Prathyush Parasuraman
Twitter trembled with a rumour last week: Pakistani artist Ali Sethi’s global chartbuster, ‘Pasoori’ — the most Googled song of 2022; the most streamed Pakistani croon on Spotify; the most viewed Coke Studio production with over 500 million views — would be recreated for Kartik Aaryan and Kiara Advani’s upcoming romantic drama Satyaprem Ki Katha.
The problem with the ‘Pasoori Nu’ recreation is not that it is bad, which it unquestionably, unequivocally is, but the song’s refusal to look at the original as anything but a tune that has been fitted with syllables. ‘Pasoori’ is a song characterised by queer ambiguity, with a seething sense of separation and the kind of rage that can only come from heartbreak.
Sethi had come across the phrase “Aag lavaan teri majbooriyan nu” (to set fire to your problems) on the back of a truck in Pakistan.
The sentiment and acoustics of the way the phrase works in Punjabi — the heaviness of syllables evoking both pathos and playfulness — moved Sethi to spin this quirky truck art into something more. The word ‘pasoori’, meaning angst, sprung up. The song was slowly sedimenting into form.
The grating audacity to, then, plaster this song over visuals of grinning heterosexuality — embodied by Aaryan and Advani in sweeping shots of yellow fields, dull indoor choreography in white tops and denim; actors looking into the camera, preferring to romance their fandom than each other; a yawning chemistry that is pale and confected.
Not only does the recreation erase the queerness from ‘Pasoori’, the simpering pep in its stride seems ignorant of the romantic rage in the original.
Why did T-series do this? Because they could? Because they are uninterested in what made the original song a work of staggering, seething perfection, attending instead to only the melody which they can lift and lacquer per will?