Mohar Basu (MID-DAY; April 14, 2018)

When Karan Johar announced Dhadak — the remake of the Marathi hit Sairat (2016) — he knew that reimagining the popular dance number, Zingaat, would be a tall order. Not surprising then that the filmmaker trusted only his good friend Farah Khan with the choreography of the song that features the film’s leads, Ishaan Khatter and Janhvi Kapoor.

The dance number that was filmed in late January saw Khan returning to choreography after Gerua (Dilwale, 2015). When asked what made her return to her first love, Khan said, “Karan said that his director Shashank [Khaitan] was scared to call me, and that he really wants me to do a song for the movie. The minute he said that the song in question is Zingaat, I told him that I won’t do it because it’s a cult song.”

Speaking on the finale of a VH1 show, she revealed that director Shashank Khaitan and Johar had diametrically different visions for the song. “Karan said he wanted it to be big and commercial, it has to be the ‘item song’ of the movie. On the other hand, the director wanted it to be natural and earthy,” laughed Khan, adding that she conceptualised it as “a mix of commercial and candid.”