Sona Mohapatra has been vocal about several issues in the industry, be it sexism or objectification. She recently spoke out on the Peddi controversy, and called out the lack of female agency in mainstream films in India. In a new conversation talking about the state of the music industry that runs in parallel to the film industry, the singer has now shared how the heartbreak songs are ‘reserved’ for the men, with little space for the female voice.
What Sona said
In a clip that was posted on Sona’s Instagram account, Sona said, “All those heartbreak songs in Bollywood are reserved for the men. Men have heartbreak, men in current times feel love. Because everytime I was called to sing a duet, I somehow have the ending chorus. You must hear this song called Zaalima. It is Arijit [Singh]’s song, and I was called to sing that and I was flabbergasted.”
‘What kind of a duet is this?’
She added, “Because the mukhra, antara, mukhra, antara… all of them were taken up by the man. It is not Arijit’s fault; he is a great artist. But why is the female coming in the end? My question to Pritam was, ‘Is the man making love to himself?’ What kind of a duet is this? Why do I come in the end? This is a literature festival and freedom of speech is something Kerala has protected so widely so I am taking my chances here. The thing is it is nobody’s fault but the system of music in the industry has become so risk averse.”
In the comments section of the same post, Sona continued the conversation. She wrote, “This conversation is about representation. If an industry stops creating iconic female narratives, it will eventually stop creating iconic female stars ? Who cares ? Do we india ? Check the comment section of this reel.”
She added, “The point isn’t that women never sang heartbreak songs. The point is that Bollywood stopped writing enough of them. An industry that gives 80–90% of its biggest romantic and heartbreak narratives to male voices for nearly two decades should not be surprised when it struggles to produce female music stars of equal cultural scale. This is a conversation about systems, not victims. Count the songs. Then let’s talk?”
Zaalima was sung by Arijit Singh and Harshdeep Kaur. The music video of the song is picturised upon actors Shah Rukh Khan and Mahira Khan. It was from the 2017 film Raees.