International Women's Day 2022: Songs that celebrate womanhood

'Main kamsin hoon nadaan hoon' (Ayee Milan Ki Bela ) to 'Chori chori solah sringar karungi' (Manoranjan) to the anthemic Barbra Streisand-Donna Summer duet 'No More Tears', popular songs in India and in the West have never fallen short of words and tunes to celebrate womanhood.

'Aurat ne janam diya mardon ko' (Sadhana, 1958)

'Aurat ne janam diya mardon ko, mardon ne ussey bazaar diya/Jab jee chaha masla kuchla, jab jee chaaha dhutkar diya/Mardo ne banayee jo rasme, unko haq kaa farmaankaha/Aurat ke zinda jalane ko, kurbaanee aur balidaan kaha/Kismat ke badle roti dee, aur usko bhee ehsaan kaha/aurat ne janam diya mardon ko…..’

Sahir Ludhianvi’s hardhitting lucid words on the status accorded to women in our society ring true to this day. No better homage to the spirit of womanhood crushed by the rites of patriarchy has ever been written. The incandescent Vyjanthimala who lip-synced Lataji’s voice in the film says, “It is one of my proudest moments as an actress, to have such a great song about womanhood. Sahir saab’s words were like hammered inscriptions in rock. This is a song I am most closely identified with. No one but Lataji could have sung it.”

'I Am Woman' by Helen Reddy

An anthemic song I love that has become associated with women’s movements all across the world. Helen Reddy’s songs, not just the anthemic ‘I Am Woman’ but all her hits that I grew up humming along with that enchantingly rasping voice. To my generation, Helen Reddy is THE WOMAN. Helen Reddy epitomiSed the woman’s voice in the rock n roll movement at a time when women were welcomed into the Billboards chart only if they wore leather jackets and spiked boots. Helen Reddy arrived in  New York from Australia with just her little daughter and big dreams. This is the story of her rise to supreme fame, her iconic position in the world of pop music after she sang her way into the halls of fame and feminism with the anthemic ‘I Am Woman’.

'Main Kamzor Aurat Yeh Meri Kahani' (Prem Granth, 1996)

The film is gorgeous to look at, especially the way the song 'Main kamzor aurat' is shot like a dreamscape paint-splashed with the nightmarish vision of what a woman on her own must go through in a patriarchal society. Director Rajiv Kapoor invited his father’s Bobby and Prem Rog composer Laxmikant-Pyarelal to do the music in Prem Granth. He also asked Raj Saab’s muse Lata Mangeshkar to sing just one more time for the illustrious RK Banner.  The theme song 'Main kamzor aurat yeh meri kahaani mere aansooon se hai ganga main pani 'remains an epic in itself. Magnificently worded (Anand Bakshi), composed and rendered, the song is a colossal achievement, and evidence of how closely Rajiv was affiliated to his father’s vision.

Bakshi Saab’s words hammer in the theme of exploited womanhood:  “Naseebon ne aurat ko samjha khilona, Zamanein ne aurat ko samjha  bichona/ Yehi to hua hai yehi to hai  hona/Nahin reet  badli yeh sadiyon purani/Mere aansoo-on se   hai Ganga ka pani.” Nothing has changed for the disempowered woman in our country since Lataji sang 'Aurat ne janam diya mardon ko' in 1958.

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.

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