Shikha Jhingan delivered a lecture titled ‘Aaj Phir Jeene Ki Tamanna Hai: Lata Mangeshkar’s Voice and Female Bodies on Screen’. It was chaired by Vebhuti Duggal. The discussants were Urmila Shripad Bhirdikar and Abhija Ghosh.

This presentation will engage with the visceral ways in which Lata Mangeshkar’s playback voice has been mobilized to produce dancing, singing, musicking bodies on screen, in the first five decades of post-independent cinema. A close attention to the gestural body while performing film songs leads us to the codification of bodies through the lens of gender and class. Focusing on the aural registers of her voice, as presented by diverse musicking bodies located at night clubs, bazaars, fairs and soirees, helps us move away from dominant narratives about Mangeshkar, listening to her anew, and uncovering the exclusions from her recorded repertoire. It will conclude by discussing how the sonic performance of the female voice can powerfully illuminate the intersecting relations between cinema, listening practices, female stardom and public culture.

Shikha Jhingan is Associate Professor in Cinema Studies at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her research work focuses on voice, music and sound in cinema. She is the author of Female Playback in Bombay Cinema: Voice, Body, Technology (Wayne State University Press, 2025).

Chair

Vebhuti Duggal is Associate Professor at Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi.

Discussants

Urmila Shripad Bhirdikar is Associate Professor at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Shiv Nadar University.

Abhija Ghosh is Assistant Professor at the Jindal School of Journalism and Communication, O.P. Jindal Global University.

Friday, 27 March, 4 pm, CSDS Seminar Room, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110054.