‘Songs of Paradise’ Movie Review: Danish Renzu’s Film on Padma Shri Raj Begum Is Lost Between The Lines

Inspired by the life of Kashmir’s first female playback singer Raj “Noor” Begum, Songs of Paradise stars Saba Azad as the young protagonist Zeba Akhter in the 1950s, and Soni Razdan as the old legend who narrates her story to a thesis-writing student named (of course) Rumi. We know he’s passionate about music because he strums a guitar absent-mindedly in public. Much of the film is concerned with Zeba’s rise from a modest wedding singer to the voice of Radio Kashmir in a conservative setting where women aren’t allowed to dream beyond marriage and housework.

A few good men along the way enable her generational talent: a progressive father (Bashir Lone) who works as a woman’s tailor, a renowned Ustad (Shishir Sharma) who trains her for free, and an artful lyricist and mentor (Zain Khan Durrani, as Azaad) who goes on to marry her. The naysayers are familiar: a regressive mother (Sheeba Chaddha) who sees her daughter as someone’s future property, a community that mocks the parents for allowing the girl to do ‘Western’ things, a radio station director (Armaan Khera) whose cynicism melts away, and a society that’s yet to decode the concept of independence.

Like many a Hindi biopic, Songs of Paradise is more about teaching than learning — it’s more focused on divulging information than being curious. The historical genre is torn between two extremes these days: too much revision or too much reverence. This film does the latter. There’s nothing wrong, but there’s not much right either. The production value is weak. The writing is shielded and simple. Landmarks and events occur like neat bullet points. Characters speak in Urdu and Kashmiri but emote in Hindi and English (you’ll know it when you see it). Overwrought dialogue like “she will be our inquilaab (revolution)” and “I came to find her story but I found my own story” are symptoms of a screenplay that’s shaped by hindsight: the film unfolds like it knows that the promising young woman will make history. The greatness looks inevitable in every word and gesture, every recorded song and conflict.

It’s always a challenge to tell a story while reflecting the uncertainty of the time it’s based in; Songs of Paradise isn’t the first biopic to be defeated by this challenge. It is undone by an awareness of the future, and most sequences become a stepping stone on a prepaved journey. Her liberal father, for instance, has a mind and voice of 2025 rather than being an anomaly in the 1950s; the wokeness of her husband is almost too modern; the volatility of the people is reduced to whispers and badly choreographed spats; even the thesis student mansplains her own life (“Kashmir’s legacy of female singers started with you”) to her.

The shot of a ladies’ toilet being installed at a workplace, a senior composer bowled over by her song on radio, an approving glance of the local vendor (“she’s making us proud”) to the crabby mother — even these feel-good tropes look staged, like they’re supposed to happen, robbing the story of surprise and novelty. When Zeba secretly starts being tutored, wins a contest and signs a contract to record at Radio Kashmir, this hidden-identity game — she sings under the pseudonym Noor Begum — has very little suspense; not enough of the mystery is mined. As a result, the hell that breaks loose when her mother finds out isn’t as effective. Basically, the storytelling is satisfied with the existence of the story; it rarely comes alive on its own terms. At one point, Azaad observes Zeba’s singing, takes her aside and advises her to understand the words and emotions she’s singing about; her music is missing some soul. The same can be said about the film itself. Her craft is resolved with a Sufi-coded montage; the toll of training and learning and improving is rarely visible.

There are a handful of notable elements, though. The background score largely features Western instruments, and the contrast in tone works to convey a personal touch. In a few such moments, the woman appears to be a human and not just a figure. I also like Saba Azad’s performance and body language as young Zeba. It does the job of the script; she depicts the protagonist as someone who grows courage and isn’t automatically blessed with it. Zeba is reluctant, shy and subservient for a while; she’s very much a product of her environment until she’s exposed to art and the privilege of inspiring others like her. Even when she asks for equality in pay and marches into her director’s office with a new complaint every day, her ‘activism’ is rooted in an uncomplicated and almost-naive view of fairness. It’s not that she’s trying to be the revolution; she just becomes one by virtue of who she is. You can tell that her older self is more seasoned in making demands, being a diva, and not being taken for granted in a patriarchal field.

The film, however, seems to exist in isolation of its environment. That’s not to say one expects a Kashmir-set movie to be geopolitically complex, violent and war-riddled. But there’s seldom a link between the music and the region it so loyally represents. The poetry doesn’t seem to stem from anywhere. The music just magically materialises. Zeba is told to seek inspiration from previous art and traditions, not the urgent life around her. When she becomes widely followed, the glimpses of the locals’ reactions to her songs are empty, like an appropriation of shock and admiration across a nameless land. Hers is a story about Kashmir — the richness of its struggle, the enduring faith and the constantly evolving cultural fabric — and yet it’s a film that could have been set anywhere. It’s like reading Manto without the context of the Partition. Or listening to Chamkila without the subtext of Punjab.

The counterpoint could be that she’s so sheltered that we only follow her gaze: parents, teachers, studio, husband, family, manager, student. She sings someone else’s words. But it’s not a convincing perspective. Consequently, the central conflict of her story revolves around the preservation of her art. Thousands of her recordings were destroyed in an accident (with meek allusions to a conspiracy), and there is hardly any evidence of how she echoed the desires of an India that’s weaponised by contemporary leaders. It’s a fleeting metaphor for Kashmir in general, but it’s hard to tell what’s been lost if it isn’t clear where her expression — those lilting melodies — came from. The film opens with her having a nightmare: she’s singing a popular track on stage, but she continues as flames engulf the place and the audience flees. Her trauma is rooted in the fact that it’s so much more than a blaze. But the biopic insists that it’s just that: fire. Safety first.