‘Patli Gali’: Song of the streets

With a Pakistan flag fixed on its bonnet, a Surf moves into the frame. A man, wearing a black waistcoat and a moustache, steps out of the car and, to his shock, gets beaten up by a bunch of angry musicians. As absurd as it might seem, that is rock band Azal’s way of standing up against the existing system as depicted in their new video “Patli Gali”.

The song, however, hits a chord with the listeners due to its witty yet ironic lyrics which are sung in the typical Karachi street lingo, using words such as ‘chal be nikal’, ‘tapori’ and ‘kanpatti’, etc. The video takes one into the long known but ‘hush hush’ underground subculture of Karachi: places where gambling is rampant or where a bet over a snooker match can cost lives.