From stalking to harassing women, our Bollywood heroes are celebrated for everything and anything in name of love. You can take any Bollywood Holi song and you would realize how shamelessly the songs attempt to normalize groping and harassing girls without their consent, because ‘bura na maano holi hai’.
For ages, Bollywood songs have been projecting Holi as a festival where the girl objects to being colored but still, the guy doesn’t stop and colors her! Most of the song lyrics convey sexual tension and pleasure through the man’s enjoyment of woman’s harassment, while taking the advantage of the freeing restrictions during the festival.
Sadly, what makes it even more disgusting is how the song lyrics are projected like a proud declaration of the guy not giving a damn about consent!In some songs, the hero dares the girl to do whatever she can to stop him from playing Holi with her.
Most of the songs depict man deriving pleasure from harassing woman and woman is portrayed as taking pleasure in being harassed!
But not just that, lyrics shamelessly make references about a girl’s body that is quite disturbing! And, then there is mention of girl’s wet clothes from choli to chunariya to aanchal!Â
Here is one more where supposedly our hero not only refuses to understand the meaning of consent, but also refer to girl’s wet clothes!Â
And, this disturbing trend of Holi songs being nothing more than the reflection of girls’ harassment has continued over years! It’s quite disgusting how these lyrics openly mention plain harassment. Doesn’t matter how much girls plead to be left alone, our shameless heroes won’t listen!
In more recent times, this harassment in the name of Holi has only gotten worse. Heroes are explicitly talking about holding the girl’s kalayi without her consent to show how manly they are!
Here are some more songs that show how Bollywood has normalized Holi harassment!
“Rapat lika do thaane mein mein, Hum bhar denge zurmana, Ang se ang lagana, Sajan humein aise rang lagana” ~Darr
“Ho mere pichhe pichhe pichhe kyon aaye, Mera jiya jiya kyon dhadkaaye, Jaa re jaa don’t touch my choli, Uff yeh Holi haai yeh Holi!” ~Waqt
It’s high time that Bollywood fixes this problem of misogynistic thought process. Bollywood needs to stop normalizing harassment in these Holi songs! We wish Bollywood would soon learn the concept of consent and stop showing Holi as a festival of heroes harassing girls against their wishes!
