A remix of a beloved hit song has united fans in arch rivals India and Pakistan through their mutual dislike of the new version.
Indian music record label and film company T Series released a remix of Ali Sethi and Shae Gill’s 2022 hit song “Pasoori”, made specially for Kiara Advani and Karthik Aryan’s new Bollywood film Satyaprem Ki Katha.
Titled “Pasoori Nu”, the recreated track is sung by Indian singers Arijit Singh and Tulsi Kumar.
On Monday (26 June), T Series shared the video of the song “Pasoori Nu” on social media, writing: “Presenting the song ‘Pasoori Nu’ from the movie Satyaprem Ki Katha. Relive the global hit! Kartik Aaryan as Satyaprem and Kiara Advani as Katha.”
The chorus of the song has been kept the same while the rest has been reworked in Hindi language. The music of the track has been produced by Rochak Kohli and Sethi, while the lyrics are by Gurpreet Saini and Sethi.
However, the remake did not go down well with a lot of Indian and Pakistani fans.
“Pasoori No,” wrote one fan.
Another person added: “Removing Atif Aslam and Ali Zafar songs, banning Pakistani singers, and then making a copy of another masterpiece of a Pakistani song... Copywood at its best.”
“Bollywood seems to have run out of originality, remaking movies and songs, and not even doing a good job at it,” wrote one fan. “Time for a change in the industry.”
One person wrote: “Horrendous change of lyrics, murdered the poetry.”
Sethi’s original track was released as the sixth song of season 14 of Coke Studio Pakistan and was subsequently released on YouTube on 7 February 2022.
The song was Coke Studio’s first song and the first Pakistani song to feature on Spotify’s Viral 50 Global chart. It has a dedicated fan base in both India and Pakistan with many Indian artists releasing their own versions of the track.
The track was also featured in episode 4 of the Disney Plus miniseries Ms Marvel as well as on the soundtrack of the off-Broadway production, Monsoon Wedding The Musical directed by Mira Nair.
According to data released by Spotify in December 2022, “Pasoori” was the most-streamed Pakistani song globally as well as the most-streamed song in Pakistan in 2022.
So far, Singh’s recreated version “Pasoori Nu” has garnered 10m views on YouTube.
