The origins of Beyghairat Brigade’s Aalu Anday were as lacking in ceremony as the dish itself.

“My mum had made aalu anday for dinner and I just don’t like aalu anday. So I left for my friend Ali’s house without having dinner, humming ‘eh hey eh hey…meri maa nay pakay aalu anday…eh hey eh hey… mein ni khanay meinu lagday nay ganday’. As soon as Ali heard it, he said he wanted to turn this into a full-fledged song, and there it was”, says Danyal Malik of the Beyghairat Brigade, still trying to absorb the great response the song has drawn.

So what is the Beyghairat Brigade? It comprises a very focused Ali Aftab -- who works with a local news channel -- as the band’s vocalist, a quick-witted Danyal Malik, an economist by profession and the percussionist and lyricist for the ‘Brigade’, and a quiet 15-year old guitarist, Hamza Maik.

The band’s name, according to its members, is a satire on political gurus who make money by analysing news; literally those who do not have any self-respect. “We have so many flag-bearers of ghairat (honour/respect). Someone had to uphold ‘beyghairati ka jhanda’…we thought why not us…”

The video shows immaculately dressed schoolboys carrying lunchboxes full of what they do not like. The difference this time is that these boys from the Beyghairat Brigade want a change in menu, and there are many around who would say they have been able to place a new order alright.

It is not all that unusual for youngsters today to be complaining against, even ridiculing, the Pakistani politician. Consequently, while the band should get full marks for their creativity, it is not a big jolt when the Sharif brothers enter their Aalu-Anday-chicken-khameeri roti-daal equation.

The surprise is that the current political incumbents headed by President Asif Zardari escape without a direct hit by BB and instead we have these youngsters poking good-humoured fun at a general. But the Brigade are at their boldest in their tackling of the mullah, Ajmal Kasab, Mumtaz Qadri trio in comparison to someone like Dr Abdus Salam. Add to it the reference about how easily the Blackwater can be blamed for jobs done by some of our own and this is not schoolboy stuff but a critique by politically aware youth.

And there is plenty to actually read between the lines of the song, courtesy the placards that have been used in the video. “We needed fillers and could only make enough clumsy faces or dance around to a limit,” Danyal explains.

Ali Aftab adds: “What we couldn’t say in the song itself, we said it through the placards. And like the lyrics of the song, we wrote many and discarded many. We took aalu anday as the metaphor for what we’ve been handed down—our social norms and related it to what was happening in the country.”

The placards read like status messages on social networking sites: ‘Nawaz Sharif bye-bye, Papa Kayani no like you’; ‘Free Judiciary = PPP hanged’. ‘PTI = Good-looking Jamaat-e-Islami’; ‘The mullahs plus military = Zia-ul-Haq’; And an obvious one in relation to the country’s chief donor, ‘Your money + my pocket= we are still enemies’.

This politically loaded satire was sure to invite criticism and the band says it was ready for it.

“We knew the song will hit and it will hit hard,” says Ali. Danyal jumps in and says: “Until an hour before we launched the video on the internet, we were discussing the consequences, the expectations and above all whether it was worth the risk.”

Hamza’s philosophy is simple. He does not understand a lot of things in the song but says: “I heard the tune before I heard the lyrics and liked it so much that I wanted to do it.”

Despite all this, they weren’t ready for the overwhelming, almost viral response, to use a cliché. Ali and Danyal say the response on the internet and after the television release had a sobering effect on them. Also they “never intended this to be shown on television” because they were aware of censorship issues. The message, “If you want a bullet through my head, like this song!” is testimony to this.

Inspired by RD Burman, Beyghairat Brigade has more in store for us – this time, hopefully, not sponsored by the “Zionist lobby” they credit their spicy aalu anday with.