Pawri on: Viral video spreads cheer in the subcontinent

A PAKISTANI student who shot to fame after her five-second video went viral on social media across the subcontinent hopes numerous renditions of her monologue will translate into more dialogue between India and Pakistan.

The short video shot by Dananeer Mobeen (right), 19, in the Nathaigali mountains of northern Pakistan and uploaded onto Instagram shows a group of youngsters enjoying themselves by a 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 taking place.” Seemly innocuous, she deliberately mispronounces the English word “party” as “pawri” to poke fun at some 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 and adding the trend showed the power and reach of social media.

“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 star couple Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone each did a version that also went viral.

Indian dairy company Amul, known for inculcating trendy takes on current issues in its advertisements, did a “this is our pav-tea” version, 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 honoured and grateful for all the love across the border,” said Mobeen, expressing her happiness at fostering some rare friendly cross-border dialogue. Mobeen said she has been inundated with acting and modelling offers. Instead, she says she aspires to join Pakistan’s foreign services.

PAKISTANI social media star Dananeer Mobeen (left) has shown that five seconds can change your life forever. Her video clip, where she is saying, “yeh humari car hai, yeh hum hain, aur yeh humari pawri ho rahi hai” (this is our car, this is us, and this is our party that is happening) has gone viral in an unimaginable way. The clip has had a musical remix, generated memes, a clothing line and everyone, from members of the public to Alist stars like Ranveer

Singh and the Pakistani cricket team, doing their own version of it. The 19-yearold now has over a million followers and a fulltime business manager fielding inquiries from around the world. You can find her on