25 May,2026 01:56 PM IST | Mumbai | mid-day online correspondent
Ananya Panday. Pic via Instagram
Chand Mera Dil, featuring Lakshya and Ananya Panday, opened in theatres last Friday and has been receiving mixed reception from the audience. Amid this, a video of a scene from the film, showing the lead actress performing Bharatnatyam on stage, has surfaced online, attracting massive backlash from users.
Social media has been trolling Ananya Panday for her performance. In one of the two key sequences in Chand Mera Dil, Ananya's character Chandni is seen doing a robotic Bharatnatyam fusion. The scene shows her as a college student, where Lakshya's character sees her for the first time.
Similarly, a second scene includes her at her college's Alumni meet.
Unconvinced by her efforts, users on social media expressed their disappointment over how the actress performed the classical dance sequence. Sharing the clip, one user wrote, "Ananya panday has literally turned Bharatanatyam into Bharta. Instead of proper mudras , we got robot arms , Instead of abhinav expression we got surprise emoji face and. Instead of footwork it look like a vibrating washing machine it feel like a some Ai took 2 hours of training and got pushed on stage. Real traditional dancers must be crying seeing their 10 year of practice destroyed in 10 seconds." (sic)
Similarly, sharing a screengrab of the movie screening, another person wrote, "Someone needs to stop Ananya Panday ji before she further destroys Bharatanatyam. The audacity to have a Nataraja idol in the background and perform like this... (crying emoji)."
Choreographer Anita R Ratnam also reacted to the clip, saying watching the clip made her feel like the classical art was being held hostage by a catastrophic misunderstanding of the form. "Somewhere between the flailing arms and random camera moves, the dance quietly packed its bags and exited the building," she wrote.
One user commented, "Such a disgrace. Her performance is an Insult to the beautiful dance form.let these Bollywood kiddos stick to hip hops and other western dance forms." Another user expressed, "Given her terrible acting and dancing skills, the audience members pretending to enjoy this shitshow must have been paid more than the actor herself."
A user even wrote, "There's no finesse, or for that matter ordines, her mudras are looking so mechanical, Latka-Jhatka, devoid of any expressions, vitiated the most revered form of Indian classical dance Bharatnatyam."
