A 19-year-old Pakistani student, who shot to fame after her five-second video went viral across the subcontinent, hopes numerous renditions of her monologue will translate into more dialogue between rivals India and Pakistan.
The video, shot by Dananeer Mobeen in the Nathaigali mountains of northern Pakistan and uploaded onto Instagram, shows a group of youngsters enjoying themselves by the roadside.
Swinging around the device she is filming on, Mobeen gestures behind her and says in Urdu, “This is our car, this is us, and this is our party.”
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Seemly innocuous, she deliberately mispronounces the English word “party” as “pawri” to poke fun at South Asians who adopt Western accents. It immediately struck a chord in both India and Pakistan, sparking top trending hashtags on social media, and garnering millions of views and hundreds of spin-offs.
“It was the most random video. I initially had no intention of uploading it,” Mobeen said, expressing surprise at how viral it had gone. She added that the trend showed the power and reach of social media.
Since then, “pawri” monologue renditions have been used by police in India and the Delhi Commission for Women in their social media outreach campaigns.
In one video, two Indian soldiers deployed in snowy mountains give it their own spin with “This is us, this is our gun, and we are patrolling here”, while popular Bollywood actors Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone each did a version that also went viral.
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Indian dairy company Amul, known for inculcating trendy takes on current issues in its advertisements, did a “this is our pav-tea” version here, in a nod to a popular bread snack eaten with tea.
Even politicians jumped on the bandwagon, with a leader from India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party using the catchy hook at an election rally.
“I’m honored and grateful for all the love across the border,” said Mobeen, expressing her happiness at fostering some rare friendly cross-border dialogue.
India and Pakistan, both nuclear-armed nations, have fought three wars and often had tense relations since gaining independence in 1947.
Relations had most recently soured over developments in the northern region of Kashmir, which both countries control in parts but claim in full.
Since the video went viral, Mobeen said she has been inundated with acting and modeling offers, along with requests for product endorsements. Instead, she says she aspires to join Pakistan’s foreign services.
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