Dawn Images

Actor Faiza Khan thinks Pakistanis need to stop for a second and face the music. Metaphorically, yes, but also literally: she wants to know why Pakistan’s films and dramas don’t use tracks from the country’s rich musical history and traditions when Bollywood is more than happy to do it.

Reacting to news from an Indian publication claiming filmmakers paid INR4.5 million to use a 40-year-old Pakistani song in the film Dhurandhar, Khan asked why Pakistani films and dramas don’t use older Pakistani songs that are loved by generations.

“Have we stopped recognising our own legends or simply lost touch with our own legacy,” the actor asked, lamenting that half of the next generation doesn’t know the classics.

She regretted their underutilisation in Pakistan when an “other industry pays millions to use them for [a] few minutes”. She said the universal appeal of the songs was evidenced by their popularity among Gen Z despite being “decades old”.

Khan said this was because “the art of the music is pure”.

The actor was responding to a report on singer Hassan Jahangir, who claimed in an interview with Nida Yasir last month that the team behind Dhurandhar paid him $50,000 to use his song ‘Hawa Hawa’ in the movie.

The track was used in a scene introducing the character of SP Chaudhry Aslam — a fictionalised caricature of the late real-life Karachi cop, played by Sanjay Dutt.

Before Khan expressed her disappointment at Pakistan failing to embrace its own cultural heritage, Indian netizens were furious at Bollywood for doing so.

Indian fans felt betrayed to hear a Pakistani had been compensated in connection to such an overtly anti-Pakistan film. Some even pointed to the film’s sequel, which has Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s ‘Dil Pe Zakham Khate Hain’ on its soundtrack.