Tunak Tunak Tun

A video with nobody but Daler

According to Mehndi’s own account, the song’s famous video was made in answer to critics. Wikipedia says he claims his music was often criticised as popular only because of the beautiful women dancing in his videos, and that he responded with a video featuring nobody but himself; the Hungarian news site Telex tells the same story, quoting a page it describes as Mehndi’s old site.

Shot against a blue or green screen, it was among the earliest Indian music videos to use chroma key; Wikipedia calls it the first. Mehndi appears as four figures representing the four classical elements, each in a different colour of rich traditional dress, who sing, dance and gesture at one another over desert, mountain and other computer-generated backdrops before merging into one. Both sources put the budget at about 25 million rupees, and Telex notes that it still appears on lists of the most expensive music videos.

According to Wikipedia, the song’s words refer to the sounds made by the tumbi, a traditional instrument of the Punjab region, and Telex says the title and words allude to the sounds of Indian instruments.

From Indipop hit to internet meme

Released in 1998, the song was a major commercial success in India and, Wikipedia says, cemented Mehndi's position as the country's biggest pop star of the moment. SBS Hindi describes him as a leading figure of 1990s Indipop, the movement that blended Punjabi folk with pop as an alternative to Bollywood film songs, and says the song and its colourful video brought him international acclaim.

In the 2000s the clip spread online and became, as Telex puts it, one of the first internet memes. Blizzard Entertainment added the dance to World of Warcraft, where characters of the Draenei race perform it, and Telex and Wikipedia both note that it also appears in a Medal of Honor game. SBS Hindi records later tributes, including a 2014 remix by the electronic producer Deadmau5, who performed with Mehndi at the Sunburn festival.

Wikipedia reports that the original upload on the Sony Music India YouTube channel had passed 200 million views before it was removed over a copyright issue, a figure Telex also gives.

About Daler Mehndi

Daler Mehndi rose to fame with his first album, Bolo Ta Ra Ra, in the 1990s. SBS Hindi notes his distinctive voice, colourful turbans and long, flowing robes, and calls him a leading figure of the Punjabi folk-based pop of that decade; it adds that the history of Indipop is now often divided into the eras before and after him.

He also worked in Hindi cinema; the Melbourne-based musician Mohit Pandit, interviewed by SBS Hindi, says he was the first artist to take centre stage in a Bollywood film alongside Amitabh Bachchan rather than remaining a background singer. In Emblem World, Tunak Tunak Tun sits in the India music collection, where people discover and rate local food, drink and music.