Where's the zing in Zingaat Hindi? Dhadak’s version of the Sairat chartbuster fails to match the original

We need to talk about ‘Zingaat’. Yes, a sense of exhaustion is already setting in with the Sairat vs Dhadak debate, because every time something new from Dhadak is unveiled, it is invariably followed by voracious dissection of where it let _Sairat_ down. Even so, we need to talk about ‘Zingaat’. [caption id=“attachment_4612851” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Screengrab from original Zingaat (L) and Zingaat Hindi (R).[/caption] It is quite difficult to explain what ‘Zingaat’ means to contemporary Marathi pop culture; it isn’t just about how often the song has played during Ganpati processions and weddings across the state; or how it has become an anthem among the youth, particularly for those who identify with the characters and setting of Sairat. ‘Zingaat’, the song, captures what’s arguably the happiest moment in Sairat — that point in their love story when the world hasn’t yet turned into an obstacle to Archi and Parshya’s love story, when tragedy is still some distance away, and when the two young lovers can’t wait to celebrate their love. Indeed, since Sairat means ‘celebration’, the unabashed celebratory nature of ‘Zingaat’ is a distillation of the film in the most unconventional way.

Composers Ajay and Atul Gogavale were as responsible for the unprecedented success of Sairat as director Nagraj Manjule or the leads Rinku Rajguru and Akash Thosar. The brothers, who also sang ‘Zingaat’, gave Marathi cinema an instant classic that was chaotic and free-flowing, with the body of the song having a distinctly Marathi sound to it. It didn’t need synchronised dancing or a ‘hook’ step for it to make even non-dancers groove to its rhythm and melody. But just rhythm and melody don’t make a song. ‘_Zingaat Hindi_’ , which is how Zee Music Company has officially titled the song on YouTube, has Ajay and Atul faithfully recreating their Marathi chartbuster, but the new ‘Zingaat’ completely lacks, well, zing. (They walked right into that one). The new song has Farah Khan giving the effervescent Ishaan Khatter and the strangely dour Janhvi Kapoor synchronised (but thoroughly mediocre) choreography. The Marathi sound to the song remains, which makes it hurt the ear the moment the Hindi vocals come in. It’s still a foot-tapping number, but all it takes is one click to go from ‘Zingaat Hindi’ to the original ‘Zingaat’, and that’s probably going to be the fate of this recreation. What’s perplexing is that the Dhadak title track, which came out earlier, is a lovely original composition that reminds you of the sheer magic of the Sairat soundtrack, but still stands apart on its own. They could as well have tried to make a fresh song in place of ‘Zingaat’ as well, but the temptation was probably one the makers couldn’t resist. Almost intuitively, any ‘Zingaat’ fan would know that a non-marathi ‘Zingaat’ was always going to be a bad idea.

Either way, ‘Zingaat Hindi’’s greatest victory is likely to be the howl-arious memes that have already started cropping up about it; but for music’s sake, it would make far more sense to turn to the original instead.