‘Rukhna Nahin': Why singer Aryana Sayeed hopes to be unstoppable in Bollywood

India Today

14-05-2025

(NOTE: This article was originally published in the India Today issue dated May 19, 2025)Familial displeasure, death threats, a bounty on her head. Aryana Sayeed had to overcome all these obstacles, and more, on her way to becoming one of Afghanistan's most beloved pop stars.'I had basically accepted death,' says the 39-year-old musician and activist, who has made her Hindi debut with Rukhna Nahin, a song from the recent anthology film My Melbourne. 'I was so focused on my goals—making music, fighting for women's rights—and I felt that if I gave up, I'd be killing the hopes of millions of Afghan women.'advertisementSayeed was just eight when her family fled Afghanistan's civil war, stopping first in Pakistan and then Switzerland, where she fell in love with the music of pop divas like Madonna, Beyonc, Shakira (and our very own Alisha Chinai). At 13, she enrolled in a choir-singing class in Zurich, and decided she wanted to be a singer.
Her conservative Afghan family disagreed, and she had to put those dreams on hold for a few years. But in 2008, now an adult living in London, she released her first single MashAllah, an English-Farsi-Urdu collaboration with a British-Pakistani guitarist. The song's success convinced her to become a full-time musician.By 2011, she had built quite a following back home, and one of Afghanistan's biggest TV channels invited her to perform a live concert in Kabul. 'We came very close to dying before we left Afghanistan, our house was even hit by a rocket,' says Sayeed. 'So, my initial response to the invitation was no, no, no!'advertisementHer manager convinced her to say yes instead, and the concert was a big success. She was signed on to host her own TV show, and was also a judge on two of Afghanistan's biggest music talent shows—The Voice of Afghanistan, and Afghan Star. Sayeed's presence on television—a talented woman singer who didn't wear a scarf—made her a role model for other Afghan women. 'I started seeing more and more women in the audience as participants,' she remembers.Not everyone was on board. The threats from the Taliban and other conservative religious figures meant that when she was in Afghanistan, she had to live in the same compound as the TOLO TV studios, because travelling was too risky. When the Taliban retook Kabul in 2021, Sayeed was one of thousands who were evacuated by the US in military planes. But that traumatic experience hasn't deterred her from advocating for Afghan women. She speaks to over 200 women still in the country every month, as part of her work with an NGO she's founded.And she continues to sing. Rukhna Nahi is her first Hindi song, but it won't be her last. 'We love Bollywood, and it's a dream for me to do more Bollywood songs,' she says. 'I want people in India to know me, my story, and get to hear my voice.'advertisementSubscribe to India Today MagazineMust Watch