‘Is the man making love to himself?’ : Sona Mohapatra says Bollywood breakup songs are ‘reserved for men’; denounces gender bias | Hindi Movie News
Sona Mohapatra has reignited the conversation around gender bias in Bollywood music. The singer, known for her outspoken personality, claimed that romantic and heartbreak songs are overwhelmingly dominated by male artists. He added that, for this very reason, he has left little creative space for women.
Sona Mohapatra takes aim at the all-male Bollywood music industry
In a video shared on her Instagram account of an event she had attended, Mohapatra made a pointed observation about how female singers are sidelined even in duets. Recalling his experience with the popular 2017 Raees song ‘Zaalima’, originally sung by Arijit Singh and Harshdeep Kaur and in the photo Shah Rukh Khan and Mahira Khan, said, “All these heartbreak songs in Bollywood are reserved for men. Men are heartbroken, men in today’s times feel love. Because every time I was called to sing a duet, I somehow got the final chorus. You must listen to this song called ‘Zaalima’. It’s Arijit [Singh]’s song, and they called me to sing it, and I was blown away.”
Sona Mohapatra questions the structure of Bollywood duets
Questioning why female voices consistently appear only in the final moments of a song, he added, “Because the mukhra, the antara, the mukhra, the antara… all of them were taken over by the man. It’s not Arijit’s fault; he’s a great artist. But why does the woman come at the end? My question to Pritam was, “Is the man making love to himself?” What kind of duet is this? … The thing is, it’s nobody’s fault, but the music industry system has become so risk-averse.”Taking the debate to the comments section of her post, Sona connected the lack of female-led songs to the broader decline of iconic female music stars in India. She wrote: “This conversation is about representation. If an industry stops creating iconic female narratives, it will eventually stop creating iconic female stars.”He further argued that the imbalance has been systemic and long-standing, not incidental. Sona added: “The point is not that women never sang heartbreak songs. The point is that Bollywood stopped writing enough of them. An industry that has given 80-90% of its most important and romantic narratives to male voices for almost 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. Let’s talk then?”Mohapatra, who has previously spoken out about sexism, objectification and the lack of female agency in mainstream Indian films, remains one of the industry’s most consistent and fearless voices on issues of gender representation.
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