By Firdouse Bareen
Directed by: Danish Renzu.
Produced by: Farhan Akhtar (Excel), Danish Renzu (Renzu Films), Shafat Qazi (Apple Tree).
Cast: Saba Azad, Soni Razdan, Zain Khan Durrani, Taaruk Raina, Lillete Dubey, Sheeba Chaddha, Shishir Sharma, Lalit Parimoo.
Kashmir’s cultural heart beats well in Danish Renzu’s Songs of Paradise. The film pays a moving tribute to Padma Shri Raj Begum, the first female singer of Kashmir, remembered as the “Nightingale of Kashmir.”
Raj Begum’s story is one of courage. She sang over two thousand songs, mostly steeped in Sufi tradition, and defied the norms of a male-dominated world.
Renzu’s film captures both her struggle and her triumph with emotional depth and visual elegance. The film is a masterpiece of spiritual music.
Saba Azad shines as Zeba, a young singer whose talent is discovered by her master during a wedding.
Trained in secret, she dares to step into the public stage of the 1950s, a space where women were rarely welcome. Her voice mesmerises both audiences and fellow artist Azad Maqbool, played with quiet intensity by Zain Khan Durrani.
Azad delivers her lines in a dialect that blends Sharda, Persian, Urdu, and Hindi. It is a demanding role, and she meets it with remarkable ease.
The film also shows her isolation, being the only woman in the studio, often eating alone, and working without basic facilities like a washroom.
Her journey is pieced together by Rumi (Taaruk Raina), a young researcher who vows to share her story honestly.
Together with Durrani’s performance, this thread gives the film its emotional core.
Soni Razdan plays Raj Begum in her later years, offering one of her finest performances to date. She brings a quiet dignity to the role, embodying the spirit of a woman who carried Kashmir’s voice to the world.
The supporting cast, including Lillete Dubey and Sheeba Chaddha, adds depth, but it is Renzu’s direction that ties it all together.
His lens highlights Kashmir not through conflict, but through music, poetry, and cultural beauty.
Songs of Paradise, through its kaleidoscopic prism, reveals glimpses of the high civilisation of Kashmir based on its age-old composite culture. The film keeps the viewer glued from beginning to end to each scene and each shot.
Kashmir, with more than five thousand years of history and culture, has established its own status in the field of art. It has always proved its command in all fraternities of art.
During all phases of its history, Kashmir has given special status to spiritual music based on mutual love and is known for its significant contributions to music, poetry, and breathtaking landscapes.
Danish Renzu’s Songs of Paradise has successfully revived the age-old glory of Kashmir, weaving a cinematic ode to one of Kashmir’s greatest voices, Raj Begum.
Alia Bhatt has praised the performances of her mother Soni Razdan, along with Saba Azad, Zain Khan, Taaruk Raina, and director Danish Renzu.
The film premiered on Amazon Prime Video shortly after its launch event in Mumbai, attended by several leading names from the industry.
In a proud moment for Farhan Akhtar, Danish Renzu, and Shafat Qazi, since its release, the film has found a wide audience on the platform, drawing considerable attention both in India and abroad.
Famed film critic Devesh Sharma has said that at its core, Songs of Paradise is less about struggle and more about celebration, the celebration of a voice that refused to be silenced, of a culture remembered through song, and of a Kashmir where music and poetry once reigned supreme.
You can watch the full film here.
