With only a couple of days left for the July 1 release of her unapologetic documentary, ‘Shut Up Sona’, on ZEE5, singer, composer and producer Sona Mohapatra has released a new music video of one of her most popular songs, ‘Piya Se Naina’.
The imagery in the video celebrates her artistic journey to various destinations, her joyful camaraderie with her band, her free-spirited femininity, her powerful stage persona, and an artiste’s unrelenting commitment to a life of purpose and agency, says the promotional announcement.
‘Piya Se Naina’ is a contemporary musical recreation of the poetry of the 14th-century mystic and poet Hazrat Amir Khusrau.
Describing her bond with Sufi poetry, Sona said: “The most beautiful aspect of this poetry is that it imagines the divine as a beloved and transcends the constructs of gender and even religion. My life, my music, my ‘Lal Pari Mastani’ project and even the journey I went on while filming ‘Shut Up Sona’ encapsulate my quest for this level of transcendence in a society where a woman is constantly labelled, questioned, judged and policed.”
Mohapatra added that the video, just like the film, gives audiences a glimpse of the life of an artiste who wishes to absorb the beauty and diversity of the world regardless of the odds in her way.
“My music has always derived inspiration from life, poetry, everyday interactions, different musical and cultural traditions, and my own experience of the world. ‘Piya Se Naina’ is meant to offer a glimpse of my inexhaustible creativity and the film reveals my most vulnerable as well as defiant moments,” Mohapatra said.
Directed by Deepti Gupta, ‘Shut up Sona’ has received both national and international acclaim. It bagged the National Award for Editing in 2021, the Best Documentary Award at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne in 2021 and at IndieMeme, an Impact Docs Award US, and a Film Critics Guild Award Special Mention at MAMI.
Produced by Mohapatra, the documentary is being billed as “an unfiltered account of the singer’s relentless fight for equality in a gender-insensitive world”.
