft pop songs Prateek Kuhad has solidified his status as India’s most popular independent singer-songwriter. With his latest “break-up album”, cold/mess, Kuhad is bound to win more fans.

The official video for cold/mess, one of the songs on the eponymous album, was released on Thursday. It stars Jim Sarbh and Zoya Hussain as a couple in a relationship that develops cracks over time. Written and directed by Dar Gai, the music video plays almost like a short film and captures – both literally and metaphorically – happier times seen by the couple and the insecurities that begin to set in as they venture deeper into the waters.

“It’s the first image that came to me – of two people kissing underwater,” Kuhad told GQ in an interview about the album. “It’s the central point of the whole record, that relationships can be suffocating, and when they get to that point, it’s agonising.”