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The legendary playback singer Asha Bhosle passed away on April 12 in Mumbai. She was 92.

Another legendary singer, Usha Uthup, once aptly said, Lata Mangeshkar’s music pushed women into the kitchen. Asha’s pulled them away.

Asha Bhosle did not just sing great songs (the greatest any Indian vocalist ever sang, if you ask me), she changed what a woman’s feeling was allowed to sound like.

For a long time in Hindi film music, desire was thin. The heroine could love, ache and wait, but she could not quite want – not in a way that sounded immediate, playful and definitely not self-aware.

With older forms of shringar in classical music, and even with her elder sister Lata Mangeshkar’s music, desire often felt like it was being held carefully, protected and softened. It was there, no doubt, but it was, well, also not there. If you listen to it, you will feel the emotion, but you will also feel the restraint around it. With Asha, that restraint went away.

It is in that sense that her voice did something radical. It removed the distance between what was felt and what was sung. Where others held emotion with care, she leaned into it. Where longing was disembodied, she made it physical – with breath, husk,...

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