Donald Trump walks to the dais to address a gathering over a 100,000 Indians, all set to listen to him speak to him in Ahmedabad, at the Namaste Trump rally. But this time, Trump doesn't baffle his audience by mispronouncing several names including Sachin Tendulkar and Swami Vivekananda. Instead, he breaks into an old Malayalam Mappila folk song titled Amina Thathade Ponnumolaanu, which praises a certain woman named Beeyathu.
Every now and then, the camera focuses on the face of Melania Trump, who blushes occasionally, hinting that the song is about her. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is also seated on the dais, claps in rhythm, lauding Trump.
Obviously POTUS did not sing this. But there are chances that you may have stumbled upon this video anytime over the last two weeks. The credits for this viral one-minute-long video goes to Ajmal Sabu, a film editor from Changancherry, who runs the popular Instagram page @cuts.zzz.
Someone who has been making these mashup videos since 2018, Ajmal says that he never expected the Trump video to go this viral. "This was a surprise to me," says the 24-year-old. "This wasn't a planned video. I was looking for ideas for a new video and somehow it hit me how this video and the Mappila song went well with each other. The video was made in the next two days," he says.
If you are a follower of the page, you would already know how hilarious Ajmal's mashups are. For instance, there is Rihanna dancing to the Popy Umbrella ad jingle. In another video, Eminem lip syncs to the popular Malayalam classical song Samayamithapoorva, sung by Yesudas. Also, don't be surprised if you see your favourite Hollywood stars lip-sync to popular Malayalam or Tamil dialogues.
"I studied filmmaking in college. That was when I started making these videos in my free time. Later, I started uploading them on my Instagram page and people started liking them," Ajmal says. Upon checking Ajmal's page, once will see how he is not very consistent in uploading content. In fact, the Trump video was uploaded after quite a long break. "I had become quite busy in between. But now that the country's under the lockdown, I work out of home and that gave me some time in hand. During the lockdown, I ended up making a couple of videos," he says.
