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AUGUST 2019sometime after the 2005 release of his third Punjabi pop album, Smile, a young
Diljit Dosanjh, only a musician then, gave an interview to Channel Punjabi, dressed
in maroon from head to toe, wearing a turban, shirt and bell-bottoms.
The interviewer asked him about the song “Aa Gaye Paggan Pochvian Waale”—
The turban lovers are here. “In these times, most people believe that wearing a
turban does not look glamorous,” he said. “But you remained confident in how you
look. Tell us about how you have this confidence.”
“Most people seem to believe,” Dosanjh responded in Punjabi, “that if a sardar
boy ties a turban, he cannot be called good-looking or glamorous. I have nothing
against those who have cut their hair. To each his own. But I have no inferiority
complex about the turban, as if we are lacking something. Hum kisi se kam nahin”—
we are no less than anyone else.
Over the next decade, Dosanjh not only released several hit albums, but also be-
gan acting in Punjabi films, becoming one of the biggest celebrities in the region.
In 2016, as his first Bollywood film, Udta Punjab, was about to come out, Dosanjh
appeared in another interview with the famous film critic Anupama Chopra. While
Chopra asked questions in a mix of Hindi and English, Dosanjh, who does not seem
uncomfortable in Hindi, often chose to answer in Punjabi. He repeated a version of
what he had said in 2005. “People used to tell me, ‘Since you wear a turban, there’s
no way you can work in Bollywood films. There will never be a role for you.’ So I
also believed that Bollywood would never have a role for me ... but anything can
happen if god wants it to happen.”Jatt Lik e Th at
How Diljit Dosanjh helmed
the rise of Punjabi comedy
REPORTAGE / FILM
MANIK SHARMA
kshitij mohan / indian express archive