Dubai diaries: The very first meeting
Dubai, 2016. "Mere Sapnon ki Rani kab ayegi tu" , the delightful voice of Kishore Kumar greeted me as we got into a taxi in Dubai. I was taken in by a pleasant surprise because it was after an extremely long time that I was hearing Kumar's melodies, more so in a place hundreds of miles away from home.. Soon the track changed, giving way to more songs from Sharabi and Padosan. "You have a great collection of songs sir, I could have never imagined getting to hear these outside India", I said to the driver, naturally assuming him to be from India. He inferred I was an Indian from this comment and said in Hindi, "Maam hum Pakistan se hain lekin Bollywood ki toh baat hi kuch aur hai" (I am a Pakistani and love Bollywood). "Oh wow! From where in Pakistan?" , We asked him visibly surprised. "Multan", he replied. This was the first time I met anyone from Pakistan and I had tonnes of questions for him. We talked everything right