Listening to Ali Sethi’s latest fun, entertaining offering, Ghazab Kiya, I’m reminded of a conversation we had a couple of years ago. When you interact with Ali Sethi, you get the impression that he’s just bubbling with ideas. There’s a lot going through his head, interests he wants to explore, and the many ways he wants to express himself through his art. It’s hard to keep up.

Earlier last year, he released Pasoori with Shae Gill on Coke Studio to international acclaim. The video got over 490 million views, spawned several covers, became Spotify’s most searched song globally and landed Ali Sethi on Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World list.

“It’s all this stuff that’s been kind of trapped inside of me for so long that it’s finally finding an outlet,” he confessed to me back then. “I resent the anti-intellectual atmosphere in Pakistan, generally. I think people are suspicious of intellectual activity. People want to gossip. They want to chat about corruption, peoples’ personal lives, misdemeanours, divorces, all of that stuff. But when it comes to talking about ideas, people kind of switch off or shut down.”

A part of his objective, he revealed, is to “revive an interest in those other layered ways of being and of experiencing poetry, music, art, visuals… insist on these multiple interpretations and allow people from different backgrounds and perspectives to take part in a conversation.”

Ali Sethi brings an electro-retro vibe to a Daagh Dehlvi ghazal

Ali Sethi’s rendition of Mirza Daagh Dehlvi’s Ghazab Kiya Tere Wade Pe is an introduction to the poet’s work for a whole new generation. Delving into the electro-retro pop genre, Ghazab Kiya’s overall mood and feel, for some reason, reminds one a lot of George Michael’s work from the ’90s. Of course, there’s a lot more to this.

Producer Abdullah Siddiqui has added a lot of fascinating layers to the sound production, so, if you listen closely with headphones on, you’ll notice interesting sounds placed at different points of the song.

With a duration of a mere three minutes 26 seconds, Ghazab Kiya isn’t going to take you through an intensive exploration of Mirza Daagh Dehlvi’s poetry. You’ll get it, but on a very superficial level — the main line, one or two verses at the very most. And that’s okay. This is a fun ghazal with a twist for our fast-paced modern times.

“I need some element of freakiness, otherwise they’ll say, yeh tau bilkul hi boring hai [it’s so boring],” he chuckled. “Or as we say in Punjab: extraordinary typical. Don’t use it, I’m patenting it. I’m going to use it for my next album — ‘Extraordinary Typical: Ali Sethi, ghazals. New age ghazals. Ghazals with a twist’. And there is an image of me doing the twist on top!”

His penchant for doing ghazals hasn’t stopped since our conversation. And with Ghazab Kiya, Ali Sethi and Abdullah Siddiqui have produced a ghazal with a twist for sure.

Published in Dawn, ICON, January 15th, 2023