While Kareena Kapoor has gone on record to say that the mujra which she has performed in AGENT VINOD was undertaken after taking tips from one of the best performers of mujra in the Indian film industry, Rekha, the effect does not have the magic that Rekha used to bring whenever she decided to perform a mujra on the screen.
Indeed, the promos of mujra of AGENT VINOD do not instill the same confidence at all, as the mujras have done in the past in Indian cinematic history. A mujra, as per its definition, has to be performed to the accompaniment of Indian classical instruments, predominant being the humble sarangi.
Besides, it needs to have the movements performed through Kathak, and not over accompaniment of English musical instruments.
Historically, mujra evolved around the time of Awadh civilization from early sixteenth to late eighteenth century, its biggest patron being Nawab Wajid Ali Shah, who, as per the historical chronicles also used to perform himself as well when he was in trance. One can understand it would be difficult to find the musical instrument players of such accomplishment to create that kind of an ambience, but its basic ethos indeed was brought out just a few years ago by Sanjay Leela Bhansali in DEVDAS, where Madhuri Dixit performed an exquisite mujra.
The second characteristic of mujra is that it has to be performed with a lots of thehrao, i.e. each and every move takes its own time to be executed, and it cannot be broken down into numbers, as the dance items these days are broken into numbers to shoot a song, and therefore the ability of a mujra to mesmerize the audience is not manifest in the song picturised on
The premise becomes manifest if one were to glean the historical performances of mujra from the Hindi film of the past, starting from that of Meena Kumari in PAKEEZAH- 'Chalte Chalte' whenever it is played just harks back the audience to an ambience of romance. Same is the case with the performance of Madhubala in MUGHAL-E-AZAM, 'Jab Pyaar Kiya To Darna Kya', or if one were to hark back to the black and white era then the mujra performed by Suchitra Sen in MAMTA pouring out emotions in 'Rehte The Kabhi Jinke Dil Mein'.
Mujra indeed evolved when Rekha patronized it, and she became and continues to be the mujra queen of Hindi cinema, her acme being UMRAO JAAN, but the talent to do it with conviction was manifest with 'Salaame Ishq' in MUQADDAR KA SIKANDER or in SUHAAG. As a matter of fact Rekha started being synonymous with mujra to such an extent that she emerged as one of the best living manifestations of a courtesan. Even a Smita Patil brought conviction to her performance when she did mujra performance in Prakash Mehra'a GHUNGROO.
An underlining premise of the above illustrations is that mujra also becomes convincing with certain age and certain physical attributes (size zero militates against its ethos) and this could be the reason why the mujra performed by Kareena Kapoor in AGENT VINOD does not appear as convincing, as the mujras performed in the past. May be, it is few years earlier for Kareena Kapoor to have done that, or she needs to be bold enough to dictate terms for the musical accompaniment to the performance to make it convincing, realistic and charming.
