August Playlist: ‘Dil Se’ by Haroon

Are you a singer/songwriter suffering through a phase of crippling writer’s block (or whatever the music equivalent is?) Do you find yourself yearning to strike gold with the super amazing hit that will reel in maximum likes?

Then it would help if you do your songwriting in Pakistan. If you were to compile a list of countries churning out patriotic hits, Pakistan would blitz ahead to the top spot. The country’s fractured history may have caused unending pain and torture for those bringing it to fruition, but harnessing that pain and torture in the name of nationalist pride? That right there is your next golden hit. If there is anything that will unite Pakistanis together for a solid four minutes, it will be a song about the awesomeness of Pakistan, if you can be kind enough to forget about ongoing madness for just four minutes.

Of course, as Haroon proved in the early 2000s with Dil Se Maine Dekha Pakistan, as part of the patriotic package, you would be a fool not to throw in a salt-and-pepper-haired Naumaan Ijaz reflecting on his life in Pakistan. Yes, our fictional male protagonist’s life is the music video equivalent of a Hallmark card, and no, the Hallmark cheesiness does not bother anyone. It was a tear-jerker when it came out, and unless modern-day YouTuber commenters are lying, it remains a tear-jerker to date. 

The winning formula

Most Pakistani patriotic hits come with the inevitable catchphrase or unmissable riff. Haroon’s hit has neither, barring his repeated plaintive cry of Dil Se, although whether it falls into catchphrase category is up for debate. It doesn’t matter, because in the quest to make an unforgettable hit, Haroon relies on something else altogether: the power of a really great music video. With a sombre cello opening, the rat-a-tat of a chugging train and a suitably lost-in-thought elderly Naumaan Ijaaz as a single tear rolls down his cheek, the tone is set: almost before the song really begins, you know exactly what to expect.

And you are not disappointed; as the vocals kick in, what follows is a sanitised montage of our protagonist’s beautiful, wholesome life. It is a simple story (it has to be, the video has only three minutes and 37 seconds to tell it – but effective. We are with our hero from the minute he sets foot in Pakistan as he gets off the train (in full sepia). We toil away with him as he works hard for his family, hammering away at goodness knows what in a factory. We share his joy at the birth of his firstborn son. We are at his side as the son grows up into a hard-working student. We share his pride as he reaches for his wife’s hand when the hard-working son graduates from university. And we weep along with him as he is handed his first grandchild. The message is clear: all the pain and suffering he went through to get to Pakistan has been worth it. The next generation is thriving, thanks to the foundation laid by those who came before them. His dreams – which he dreamed straight from the heart, or Dil Se – have come through. All is well. Somehow, it is all down to Pakistan. And your cynical heart refused to thaw in the face of this moving tale, our fearless singer Haroon makes a cameo every now and then singing his heart out with his arms outstretched, clad in a billowing dazzling kurta amid the backdrop of blue sky and fluffy white clouds. As everyone knows, nothing screams ‘I heart Pakistan’ more than a billowing, dazzling white kurta.

Does it stand the test of time?

Haroon may not have the most powerful of voices, but one other thing he got right was following the formula laid out by boybands of the time – think Backstreet Boys and NSYNC. Naturally neither Backstreet Boys nor NSYNC feature kurta-glad guys with outstretched arms in any of their videos (but probably only because it has never occurred to them to do it), but when it came to their actual songs, what they did do was follow a very specific musical format in nearly all their hits.

First, you have a verse. Then comes the chorus. Then we go back to the verse, then a bridge, and then back to the chorus – but with a twist! Before segueing into that final chorus, there is a key change (going up by one whole tone, for those who care), and the last few lines are repeatedly sung joyfully louder just to hammer home the point of the whole song. It is formulaic, it makes no sense musically speaking, and it was found in reckless abandon in nearly every top ten hit in the Western world in the late nineties and early 2000s.

Fortunately, the target audience for all of these hits is not your average musical academic. And in the case of Haroon, the target audience is a Pakistani listener (with or without any musical academia flowing through their veins.) The standard Pakistani consumer of a patriotic hit wants just two things: something that gives them a fantasy alternative of what Pakistan could be if it was distilled down to its essence, and something that sounds good enough to return to. Here, Haroon delivers, as nearly 3 million viewers attest on YouTube. With over 32,000 likes, the ones who cared enough to leave a comment had one thing in common: weepiness.

“I am Pakistani, but was born and raised in the West, yet I feel such pride and emotion when listening to this,” writes one user. “Seriously, I’m in tears after watching this video,” adds another. Yet a third notes, “This song still brings tears to my eyes.”

For those who are confused about why, the tears stem not just from the actual music, but from the message. “When you say ‘Mera Pakistan” there was a chill in my body from head to toe,” penned one user. Just below them, another one added, “This song will always be number 1 for me on the list of patriotic songs for Pakistan.”

If I were to leave a comment on the video, it would be this: were it not for that infernal key change and that horrible echo of boyband territory, Haroon would have pulled off what he set out to accomplish in spades. No amount of kurta-clad dancing and Naumaan Ijaaz can erase the stamp of late-nineties boyband. However, I will forgive Haroon, because I can always skip back to the beginning and restart the Dil Se journey all over again.

August Playlist is a series that recalls old songs that continue to fuel the Independence Day spirit.

Have something to add to the story? Share it in the comments below.