"Zendegi Chist:" Ahmad Zahir vs. Sadriddin

The creator of the above video was clearly Afghan. Not only for the simple fact that they uploaded "Zendegi Chist" to Youtube and wrote its title in Dari, but because of the images chosen. Only Afghans would upload a video about life's pitfalls with a compilation of images of flowers and celebrating love. That doesn't make sense for the song at all, but Afghans love love no matter if the song they're representing does or not. In a similar way that Bakhtar Zamin ("Zendegi Chist" uploader) presented the song to their liking visually, our next artist does the same visually and musically.



Sadriddin is a well-known Tajiki artist whose collaborations with other Tajiki and Afghan artists within the last 10 years are some of the most popular in the Afghan music world. Most of his songs are in Dari, a familiar language in Tajikistan thus his fan following spans widely. Also, his Dari is impeccable so I thought he was Afghan for the first 20 years of my existence.

His take on "Zendagi Chist" is much different from the first video. It represents the song's melancholic theme through footage of Hollywood's destitute after dark. Ignoring the classist implications of slyly filming possible homeless people, the video's message is clear. It wants to make us as sad as the song is. What Sadriddin or should I say lyricist Koji Zadori (who quoted themselves at the beginning, of course) does differently is switches the song to be more upbeat halfway through.

The original lyrics  "Resma do rangee ahin na monest./Yak rango bashad roozo shabbe man" meaning "Being two colors isn't fashionable for us/ Our days and nights are the same color" is completely new here. Instead, Sadriddin sings, "Beshkanem boham sheeshaye gham ha/ Ta meshe zeba rozo shabay mah" translating to "Let's break the mirrors of our troubles/ So we can make our days and nights beautiful." The video follows this pattern of positive energy as well by showing more smiling faces and less homeless people. Just in case it wasn't obvious, we're supposed to be sad during the latter.