The Soundtrack of Becoming: On Loving Asha Bhosle

Growing up in a family mad about Bollywood songs, one realises that their life has been blessed with a soundtrack. Whenever core memories replay themselves in the brain, there is an accompanying soundtrack, one that is rather hard to mute. Growing up in the 80s and 90s, but with my musical tastes inspired by my grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts and cousins, I found myself appreciating the playback singing legends of their times as much as a reasonable dose of kitsch from my own times.

Asha Bhosle stands out because she was always there, with her limitless capacity to excite all those who loved a little bit of mischief, most often toeing the line between what was acceptable in decent society, bordering on scandalous, but so much fun. There was something deliciously subversive about her voice. It invited you in, made you complicit, and left you slightly more alive than you were before.

My first memory of falling in love with one of her songs was during a summer vacation at my grandparents’, when my uncle played the vinyl of Zamaane Ko Dikhaana Hai. I was not more than three or four years old, but I remember running, jumping, skipping and hopping around the bed in circles for the entire length of the album. That was the start of a love affair with this charming, beckoning, playful singer who went on to help me come of age at every major juncture of my life.

The length, breadth and depth of her talent is something everyone knows about. Her initial discography was a list of “vulgar” songs rejected by the more prestigious singers, Lata Mangeshkar and Geeta Dutt. That she broke out of her classical mould, constantly discovering new sounds and bringing different flavours into her singing, is now common knowledge. The way she made mistakes in her personal life, owned them, and reinvented herself every single time is reflected even in her career and the people who saw her talent more than the noise around her—OP Nayyar, RD Burman, Khayyam.

She has been the voice that has led to the sexual awakening of so many young women over so many generations. Listening to her go “maine hothon se lagayi to hungama ho gaya” and enjoying it felt like slapping patriarchy in the face. “Tanha tanha”, shot on a secluded, open beach, in full public view, felt like a private experience—sexy, inviting, chic—nothing a good, decent girl should sound like, let alone a 62-year-old widow in India, barely two years after her husband’s death. “Ye hai reshmi zulfon ka andhera, ” "aao huzoor tumko" and “raat akeli hai” remain, to me, the ultimate songs of seduction with equal parts restraint and abandon.

And then there are the quieter lessons. “Katra katra” taught me to enjoy the small joys that life offers in unpredictable ways. “Achha ji main haari chalo maan jao na” and "zara haule haule chalo more saajna" became, over time, a lesson in navigating the gentle negotiations of love and ego in relationships.

I truly began to listen to and understand the songs of Ijaazat when I felt stuck in my first serious relationship. Those songs held space for confusion, longing, tenderness, and the quiet ache of love that doesn’t always resolve neatly. Like so much of her work, they arrived in my life exactly when I needed them.

As a teenaged schoolgirl, I watched an interview of hers on television where she sang a single line in Hindi in different ways to demonstrate the many emotions it could evoke. As a fledgling singer, I knew it was rather cool of her to be able to do that. I wanted to emulate her. I still do. If I am in any way even a small fraction as brave as her, as cool as her, and as loving as her, it will be an accomplishment.

From the few people I know who have spent time with her, or even met her fleetingly, her capacity to love was immense. She was graceful, dignified, and so melodious even when she playfully scolded someone that it left them wanting more. Her culinary skills, I am told, were just as legendary; another extension of her instinct to create, to nurture, to bring people together.

What more do I say about her when everything that can be said about her has already been said? And yet, even knowing that a life so full, so generous, so deeply lived must one day come to an end does not make this loss feel any less irreparable. There is a strange stillness in acknowledging that she is no longer here in the way she always was.

And yet, to love Asha Bhosle is to understand that she was never meant to be contained by time. I find myself returning to her songs, not just to listen, but to remember. Each one brings back a distinct memory of a person, a place, a version of myself, an emotion I may have forgotten I was capable of feeling.

Each song made me live life a little fuller, feel my emotions a little deeper, love a little more intensely, and enjoy every moment with a little more abandon. And perhaps that is how we carry her forward. Not by mourning what is lost, but by living, just a little more vividly, because she taught us how.