She’s feisty, fearless and a feminist to the core. At times, irreverent with a droll sense of humour, she can be vulnerable and extremely endearing too. She’s is the one and only singer, composer and lyricist Sona Mohapatra, who is vociferously passionate about her music and women equality. She is the artiste – perhaps the only one – who dared to raise her voiceagainst gender inequality in an industry where the norm is to be quiet and let everything slide under the carpet.

So indeed ‘Shut up Sona’,  a National Award winning documentary made on the firebrand singer by Deepti Gupta, is worth more than a watch. The documentary chronicles Sona’sjourney as an artiste, woman and perhaps, as some would say as an activist who wants to live her life, free and without a muzzle. 

Sona says at one point in the documentary, “I am the daughter of ‘Chandi’  (the Goddess who destroys demons). True, the Junoesque Sona fearlessly takes up cudgels – whether it’s taking on IIT Bombay for making their fest Mood Indigo a ‘sexist’ ‘boys club’, gender discrimination in the music industry, raising her voice in the #MeToo movement and naming Anu Malik and Kailash Kher, taking on Salman  Khan for making a puerile comment or tackling FIR’s, controversies and trolls… Sonabattles it all, single-handed and fearless. 

Sona avers in the documentary that people say – “this woman is angry all the time” – and that Ram sometimes tells her to focus more on her music than being an activist and taking on trolls, negativity and discrimination. Husband, musician and composer Ram Sampat as seen in the documentary, by the way,  is the anchor that holds the maverick Sona steady. 

But the bold Sona unrelentingly voices her protests on pertinent issues, unafraid of death threats, censure and trolls.  Despite criticism and being accused of being an attention seeker, she raises a powerful voice against gender discrimination even when she’s standing all alone battling for other female artiste.

Having said that though the documentary is extremely interesting and traces the singers’ thought process – from her take on everything including Mira to Amir Khushrau and Sufism to her stand on female discrimination, trolls and even VishalDadlani’s ‘views’ on female artistes. Director Deepti Gupta should have snipped a few minutes off the one-hour twenty odd minutes and edited some unnecessary indulgent loose dithering. 

But all in all, ‘Shut Up Sona’ aptly shows the challenge replete journey of singer and activist Sona Mohapatra. The documentary after travelling to multiple film fests will now be on Zee5 from July 1, 2022. Shut Up Sona is definitely worth watching.

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