Saquib Salim

In her book A Room of One’s Own, (1928) Virginia Woolf argues, “it needs little skill in psychology to be sure that a highly gifted girl who had tried to use her gift for poetry would have been so thwarted and hindered by other people, so tortured and pulled asunder by her contrary instincts, that she must have lost her health and sanity to a certainty”.

I had never imagined that in 2025, Indian youth would be celebrating the story of a theft of a woman poet’s intellect.

Social media is full of reels, shorts, and stories of young men and women sobbing after watching Saiyaara, a movie being hailed as a comeback of ‘good old romantic stories’ to Bollywood. Ahaan Panday (Krish Kapoor) and Aneet Padda (Vani Batra) starrer Mohit Suri film is a story of a young struggling singer, Krish, and a Hindi woman poet, Vani. They cross paths and Vani finds herself writing a song for Krish.

In a reminiscence of Rahul Roy-starrer Aashiqui (1990), Vani tutors Krish that a great song cannot be created in a studio. Great lyrics, composition, and music result from a moment when artists feel connected to an emotion.

She writes a song which Krish sells to a famous rapper, Prince (Shaad Randhawa), since he was in need of money. Another song written by Vani becomes a social media sensation, and Krish and his band start getting shows all over India.

Vani is diagnosed with the onset of Alzheimer’s. Fearing that her presence would hurt the singing career of Krish, her would-be husband, she leaves him for an undisclosed location, but not before writing a song, ‘Saiyaara’.

While the crowd weeps with Krish for his heartbreak after Vani leaves him, or when they meet again, but she cannot recognise him, I wondered where Vani, the lyricist, is.

Virginia Woolf asked in 1928, what if William Shakespeare had a sister, Judith Shakespeare (fictional), with an equivalent talent? She argued that the social structure would not have allowed her to be a poet. The lack of women poets from the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries is evidence to understand this.

Kishwar Naheed, a famous feminist Urdu poet, argued that till the mid-20th century, for a woman poet to get published with their name was a revolution in itself. Rashid un-Nisa did not have her name on the novel published by her in 1881. Nisar Kubra, an early 20th-century woman poet, had hundreds of her written poems destroyed without ever getting published.

In the movie, Vani writes for Krish, but she doesn't get the credit as a lyricist. Krish declares, “People will love me and I will love you (Vani)” but he never states that “we will be loved by the people for our songs”.

The song belongs to Krish, and Vani writes only to receive love from a man. Krish makes a deal with a music company to sell all the rights without ever consulting the woman who had written it. No poster shows her name. There is no single passive mention of the fact that the song that made a hero out of Krish was Vani's creation.

The movie reinforces the age-old idea that a woman’s ultimate goal is to help her man achieve big things in life without ever getting in the way. Vani is selfless; she writes songs but never claims any credit, while the man enjoys stardom and never cares to acknowledge her contribution. 

The only acknowledgement Krish makes is about the fact that she had corrected her lifestyle and anger issues. Women do need more. Women need acknowledgement for their intellect, hard work, and professionalism, too.

For me, Saiyaara is a story of how women’s intellect is systematically stolen by men in our society under a veil of love and relationships.