SONGS OF FREEDOM

With her debut Hindi song, Afghan singer Aryana Sayeed hopes to reach out to a larger audience

- Bhanuj Kappal

Familial displeasure, death threats, a bounty on her head, Aryana Sayeed had to overcome a number of obstacles on her way to becoming one of Afghanistan's 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 felt that if I gave up, I'd be killing the hopes of millions of Afghan women." Sayeed was just eight when her family fled Afghanistan's civil war t