The song Roop Tera Mastana burnt up Indian film screens on September 27, 1969, redefining the depiction of sensuality in a Hindi film song. The song was sung by Kishore Kumar and picturised on back ground on Sharmila Tagore and not an established hero Rajesh Khanna
The song broke new ground by being shot in one take. The camera placed on a trolley circles the couple, as they go round the fireplace, The shot lends a breathless feel to the sequence, mirroring the emotions of the couple as they struggle to come to terms with their longing.
The situation was that the hero and the heroine caught in a rainstorm and have to take shelter in a cabin. Hero keeps his wet, but unbuttoned, shirt on, while heroine changes into a towel — a really long, bright orange towel — that is wrapped around her.
The scene makes the couple’s sexual desire apparent, and it is after this song that heroine finds out she is pregnant — a revelation that sets the course for the tragic turn her life takes.
There are countless Hindi songs where sex is implied through shots of birds, bees, flowers, fire, waves or lightning but this song was different. The eroticism in the song lies in the possibility of sex rather than the sexual act itself.
The beauty of this song is its composition,musical rise and fall in each of the stanzas operates as a musical metaphor of sexual tension”. The way Kishore Kumar sings the song mirrors this as well. Soft, caressing notes, almost a whisper, lead to a full-throated climax.
