Whenever this song “tu mere agal bagal hai” comes up, it reminds me of the of the Toxic masculine culture. It talks about the hegemonic masculinity that prevails in our society. For me this was just a song that I had heard a long way back but after taking this course, I got an opportunity to view and listen this song from a very different perspective.
Recently, my friend played this song and instead of just dancing to the music, the lyrics grabbed my attention and I reflected upon how a man views himself superior to the woman in this song. The lyrics “Tera peecha karoun toh tokne ka nae” and “hai tuj pe right mera” suggests how the guy thinks of the girl as his property where he “assumes” to have rights over her and automatically assumes a position of superiority where he is literally cat calling and objectifying her and that too in front of the public.
Moreover, what’s even more surprising how everyone else in the video as well is just dancing to it instead of stopping him which again highlights how our society works where no one would raise questions on a boy just because he is a ‘boy’.
I think the most problematic thing is the romanticizing of these acts. It is one thing that the society accept these kind of behaviors by phrases like "okay he is a boy, he will do such thing" but its another and more problematic thing that these acts are considered as the way of expressing ones affection. These songs, in my opinion, have erased the line between harassment and romance, and now everything which should be considered as harassment is being portrayed as an expression of love and affection.
This is an actual representation of how usually men get away with actions that make others uncomfortable. This song could be also related to another song "gandi baat". where the singer clearly mentions that after trying waiting etc. he would now resort to "gandi baat".
Having notions such as these are very problematic as having a huge audience, there is a high possibility of encouraging people to not understand ones dis-interests. Having such notions can be very dangerous.