This Pakistani man met Indian filmmaker Imtiaz Ali at the Pakistan-India border
Ali was there with AR Rahman and the cast of his upcoming Partition-era film Main Vaapas Aunga.
Diljit Dosanjh’s Pakistani fans adore him and want to see him perform in Pakistan, a request the artist politely turned down for now, saying he would get in trouble if he did.
The singer was on an Instagram live on Tuesday to hype up his tour of Europe when a fan from Lahore asked him to visit the city.
Responding to the request, Dosanjh said, “No brother, if I come to Lahore, they won’t let me go anywhere else. You know what’s going on in the world. It’s all about politics bro.”
He went on to say that he doesn’t see himself ever getting involved in politics because it requires “very thick skin”.
“I always stay away from politics, always keep my face away from it. That’s why I say politics, for anyone who wants to pursue it as a profession, is very hard. ‘It’s not something I can handle,’ that’s what I say and stay away from it all,” Dosanjh said.
The singer, whose work in Punjabi music and cinema has amassed him a cross-border following, occasionally finds himself the victim of politics, which may explain his aversion to it.
Last year, his film Sardaar Ji 3 made waves in India and Pakistan for casting Hania Aamir as the female lead. While Pakistani audiences watched the movie in cinemas, Indians could not as it did not get a theatrical release in the country.
Dosanjh defended the film and refused to bow down to pressure from his home industry, which threatened to ostracise him entirely.
He told the BBC Asian Network things weren’t as tense when he started the project and he wasn’t going to let things “out of his control” get in the way of his commitments with the film’s team.
More recently, he starred in Main Vaapas Aaunga, a film that explores the story of Partition from the eyes of a man who went through it in his youth. Much of the story is set in the now-Pakistani city of Sargodha.