Pakistan apparently decided that if Bollywood could produce a roaring blockbuster like ‘Dhurandhar’, it too could roll out a cinematic missile in response.
The result was ‘Mera Lyari’ – a film that now deserves entry into record books for achieving what most filmmakers spend crores trying to avoid: empty theatres.
The film reportedly sold just 22 tickets before theatres began quietly removing it from screens. Not 22,000 or 22 lakh. A mere 22 people – assuming they were genuine audience and not theatre staff asked to occupy seats for optics.
One suspects even the film crew may have preferred staying home and watching pirated Dhurandhar instead.
Twenty-two gun salute
The contrast could not have been more brutal. While Dhurandhar and later Dhurandhar 2 reportedly became underground sensations in Pakistan through pirated copies, the Pakistani ‘reply’ appears to have detonated inside its own bunker.
That is the irony with propaganda accusations. Every time a successful Indian film touches nationalism, the usual ecosystem immediately develops cinematic allergies. Suddenly, critics emerge from caves to declare it ‘state-sponsored’, ‘majoritarian messaging’, ‘hyper-nationalist narrative’, and other phrases generated from the same exhausted template.
Among the loudest was YouTuber Dhruv Rathee, eternally available to certify anything Indian, Hindu, Modi-related, or BJP-adjacent as dangerous propaganda. The supporting cast of outrage predictably included Arfa Khanum Sherwani, Mohammad Zubair, and Rana Ayyub – the secular emergency response team that appears whenever patriotism threatens to become commercially successful.
The promise was grand. A realistic counter-narrative would supposedly expose Dhurandhar as a BJP-funded fiction and present the truth. What arrived instead was a truth far more painful: audiences simply did not care.
Cinema halls reacted accordingly. Shows vanished faster than Pakistan’s explanation after every terror incident. Theatre owners probably realised it costs more to switch on the projector than the revenue earned from ticket sales.
Piracy succeeded where publicity failed
Meanwhile, Dhurandhar achieved something no diplomatic initiative could – enthusiastic viewership across the border without even being officially released there. Pirated copies ensured Pakistani audiences consumed the film with greater dedication than many domestic releases. Nothing unites the subcontinent quite like Bollywood piracy.
That perhaps is the real story here. Audiences ultimately reward conviction, scale, entertainment, and emotional connect – not ideological sermons disguised as cinema. People will tolerate propaganda if it entertains them. They will not tolerate boredom even if wrapped in ‘the truth’.
And so Mera Lyari exits the stage after a 22-ticket run – less a theatrical release and more a highly organised private screening.
