Whats wrong with the Pinga song?

What's wrong with the Pinga song?

The Priyanka Chopra-Deepika Padukone's song has incorrect dance steps, costumes and music

Preeti Kulkarni

Sanjay Leela Bhansali has for long enthralled the audience with the larger-than-life portrayal through his cinema. Vibrant colours, opulent sets and penchant for theatrics is his specialty. But when he recreated the evergreen love story between the Maratha warrior Peshwa Bajirao and his beloved warrior courtesan and second wife Mastani, one expected it to be a thoroughly researched subject. After all, this film has been his dream his over a decade now. But unfortunately, the maker has only looked at the aesthetic aspect of the song, while completely ignoring the traditional and anthropological factors. Pinga, featuring Mastani (Deepika Padukone) and Kashibai (Priyanka Chopra) has glaring misrepresentation in almost every department.

* Here's what else is wrong with the song *

Costumes gone wrong

Firstly, Priyanka and Deepika don suede cholis in the song, but this material was not available in the 18th century. The draping of the traditional nine-yard sari, too, is incorrect. Kashibai, Bajirao's first wife belonged to the aristocratic Maharashtrian Brahmin family. She would not have worn it like depicted in the song; dressed like a typical lavani dancer. A Pune-based fashion designer, who works with different traditional Maharahtrian weaves says, "There is no attention paid to the anthropological aspect in the song. The focus is only on beautification and glamour. There are several glitches in the fabric, draping and overall presentation of royal women from the Peshwa era.

Music gone wrong

The music and beats are blatantly copied from a famous lavani, Latpata Latapata and is lightly inspired by the folk song Nach Ga Ghuma. It also has a light flavour of another famous lavani, Lagali Konachi Uchaki. So, Pinga is lifted from three songs and still, is not even authentic! Another major issue with this song is the stereotyping of Mahasrashtrian women. It is sad that Bollywood thinks that the only way to show a Marathi woman is to put her in a nauvari, give her a nath and make her gyrate to the beats of the lavani. There are many ther folk dance forms including phugadi and jhimma.

Incorrect dance steps

Barring one or two signature steps of Pinga, all other steps are lifted from the popular dance-form, the lavani. Now, a pinga is performed by Maharashtrian women at close-knit all-woman family functions and has typical hand gestures minus the bobbing of head and belly dance, that Priyanka and Deepika are seen doing in the song. Dr Prakash Khandge, an expert on Marathi folk art says, "Pinga is a prominent folk dance of women in the state and it is performed at traditional festivals like manglagour, bhondla and nag panchami. The makers clearly confused the pinga with the lavani. They essentially wanted to show the pinga, but ended up showing a lavani. The dance is far from authentic." Having said that, he added that what Sanjay Leela Bhansali shows is a mishmash between the pinga and lavani, sans the eroticism of the latter.