In the years when Indipop was actually a successful thing, the music video was an entity which commanded attention. From Suneeta Rao’s ‘Pari Hoon Main’ to Suchitra Krishnamoorthy’s ‘Dole Dole’, Sagarika’s ‘Disco Deewane’ and Shaan’s ‘Love-ology’ to Shweta Shetty’s ‘Johnny Joker’ and Baba Sehgal’s ‘Thanda Thanda Pani’, every artiste worth her/his salt had an iconic music video or two to their name.
Falguni Pathak’s tracks that came out in time for Navratri every year, Daler Mehendi’s bhangra-pop hits, Bally Sagoo’s ‘Gud Naal Ishq Mitha’ that served as the perfect showcase for its actors (Jas Arora and Malaika Arora Khan) to Ila Arun’s folksy ‘Nigodi’ — these music videos had a sizeable fan following and viewership.
Then of course, Indipop pretty much died, and with it, the non-film music video. In fact, Bollywood co-opted the music video.
Of late, however, there has been another trend — non-Bollywood music videos, but featuring Bollywood stars. Recent examples include Sonam Kapoor and Hrithik Roshan’s ‘Dheere Dheere Se’ and Jacqueline Fernandez and Sooraj Pancholi’s ‘GF-BF’.
Joining the bandwagon is Disha Patani and Tiger Shroff’s new music video, presented by T-Series, called ‘Befikra’. Composed and performed by the Meet Brothers (along with Aditi Singh Sharma), this song is merely an excuse to depict its photogenic actor pair — long rumoured to be a real-life couple as well — in a picturesque setting.
In a typical Hollywood “meet-cute” fashion, Disha’s character meets Tiger’s when she is mugged walking down a dark alley. With her money and passport lost, she asks Tiger for help in chasing the goons, only to lose his possessions as well in the process. They decide to spend the night together (because she doesn’t have any money etc) and then roam the streets of gay Paris the next morning.
Along the way, Tiger shows Disha how to swipe food at cafes (while other Parisians stare on wonderingly) and a few nifty dance moves. And because this is a six-minute version of a Hindi movie, he also gets to show off his trademark “flying kick” martial arts moves, later ditching the fighting ring for the bedroom where they trade steamy kisses.
The great thing about the video — apart from the fact that it packs in so much in so little time — is the complete equality of treatment meted out to its lead pair in terms of skin show: The amount of time Disha gets to show her bare midriff is strictly proportionate to the screen play Tiger’s toned abs are given.
Despite its absolute blandness and lack of memorable musical quality, there is something about Tiger Shroff and Disha Patani that’s endearing, which helps the ‘Befikra’ music video some. But it makes us hanker, rather nostalgically, for the good old days of ‘Thanda Thanda Pani’.
Directed by Sam Bombay, with cinematography by Zubin Mistry, and choreography Paresh Shirodkar, watch the ‘Befikra’ video here, and tell us what you think in the comments section below: