In the Ice Candy Man, written in the backdrop of 1947’s Partition, Bapsi Sidhwa wrote: “And the gramophones and speakers mounted on tongas and lorries scratchily, endlessly pouring out the melody of Noor Jehan’s popular film song that is now so strangely apt,” Mere bachpan ke sathi mujhe bhool na jana, dekho, dekho hanse na zamana, hanse na zamana. When director Deepa Mehta made the novel into the movie Earth, she chose the same voice from the same 1946 hit Anmol ghari, but a different song: Jawan hai mohabbat, haseen hai zamana.

Hoooo… Channo ki aankh mein ik nasha hai. I thought I heard someone sing…dang, you hear it too, don’t you?

Resonating throughout Pakistan, USA, UK, and all around the world for that matter, the sudden Channo-mania has caused quite a hullabaloo, uproar, and frenzy. The man behind the mania, whose voice is often compared to Kishore Kumar’s, is none other than, painter/model/singer, Monsieur Ali Zafar.

We had a chance to meet up with Ali Zafar, who was in Karachi for a couple of days. Sammy kept singing, Ke huqqa paani…

“Arg! It’s stuck in my head!” Sammy hollered.