Coronavirus: Sidhu Moosewala’s latest song raises the hackles of this Punjab village

Tribune News Service
Nawanshahr, March 28

Controversial Punjabi singer Sidhu Moosewala’s new song on the 70-year-old man who died last week in a village in Punjab’s Banga of coronavirus has left several in the man’s village Pathlawa seething.

The song, titled “Mein Gurbaksh gwacha Italy ton aaya haan”, tells you the story of one person he calls called Gurbakh. The victim’s family however claims that the singer makes no attempt to hide who he means, even repeatedly using the victim’s real photo to make his point. Those who object claim that the implication is clear-- that the elderly man is to blame for the disease in the state, an unfair blame, they say, given that the man lost his own life to the disease and 15 of the state’s coronavirus affected belong to his own family.

They also object to the song’s lyrics, which says “Si jehri meini bimari ho gyi pote nu, aaya sare pind te maut da saya. Galti meri bhugte dunian, mere karke marde mere. Kidan khud nu maaf karun, bada zulm kamaya”.

Village sarpanch Harpal Singh, who is currently taking care of his coronavirus psoitive mother at the civil hospital in Nawanshahr, said the song was uncalled for give that the victim’s family have been suffering. Although he admits to not having heard the song, he says “ill-conceived, ill-timed and in poor taste” from what he hears of it.

 “Here we are all busy taking care of our families from the deadly disease and there people are mocking it. The victim was in complete ignorance. Who wants his two-year-old grandson and 15 family members to fall ill all in one go? I have been meeting the family here every day. I know what they’re going through all grind they have been going through,” he said.

Harpreet Pathlawa, a youth activist of the village, says: “I really do not know what the singer or the Punjab Police intends to do by blaming a dead man for the disease spread. The youth in the village are completely averse to the release of this song. The victim went to two hospitals when he felt unwell. Had the hospitals taken care of him well at that time and admitted him, he could have lived and the disease would have been contained. So the blame largely lies with the hospitals”.

The 70-year-old died who at a hospital last week, becoming the state’s first coronavirus death, had travelled to Germany and Italy.

Italy is the country hardest hit by coronavirus, recording over 9,000 deaths.