Pakistan’s most awkward viral music video star strikes again

Nothing, absolutely nothing on earth, prepares you for this dulcet torture.

A new music video called Angel, by Pakistani singer Taher Shah, has gone viral on social media across two continents – in India, Pakistan, and the UK to be precise.

And here’s what’s puzzling. It has neither music, nor lyrics, nor video worth a dime. I didn’t even find it worth a few good laughs. It is actually the dullest thing I have ever heard – or seen.

There is no light at the end of the tunnel.

Picture this. A grown man dressed in a purple gown (it could also qualify as a bathrobe), long hair flowing – tiara very much in place, chest hair peeping out, a pendant dangling around the neck, a giant pair of wings, walking across a meadow singing, “I am like an angel.”

Would you believe him, even for a second?

He is joined along the way by a female ‘angel’ in white, and then a child ‘angel’. But does that do anything to pump up the gas? Oh no.

You keep waiting for the video to turn a corner, for the music to jazz up, for the backdrop to come alive, for some action, something, I mean anything that could explain why it has gone viral.

But there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

Indian celebrity Twinkle Khanna describes it thus in a tweet: “Pakistan doesn’t need nuclear weapons they can just drop this purple bomb on us #TaherShah.”

It is drawing guffaws in Taher’s own country too.

“In the process of poking fun at it, we’ve done very little work on comparing online prices in Pakistan!” Awais Imran, co-founder at the startup PriceOye, tells Tech in Asia. He has been following the song’s journey keenly and says it has seen over 1 million views, over 40,000 tweets, and as many Facebook likes and shares.

“It went viral because it goes against every ‘norm’ of Pakistani culture and society. The video itself doesn’t make sense. The lyrics are absurd. The costumes are even more so,” says Awais.