First things first, is there a law prohibiting lyricists from penning Rajasthan-based songs without some variation of the words ‘kesariya balma’ and ‘padharo maaro des’? Because we need to petition that sh*t the heck out of our lives.
Shashank Khaitan’s Dhadak has dropped its version of Zingaat, and it’s quite… something. Beginning with the wholly unnecessary ‘kesariya maaro balma, padharo mahri country’, the Hindi version of Zingaat — which has been choreographed by Farah Khan –may have retained the tune of the original, but not its tone. Not surprisingly, this film by the director of Badrinath Ki Dulhania, has none of the rustic appeal, the apparent class divide, and in this case, the unsynchronized chaos of a community celebration that the award-winning Marathi film managed quite effortlessly.
Nagraj Manjule’s Sairat made it amply clear that the class and caste divide between Archana (Rinku Rajguru) and Prashant (Akash Thosar) was one that would be difficult to breach. And even in a song like Zingaat, the characters as well as the supporting cast does everything to remind of this the disparity between their backgrounds.
Dhadak’s version of Zingaat however seems confused whether to focus on the film’s central conflict, or on the heroine’s designer lehenga. Like they forgot that unlike a regular Bollywood song, Zingaat could not just be about their hero’s carefully gelled pompadour and his (excellent) dancing. In fact even the background dancers in Dhadak’s Zingaat are too coordinated and too well-put together to retain the spirit of the original.
Watch anyway:
Dhadak will be out in theatres on July 20.
