3.5 Stars (out of 4)
Watch Songs of Paradise on Amazon Prime
Writer-director Danish Renzu’s love-letter to Kashmiri music history is vibrant and sweet. A charming cast recreates a world on the cusp of progress. Songs of Paradise is a delight.
Though not a biographical film, Renzu’s story is heavily inspired by the life of Raj Begum, Kashmir’s first female radio singer who died in 2016. Her achievements won her not just fame but also one of the Indian government’s highest civilian honors: the Padma Shree.
In Songs of Paradise, the character inspired by Raj Begum goes by the stage name Noor Begum (Soni Razdan). A framing device finds Noor in the modern day narrating her life to graduate student Rumi (Taaruk Raina), who’s writing a thesis on the history of popular music in Kashmir (and serving as an onscreen avatar for Renzu himself).
Before she started singing professionally in 1954, Noor Begum was simply Zeba Akhtar (Saba Azad). She grew up in Srinagar with her open-minded father (played by Bashir Lone) and conservative mother, Hameeda (Sheeba Chaddha).
Zeba earns money cleaning house for a music teacher, Master Ji (Shishir Sharma). Master Ji has no idea Zeba can sing, until he overhears her performing for a group of women at a family function. Recognizing her potential, Master Ji offers to train Zeba for free. He’s so impressed with her ability that he signs her up for the local radio station’s annual singing contest — something no other woman has done before.
“Freedom and progress were in the air,” the film notes. But not everyone is ready for change — not even Zeba herself. She hides her music lessons from her traditional mother under the guise of extra work hours. While Zeba enjoys her studies, she has no ambitions for them to lead to anything else. But she competes in the contest and wins decisively.
Her victory comes with a new job, performing songs live on the radio with the in-house band. Zeba’s presence causes upheaval in the male-dominated space, but soon everyone realizes the boost her heavenly voice gives the whole station. In trying to make the situation more equitable for her, Zeba champions change that makes things fairer for everyone, such as demanding grumpy station owner Mr. Kaul (Armaan Khera) read the names of every participating musician after every broadcast.
Zeba is interesting because she’s not trying to blaze a trail. Master Ji and her father want her to succeed because they care for her, and the station’s staff lyricist Azaad (Zain Khan Durrani) wants Kashmir to catch up with Bombay’s thriving film-music industry. But there’s a toll paid by trailblazers and those around them, and Zeba seems to know this. That’s the main reason she adopts the stage name Noor Begum. Yes, she’s afraid of what will happen if her mother finds out, but she’s also protective of her parents. Srinagar isn’t a huge town, and gossip travels fast.
Through her stern performance as Hameeda, Sheeba Chaddha makes sure we understand exactly why Zeba is scared of her mom. Hameeda levels a stare at Zeba that’s so withering that the film should come with a warning to protect delicate houseplants. Yet, when Noor Begum’s real identity is discovered, all of Zeba’s mother’s fears about social consequences come true.
Thankfully, Zeba and her family are saved by her greatest champion: Azaad, the station’s in-house lyricist. The two marry, and their romance is both tender and thrilling. They embody the style of the era and make a dashing couple. With Azaad’s support, Noor Begum capitalizes on the opportunities that arise as her soulful voice spreads beyond the borders of Kashmir.
One of Renzu’s points in making Songs of Paradise is to remind us how fragile history is. In an era before digital backups, physical copies of recordings were all that existed. Lose them, and you lose the performance, the song, the film. The credits of Songs of Paradise note that many of the songs used in the movie are recreations, likely due to there being no surviving physical recordings. The music in the film is a lovely augment to a charming story of progress and promise.
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