Playing Her Song
Like most memories, it is a random one. We are standing in the assembly line in school, squeezing in whatever we had to talk about, in those few moments before morning prayer began. “It was raining yesterday and I went out to the balcony to get drenched”, I tell her. “Like Aishwarya in Taal?”, she says immediately.
I don’t know why I remember this, maybe because my best friend had nailed it and I was embarrassed to admit it. Only, I was thinking I was Kajol in Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jaayenge on that balcony. We all led secret inner lives back then, thanks to Hindi cinema, never really admitting, or perhaps realising, the extent to which we took the films we saw seriously.
Growing up, the women we saw on the Hindi film screen sang about love. A lot. Whether they were waiting for love — “Usse kaho kabhi saamne toh aaye”(DDLJ,1995), or singing about how it keeps them up at night — “Jaagte rahein hum toh raat bhar, ek lamha ek pal bhi soyi na nazar” (Barsaat, 1995). Celebrating it — “Ankhiyan milaon kabhi ankhiyan churaun kya tune kiya jadoo”(Raja, 1995). Or of course, lamenting it — “Tujhe yaad na meri aayi, kisi se ab kya kehna”(Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, 1998).
The song was also an excuse to be sensous because it was allowed in the course of the song sequence. “Dhak dhak karne laga”(Beta, 1991) or “Tip Tip barsa pani”(Mohra, 1994) survived into our teenage years, and in our collective memories. We knew them well, even if we did not remember when we first heard or saw them.
In the rest of the songs, the Hindi film heroine would be watched closely, and commented on. The colour of her eyes was sometimes “kathai” (Duplicate, 1998), a word whose meaning had to be asked around in pre-google times. They were also “strawberry aankhein” (Sapnay, 1997), in the weird lost in dubbing manner of many of the very popular songs of this time. In jest, she might have been “Khambe jaise khadi” (Dil, 1990), but eventually she made men swoon “Ladki hai ya hai jadoo, khushboo hai ya nasha” (DDLJ). It was important how she appeared to the world of men — to be jadoo (magic), khusbhoo (fragrance) and nasha (intoxication) all at the same time.
While this is what the heroes sang when they sang about her, the women did not sing about what men looked like to them. Their songs were about what they felt instead. How difficult it is to openly accept or deny that they have fallen in love — “Iqraar karna mushkil hai, inkaar karna mushkil hai, kitna mushkil hai dekho is duniya main dil lagana” (Agni Sakshi,1996). Or even talking about themselves through the man’s gaze like in “Ghoonghat ki aad se dilbar ka deedar adhoora rehta hai” (Hum Hain Rahi Pyaar Ke, 1993). She feels incomplete till her lover sees her — “ Jab take na pade aashiq ki nazar, singaar adhoora rehta hai” — laying bare the problem while also celebrating it. Who watched whom was, therefore, strictly demarcated. Who was supposed to feel more was decided according to gender. It had deep roots, no wonder we find it hard to shake them off.
The songs men sang imagined the women as reluctant. Like yesteryears where she had to be cajoled, even when beautifully expressed like in “Abhi na jao chod ke” (Hum Dono, 1961) , now too she would be the one to say that she had to leave, “Jaati hoon main” (Karan Arjun, 1995), because she was scared — “khud se hi darne lagi hoon”– of herself. This reluctance, which was a way of denying her desire, contradicted what the women sang when they were left alone in the film’s narratives. But perhaps this was part of their charm. The songs gave us enough mixed signals and confusions to get along with all of us.
There were exceptions to the rules. In “Rangeela re”(Rangeela, 1995), Urmila joined a small range of heroines before her — starting from Waheeda Rehman in Guide’s “Aaj phir jeene ki tamanna hai” — who were singing of something other than their relationship to men. Sapnay might have been about taming Kajol’s character, but what we remembered was her singing “Aawara Bhanware jo haule haule gaayein”. And Manisha Koirala singing “Aaj main upar, aasmaan neeche”(Khamoshi,1996) brought a bounce to the day anytime.
When you hear a song, who is to say who relates to what, and what it evokes in you. Who is to say we only related to the female voices? Or that men only related to what male heroes and singers sang? In the times that we were growing up in, for some of us, “Papa kehte hain bada naam karega” (Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, 1988) could have easily been our song irrespective of our gender. It did not really register at that time that the song is clear that it is talking only of fathers, and sons — “Beta hamara aisa kaam karega” / My “son” will do something big.
But did it really not?
Because even with us making songs our own, interpreting them in our own ways, which we did all the time, there were ideas which stayed. And have stayed over the years. It is a win for the patriarchy in Hindi cinema of that time, for instance, that when we watched Saif Ali Khan sing “Dil main tere haan hai haan hai, hoton pe na na hai jhoot” (Hamesha,1997) for Kajol’s “Neela Duppata Peela Suit”, we knew that he could only be talking about a woman. She is saying no, but her heart actually says yes. Hindi cinema had taught us well.
A version of this piece was published in The Hindu— http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-fridayreview/Playing-her-song/article14993836.ece
