The Next-Gen ambassadors of dakhni

City-based short filmmakers and vloggers group, ‘The Baigan Vines’ are making up for the lacuna of Dakhni dialect on the internet. Beginning about two years ago with zero backing, the team came up swiftly and cleanly with their content being the strong point – the Hyderabadi video-makers portray life of people in the city in pure ‘Hyderabadi ishtyle’.

Started by five youngsters in 2014, the channel already has upto 65,000 subscribers and over 1,35,000 Facebook followers. The team includes 20-somethings Aamer Bin Ishaq, OssamaTipu, Mohammed Zeeshan, Syed Farhan Ahmed and Mohammed Bin Ishaq whose main aim is something as simple as wanting to make people laugh.

Apart from being the only Hyderabadi YouTubers who are regularly sponsored by the city’s big businesses, such as Pista House, Jahanpanah and Hyderabad House, the group is popular among politicians in the city and had been hired officially by AIMIM during the recent elections to make political videos with a touch of humour.

“We wanted to show that there is much more to Hyderabad than Biryani and Qubani,” shares Aamer. Mohammed concurs and adds, "We use Hyderabadi Hindi, because that is what most of our audiences like. Not just in India, we have people from the USA, Canada, the UK and the Middle East too who have subscribed to our channel and enjoy our videos.

Our slick editing, innovative ideas and videos are different from others YouTubers from the city. While others confine to a single place, we move around and shoot. We put a lot of thought into our videos and that shows. Many Hyderabadis can connect to the stories.

“Recently, we made a video ‘Hyderabadi vs Bhojpuri’ where we used Bhojpuri slang and we now plan more of such videos to show the different cultures within India," he says.

Says Ishaq, “One of the most popular words used in the Hyderabad dialect is ‘Baigan’; it marks happiness, sorrow and anger and everything else in between. Hence, my younger brother, Aamer decided to go ahead with the name ‘The Baigan Vines’.

“He, along with his friend, Ossama initially made memes and later, we came up with the idea of making funny videos, playing pranks and venturing into short films. Our first short film 'Shaikh Chilli Lands in Hyderabad', which is also my personal favourite, was a massive hit and was liked and appreciated by many people for its culture-clash humour,” he adds.

Spontaneity and comedy timing
It is quite apparent that their spontaneity and comedic timing are the group’s strong suit. The group agrees. “According to us, spontaneous jokes are better than scripted ones. So, Aamer and I come up with a topic and start shooting,” informs Ishaq.

“Also, one major thing that promotes us is our versatility and out-of-the-box concepts and many consider our videos as stress busters. Our topics vary from political scenarios to trending topics as well as social and religious awareness. It’s hard to bring a smile on someone’s face and we try to do it through our videos,” adds Aamer.

On an average, their regular dakhni comedy videos touch 1,00,000+ views within a span of days. While the group takes upto three days to make a video, there is a lot of improvisation that goes on during the shoot.

“One of our greatest strength is the perfect team bonding" share members Farhan and Zeeshan about what makes them work. Fame has been kind to the group and the brothers, Ishaq and Aamer are taking it in their stride with seamless ingenuity. “With our website currently under construction, we are in talks on launching a mobile-gaming app with each of us five members playing a character in it,” informs Aamer about their upcoming ventures.

Undoubtedly, the group is talented on editorial and technical level. What they need is a production house to back their work. “We will continue making prank videos and are in the process of starting a web-series soon. With massive rise in popularity in under a year, we are hoping to see if we can get a production house to back us up as we are definitely looking out to venture into mainstream filmmaking,” concludes the youngster.

By Rashmi Kumari