Once someone asked Majroohsaab, “Don’t you think that a lot has changed in the way we present a heroine in today’s films and the way she was presented in yesteryears movies? There was a certain amount of exquisiteness about a heroine then, and it seems to be missing now. Is this why today’s films are so different?” He replied, “Actually, it’s the opposite. What we wrote for a heroine went something like this: ‘Dum bhar jo udher muh fere o chanda, main unse pyaar kar loongi, baatein hazaar kar loongi’ (Awara, 1951). The heroine shied away from the moon for having caught her with her lover. If you write something like Khambe jaise khadi hai, ladki hai ya chadi hai (Dil, 1990), then see how you are portraying her. It’s all about how you present your heroine.”

I feel that today, we have separated a song from the film by giving it a different identity. Now we call them ‘numbers’ and ‘item numbers’. It has become mandatory for these songs to hit the charts and we keep putting our energies into finding a ‘hook line’ to get there. No one is bothered to look at the longevity of a song anymore. We don’t see if the songs flow seamlessly with the melody of the film, if they are taking the story ahead or they’re representing the character of the film correctly.