'Honoured, grateful for love from across the border': 'Pawri' trendsetter on India

A 19-year-old Pakistani student who shot to fame after her five-second video went viral on social media across the subcontinent, hopes numerous renditions of her monologue will translate into more dialogue between India and Pakistan. The short video shot by Dananeer Mobeen in the Nathaigali mountains of northern Pakistan and uploaded onto Instagram shows a group of youngsters enjoying themselves by a roadside.

Swinging around the device she is filming on, Ms Mobeen gestures behind her and says in Urdu, "This is our car, this is us, and this is our party taking place."

Seemly innocuous, she deliberately mispronounces the English word "party" as "pawri" to poke fun at South Asians who adopt Western accents. It immediately struck a chord in both India and Pakistan, sparking top trending hashtags on social media, and garnering millions of views and hundreds of spin-offs.

Even politicians jumped on the bandwagon, with leaders using the catchy hook at public events and tweets.

"I'm honoured and grateful for all the love across the border," said Ms Mobeen, expressing her happiness at fostering some rare friendly cross-border dialogue. Last week, India and Pakistan released a rare joint statement saying they had agreed to observe a ceasefire along the Line of Control, after exchanging fire hundreds of times over past months.

Since the video went viral, Ms Mobeen said she has been inundated with acting and modelling offers, along with requests for product endorsements. Instead, she says she aspires to join Pakistan's foreign services.

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