How ‘BC Sutta’ Defied Moral Censors To Become a Cult Anthem in South Asia

““I remember releasing this song in April 2005,” Saqib Abdullah Aziz, the musician who composed and sang “BC Sutta”, told VICE. “I knew someone who had a small music website and we had sent him the song to upload. Within a week, he called me up and told me, ‘Saqib bhai, bada masla ho gaya hain (Saqib brother, a big problem has come up). My website has crashed.’ Turned out that there were so many downloads that his website went down.”

Interestingly, the Aziz brothers’ ancestors lived in the Indian side of pre-Independence, undivided India, mainly Allahabad, with some familial links in Pratapgarh and Lucknow in the northern Indian Uttar Pradesh and Delhi. Their father and uncles, said Sohail, have fond memories of spending their childhood and youth in India. After the partition in 1947, most of the brothers’ immediate family migrated to Pakistan.

But some of their family members continue to live in India, and the song reunited them from across the border. “Considering our generation gap, we barely had links with our Indian relatives,” said Saqib. “When this song went viral, we had a chance to connect with them for the first time.” ”