By Syed Raza Hassan
KARACHI, Pakistan (Reuters) – A 19-year-old Pakistani student who gained notoriety after her five-second video on social media across the subcontinent hopes that numerous versions of her monologue will lead to more dialogue between rival neighbors India and Pakistan.
The short video that Dananeer Mobeen shot in the Nathaigali Mountains in northern Pakistan and uploaded to Instagram shows a group of young people enjoying themselves along the way.
Swinging around the device on which she was filming, Mobeen gestured behind her and said in Urdu, “This is our car, this is us, and this is our party taking place.” https://www.instagram.com/p/CK9JmaXBEtc/
Seemingly innocent, she deliberately mispronounces the English word “party” as “pawri” to make fun of South Asians who adopt Western accents. It immediately hit a chord in both India and Pakistan, which unleashed the biggest hashtags on social media and garnered millions of views and hundreds of spin-offs.
“It was the most random video. I initially did not intend to upload it,” Mobeen said. He expressed surprise at how viral it went, adding the trend that it shows the power and scope of social media.
‘Pawri’ monologues are used by the Indian police and the Delhi Commission for Women in their social media outreach campaigns.
In one video, two Indian soldiers deployed in snow mountains give their own twist with ‘This is us, this is our gun, and we are patrolling here’, while popular Bollywood actors Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone each do a version has what also viral.
The Indian dairy company Amul, which is known for cultivating the latest issues in its advertisements, has done a ‘this is our pav-tea’ version, in a wink to a popular snack with tea. https://twitter.com/Amul_Coop/status/1362262247809028100
Even politicians jumped on the bandwagon, with a leader of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata party using the catchy hook during an election rally.
“I am honored and grateful for all the love across the border,” Mobeen said, expressing her happiness at cultivating a rare friendly cross-border conversation.
India and Pakistan, both nuclear weapons groups, have waged three wars and have often had strained relations since gaining independence in 1947.
Relations have recently soured over developments in the northern region of Kashmir, which both countries partially control but fully claim.
Last week, their military soldiers issued a rare statement saying they had agreed to hold a ceasefire along the disputed Kashmir border, after firing hundreds of times in recent months.
Since the video went viral, Mobeen has said she has been inundated with offers for acting and modeling, as well as requests for product notes. Instead, she says she is striving to join Pakistan’s foreign services.
(Reporting by Syed Raza Hassan; Additional Reporting by Nivedita Bhattacharjee in Bengaluru; Edited by Gibran Peshimam and Karishma Singh)