At a time when item numbers were still taboo for many Bollywood actors, Shefali Jariwala carved her own identity with “Kaanta Laga”. Decades later, she’s still known as the ‘Kaanta Laga girl’. And now, tragically, with Shefali gone, it feels like we’ve lost a piece of the 2000s, a time when remix videos changed the face of Indian pop culture.
An old video of Shefali has resurfaced, where she talks about never getting tired of the tag. In the clip, the host asks her, “Aapko sab Kaanta Laga girl, Kaanta Laga girl bolte hai. Aap thak nahi gaye ho isse? (Everyone keeps calling you the Kaanta Laga girl, aren’t you tired of it?)” Shefali shoots back, “Sawal hi nahi hai,” and adds with full confidence, “There can only be one Kaanta Laga girl in the world, and that is me. I love it and I want to be known as the Kaanta Laga girl till the day I die.”
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The remix version of “Kaanta Laga”, originally from the 1972 film Samadhi, featured Dharmendra and Asha Parekh. Sung by Lata Mangeshkar and composed by RD Burman, the song already had a legacy. But when the remix dropped in 2002, it shook the country so much that the censor board summoned the makers, accusing them of shaking the “moral fibre” of the nation.
Notably, not everyone back then was happy about the song’s rebellious and bold visuals, including superstar Salman Khan. Surprisingly, just a month before Shefali Jariwala’s passing, the video’s directors, Radhika Rao and Vinay Sapru, recalled the time when the Dabangg actor had personally warned them about it. In a conversation with Hindi Rush, the makers revealed how Salman told them, “Main tumhe samjha raha hoon, yeh sexy kaam kam karo, achha nahi hota (I’m telling you—cut down on these sexy songs, it’s not good). You have such pure minds, don’t waste them on this stuff.”
At the time of its release, “Kaanta Laga” had caused an instant backlash. Before this, Radhika and Vinay had done videos with artistes like Falguni Pathak, Jagjit Singh, and Pankaj Udhas, still poppy in beats and disco-themed but in a more ‘clean’ format. But post-“Kaanta Laga”, the scene changed, and Indian cinema got a flood of bold remixes like “Kaliyon Ka Chaman” and “Chadti Jawani”. But what’s more ironic is that the remix idea itself came from Salman only. The directors recalled that they were once at his house when he was working out, listening to the Jhankaar Beats Kishore Kumar remix. That moment sparked the idea of doing something similar.
Despite all the outrage, “Kaanta Laga” made Shefali Jariwala a pop culture icon. She later went on to appear in Bigg Boss 13, hosted by the same Salman Khan who had once asked the makers to tone it down.
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Shefali Jariwala is survived by her husband, Parag Tyagi, who is also an actor.
