Arko Pravo Mukherji on less work for women singers: It is not a gender issue

It is no longer a secret that the number of songs sung by women in Bollywood is decreasing. While many have said that music directors should rope in more female singers in films, composer Arko Pravo Mukherjee thinks that blaming composers for the trend would not be right.

“I honestly think that composers shouldn’t be blamed for this. I am not composing for anyone but the feeling of the song. In other words, I don’t care if the song will be sung by a man or a woman. I care whether the song justifies the feeling that’s being portrayed in the film at that point,” says Arko, who also adds that for every male solo song, he also adds a female solo version of the same song. Case in point: Jogi (Shaadi Mein Zaroor Aana; 2017) sung by Shafqat Amanat Ali and another version by Akanksha Sharma.

“You can look at the way I go about doing things. If I make a song that will be sung by a man, I make a similar version for the woman as well. Again, it’s not because I feel that ‘Oh! A guy has sung the song and a female should sing it too.’ For me, it is how different the song becomes when sung by the opposite gender. I want to explore different emotions with that song and that’s why I have different versions,” clarifies the composer known for hits such as Nazm Nazm (Bareilly Ki Barfi; 2017), Maula (Jism 2; 2012), and Tere Sang Yaara (Rustom; 2016)

The 34-year-old also feels that this is not a gender debate. “Honestly, I don’t think it’s a gender issue. I wouldn’t be able to tell the reason why it’s happening, but I don’t think gender is the issue. If it was, then you wouldn’t have Kailash Kher singing Teri Deewani or Rekha Bharadwaj singing Kabira (Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani; 2013). There have been so many amazing songs like these, and gender doesn’t matter really,” he says.

Adding that the reason behind the trend cannot be the quality of singers, he says, “I don’t think that they (current crop of women singers in the industry) are bad. I think some of them, such as Sunidhi Chauhan or Shreya Ghosal, have done some amazing work, and it won’t be right to say that they aren’t getting more songs because they are bad.”

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