This morning, I was struck by a strange mix of nostalgia and discomfort.
I was looking for a song to learn next for my music practice — something classic, something rich. This one came to mind almost instinctively. I pulled it up and played it while driving to work. The first time, I was taken in by the melody — smooth, haunting, effortless. The second time, I tuned into the rhythm, let the beat guide my breath, and my mind began to slow. That’s when the lyrics started to really land. Not just as words, but as a story. By the third listen, I found myself reaching for the brakes — not just on the road, but in my thinking.
I was listening to a beautiful old Hindi film song from the movie Aa Gale Lag Jaa, sung by Kishore Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar, composed by R.D. Burman, and penned by Sahir Ludhianvi. It’s a classic—melodic, romantic, unforgettable. What had felt like a love song was suddenly revealing something else entirely.
There it was again—the quiet pressure women face to comply, to not stand out, to be flattered by persistence that skirts the line of consent.
We often talk about grand gestures and big statements when we talk about sexism. But more often, it's the small things—the offhanded comment, the romantic line, the unchallenged image—that shape how gender roles are understood and reinforced.
A song lyric. A joke. A look. Each of these things, taken alone, might feel harmless. But they build a narrative over time, one that tells women to be desirable but not assertive, to be flattered by pursuit but not too eager, to accept their role in someone else's story. In this case, it is the lyrics that tell the story.
“Mere hi peeche aakhir pade ho tum kyun
Ek main jawan nahi hoon aur bhi to hain”
She’s asking a fair question. But the response isn’t to respect her boundary—it's to brush past it:
“Jawan kayi hai, lekin jahan mein koyi
Tum sa haseen nahi hai, hum kya karein”
He flatters. He presses on. He refuses to back off.
“Chhuo nahi dekho zara peeche rakho hath”
She’s clearly uncomfortable. But even then, the romantic tone never falters. The melody stays soft, the mood stays playful—as if her protest is just part of the game.
Then comes “Kisi ka to dena hoga, dedo mera sath.”
This is the most direct admission of the power play. He knows there’s resistance. He knows she hasn’t agreed. But instead of accepting that, he frames submission as inevitable. He reframes consent not as mutual choice, but as something he’s owed.
That’s not love. That’s coercion with a poetic twist.
Imagine the process now: I’m not just listening to the song — I’m learning it. I write the lyrics out by hand, line by line. I break each phrase into its rhythmic pattern, figure out the notations, and repeat the notes until they fall into place, in pitch and in beat. It’s a deeply focused, almost meditative practice. But here’s the thing — while the conscious mind is busy with scales and timing, the unconscious is listening too. The meaning seeps in. Line by line, the story becomes muscle memory. The act of learning turns into an act of internalizing. And without realizing it, I’m not just singing the melody — I’m echoing the message.
I don’t believe this song was written with any malice. These artists were brilliant and well-intentioned. But the effect remains: it normalizes a version of romance where women say no, men don’t listen, and persistence equals passion.
We are taught to see her resistance as coyness, his persistence as charm.
This isn’t about one song. It’s about the culture that shaped—and was shaped by—hundreds of songs, films, and stories like it. These portrayals taught men to chase, to wear women down. They taught women to accept pursuit, even when it feels invasive and to doubt their discomfort.
It’s tempting to shrug this off as just a song from a different era. A harmless relic of old-school charm. I doubt that though. If I’m listening to it many years later, if I’m drawn to learn it, rehearse it, embody it — then it’s not just nostalgia. It’s alive. It still holds emotional power, artistic value, and cultural weight. That’s precisely why it matters. Songs like this don’t just live in the past — they live in us, especially when we choose to revisit and recreate them. And if something stays alive that long, we owe it a deeper look. Because what we sing, we carry.
Songs like these are in fact scripts. For many, they were the emotional education of love. And in that education, women were taught to be flattered by pursuit and hesitant to say what they want, while men were taught that a “no” might mean “try harder.”
When girls see this repeated, they internalize that being wanted matters more than being respected. When boys see this, they learn that not taking no for an answer makes them heroic.
It’s easy to say, “Now that you know the meaning is troubling, just compartmentalise. Use the song for music practice — separate the art from the message.” But how does one actually do that? When you’re learning a song, you’re not just skimming its surface — you’re inhabiting it. You’re breathing its rhythm, shaping its emotion, giving voice to its words over and over until they settle into your body. It’s not passive consumption; it’s embodiment. And when the meaning grates against your values, it’s not so simple to shut that part out. You can’t sing with conviction and distance at the same time. The music demands presence — but presence invites absorption. So no, compartmentalising isn’t easy. It’s a negotiation — one that deserves to be acknowledged, not brushed aside.
Does meaning matter? Absolutely! These messages may be subtle, but their influence is profound. Because they don’t scream—they whisper. They tell us who we’re supposed to be. And unless we notice them, we end up absorbing them. Because when we absorb these narratives over and over, they teach us that persistence is romantic, boundaries are negotiable, and love is something to be earned by wearing someone down.
It matters because when we wrap a dangerous message in a beautiful melody, it becomes hard to question. We teach people to associate dominance with desire, pressure with passion, and emotional manipulation with romance.
The way we challenge these norms is by paying attention. By asking: Why wouldn’t she want to stand out? Why is his insistence treated as love? By seeing the difference between affection and erasure.
Subtle misogyny is harder to challenge than its louder cousin. It’s not a shout — it’s a murmur in a song. It lives in the grey areas: in lyrics we love, characters we root for, scenes we quote. It’s what we absorb when we’re not looking. That’s why it sticks.
The woman in the song spoke up. But the story didn’t make space for her voice — only for his desire.
We can love the music. We can honour the artistry. But we also need to notice what’s being said — and what’s being ignored.
It’s time we start hearing these songs differently — not to cancel them, but to learn from them. To sing with our eyes open. It's about learning to hear them differently. Appreciating the melody while questioning the message. And making space for new stories—where women are not just recipients of desire, but authors of it.
Because in the end, small things add up. And so do the small steps we take to see them more clearly.
