AR Rahman arrived in Bollywood in the nineties. It was our own fin-de-siecle. Newspapers were flush with terms like “bold scenes” and “metrosexual”. Celebrities were still at the mercy of gossip and scandal. MTV and remixes were all set to rock our world. And suddenly, there was this hunger for something that felt like mended dreams and rebellion.
All of it that you would describe as a sonic shift. Even though I was a little boy, the widespread hunger for something edgier, something more textured and something less pristine, pierced through my little boy consciousness. Somewhere, Urmila Matondkar in a swimsuit, strutting to Tanha Tanha, still conveyed to my mind that this was something new.
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Asha Bhosle was Bollywood’s first true rockstar. To the millennial, she was our first link to the golden age of film music that we grow evermore nostalgic with each passing day now. In Raat Shabnami, she epitomised an experienced older lover confident in her passion for us, the fortunate loved subject she was serenading with a rich orchestra in the backdrop. We felt desired, we felt involved.
The unapologetic forwardness of an Asha Bhosle song, with the grainy vocals she made entirely her own, made it nearly impossible to imagine in another’s voice. She had whispered desire into the imagination with Piya Tu Ab Toh Aaja—but in her voice, its seduction gained control and rose to a dictating-terms level. Of course, she injected Aao Huzoor Tumko with a sensory intoxication but in her style, its singing received a consciousness of performance. In Yeh Mera Dil Yaar Ka Diwana, she played with a winking, vaudeville sensibility. Who knew intimacy could ache until they heard In Aankhon Ki Masti and its singer’s characteristic lingering over each word of the lyrics? To this day, the part in Sharara listeners most wait for is “shola… hai yeh tann mera, arrey dekho tum paas na aana” (my body is burning embers—watch out, do not come closer), where Bhosle’s voice performs provocation with an ironic coyness.
In short, Bhosle brought playback to the foreground with her choice of the way she sang a song. To the millennial mind, which would eventually be so accosted with deliberateness and emotions like guilt and shame, which come rushing only because they were taught to participate in them with a vengeance, being sung to felt like visibility. With her, our music involved us, our music reciprocated us. A 67-year-old telling us
Kambakht ishq hai jo, saara jahaan hai woh (this damned love)
Kab aata hai, Kab jaata hai (can’t say when it arrives and then leaves)
Par rehta hai jab tak yeh kambakht, jannat dikhaata hai (but when it exists, it raises you to heaven)
felt liberating in a way that even indie pop and Alisha Chinai hadn’t. Loud and layered in a way many Bollywood songs from the era weren’t, Kambakht Ishq’s inherent aggression gave a sound to our own angst. The explosive vocalisation of “kambakht ishq” flowed into a mellow build-up and settled into the knowing detachment of “jannat dikhaata hai”, complemented superbly by her famous soulful low notes. It was a roaring admission that love may be a mirage, but it is worth one’s while.
In 1999, longing received a been-there, done-that passion in Kahin Aag Lage Lag Jaaye, the intense, high-energy dance number in Taal. In the song, which talks about disillusionment with love after heartbreak, Bhosle brought the authority of someone who had actually lived it, using rude awakenings to carve a new definition of a triumphant sort of female torment. Because it had to come from a singer who once vocalised vulnerable love with a sunshine youthfulness, in songs such as Puchho Na Yaar Kya Hua, Yeh Vaada Raha and Dillagi Ne Di Hawa.
Some research reveals that Bhosle’s voice would sit in a zone called the mezzo-soprano. It was a distinction that made her especially suited to voice complicated, worldly or even villainous emotions. How else would Dum Maaro Dum gain its anthemic hum? How else would the Arabic refrains of Khatouba—which, as entertainment outlets will confirm, was improvised at the last minute—become unmistakable for decades to come? Oh, how would Mujhe Naulakha Manga De Re rise above simple female want, to become arch and unproblematically transactional?
We millennials were the first outsiders to become acquainted with the offbeat zaniness of such music. And it was all thanks to Asha Bhosle, the undisputed baddie of Bollywood film music for our porous, bleeding generation. Today, when the world is without her knowing and comforting voice reminding some that love is worth while despite the heartbreak, and others, that no other calamity is quite as painful as heartbreak—we can proudly know that we were the first to truly ‘vibe’ with her. She was born earlier, but she grew up with us.