Sangeet budgets waltz past Rs 1crore

MUMBAI: A group of heavily-pancaked aunties in garish brocade sarees are holding their nostrils and performing anulom vilom behind a stage thumping with Munni badnam hui. A man in all black with a blue-tooth growing out his ear refers to his notes and starts clapping feverishly, prompting the women to jump up to adjust their pallus and hair. They lock themselves into a huddle which periodically bursts with "hip hip hoorah" after inspiring words like "bolo jai mata di', and "you can do it”.
The next 30 seconds are the culmination of 45 days of gruelling work that has included twitched necks and pep talks. These women, ranging from their early 50s to 60s, have been sacrificing their daily soaps to prepare for a 30-second dance performance of Zor ka jhatka for an 8,000-people audience at a wedding sangeet. They have laboured at dance practices, watched video clips from their 'sangeet induction kit' on repeat and terrorized neighbours and children by breaking into thumkas without provocation. Their performance will be taped by 15 different cameras, two perched on moving cranes, to make a sangeet video that will later be screened at a private theatre for roughly 250 close friends and family.
If the idea of a wedding sangeet evokes the image of a sleepy master ji instructing little girls to repeat the Madhuri Dixit 'Chane ke khet mein' step or women singing traditional songs to the beat of a dholak, it should be sepia-toned. Today, a sangeet is serious business. It's blingy social currency, put together by an army of event managers, fuels an entire industry: directors, scriptwriters, dialogue writers, emcees, Caucasian back-up dancers, voiceover artistes, editors, and a whole range of rental celebrities. Budgets for these sangeets roughly start at Rs 50 lakh but could go much beyond a crore, just about the price of a small flat in south Mumbai.
Those who believed that a sangeet was a traditional affair or at best mildly Bollywood have another think coming. Functions are now beginning to resemble elaborate film award ceremonies, replete with choreographed jhatkas, celebrity performances and heart-rending audio-visual presentations.
"The sangeet is one castle you can keep building on," says Dhawal Oza, director of events management company Dreamz Events N Ideas. Recently , Oza put together an "Oscar sangeet" , complete with a red carpet where guests were accosted by counterfeit paparazzi, and between performance and audio-visual nominations, awards for Best Saas, Best Dulha, Best Bahu and Best Behen were given out. "Most of our clients want a larger-than-life scale for the sangeet. When there aren't enough family members because of internal dispute, we hire back-up dancers to make the performance look grand," says Oza. "Preferably whiteskinned," he adds.
So the sangeet season is when back-up dancers (which sometimes include Caucasian artistes picked up for a day's fee), television scriptwriters and reality TV choreographers make a killing by freelancing for families who want a bit of glamour even on their credits roll. Lesser known choreographers could charge a humble Rs 1 lakh for choreographing 10 songs, but the popular ones charge as much as Rs 8 to 10 lakh. Javed Sanadi , the 28-year-old Jhalak Dikhlaja choreographer finalist who's presently working on the Hrithik Roshan TV show Just Dance, has his dates blocked months in advance. "I only do A-list sangeets like the Jindals, Agrawals who own Big Bazaar and the Dhoots who own Videocon," he says airily. "A sangeet should not look like a school skit, it has to be like Filmfare, and the dancers have to be of the same calibre as Bollywood stars. I don't give family members easy steps because I want them to raise the bar."
Sanadi, who oversees light, sound and dress rehearsals, says he adds a touch of personalisation to create a "shaadi ka mahaul”. "There will be a collage of photographs of the couple or an AV presentation of their journey," says the choreographer whose fee is reportedly Rs six lakh for a sangeet. "It's not possible for me to be present for every dance rehearsal so I come towards the end and give the dancers the finesse they need."
But in star-struck India, a faux Filmfare sangeet is not good enough. "Everybody wants a celebrity to dance at their sangeet. I get enquires from people in Fiji who want Shah Rukh Khan to dance at their sangeet," says Oza. For those who can't afford SRK who reportedly charges Rs 1.5 crore for an appearance, there is always the export-reject world of television. "A known television face will charge about a lakh or so," says Oza.
With the bridal couple under threat of getting lost in the fanfare, some event companies focus on "special couple and bridal entry" as Meghna Chitalia, director of events management company Party Planet, does. Chitalia and her team recently organised a sangeet where the couple made a hydraulic stage entry (they emerged on stage from an underground dais). "We like to use tunnel entries, where there is a complete blackout and only lasers lights play up like in Sentosa," she says.
In one case, since the couple was going to Hawai for their honeymoon, the sangeet was an around-the-world themed event that ended with the couple dancing to Hawa hawai while in another, the theme was swayamvar and predictably, the groom was selected as the best suitor.
Graphic designer Garima Shah, a sangeet debutante, only recently understood the gravity of this event. After a minute-long jig with 15 others on a stage at a destination wedding in Goa, she was confronted by the wedding choreographer. He told her he was disappointed because she had missed a step, spoiled the video and hadn't shown any remorse. "Was that supposed to make me feel guilty?" asks. We are just as bewildered.