Rasika Dugal on ‘Saanson Ki Mala’ Becoming Beena Tripathi’s Anthem: “It’s Beautiful to See a Song That Has Lived for Generations Find a New Context”

There are some songs that never really leave the cultural consciousness. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s Saanson Ki Mala is one of them. Decades after becoming a cult classic, the iconic qawwali has found a striking new context in Mirzapur: The Movie, becoming almost synonymous with one of the film’s most talked-about moments, and with Beena Tripathi’s character.

The song plays over the pivotal sequence involving Beena Tripathi, creating an unexpectedly poignant contrast between the lyrics of eternal love and the drama that unfolds on screen. The moment has since taken on a life of its own on social media, with fans sharing clips, memes, edits and reactions to the sequence, further cementing Saanson Ki Mala as an unlikely anthem for Beena.

For Rasika Dugal, who has played Beena through the Mirzapur universe, seeing the song resonate so strongly with audiences has been particularly special.

“ Its really special that the song has been around for generations, and people have had such a deep relationship with it. And now, to see it find a completely new context through Beena. And to see people reacting to it, making content, sharing their own takes on the dialogue while simultaneously rediscovering the music is wonderful. It reinforces how timeless the song really is.”she says

The choice of Saanson Ki Mala is particularly significant to Beena’s arc. The song, with its themes of devotion, longing and an enduring connection to the beloved, gives the character’s emotional journey an unexpected poetic dimension.

“For Beena, the song is not just playing in the background. It almost becomes a part of her emotional world in that moment. There is so much history in that moment and there is so much that she cannot say. The song says things that she herself doesn’t. That’s what makes the sequence so powerful for me,” Dugal adds.

And perhaps that is a fitting new chapter for Saanson Ki Mala: a song that has lived across generations, now finding a new context through Beena and the world of Mirzapur.

For Rasika, the audience response has added another dimension to the scene. “It’s lovely when something you’ve been a part of creating takes on a life of its own and becomes a part of people’s conversations and imagination. Experiencing the reactions to the scene in theatres has been so special, and then seeing it travel beyond the film-through the song- is a new a new one for me.”