11.15 AM Friday, 29 March 2024
  • City Fajr Shuruq Duhr Asr Magrib Isha
  • Dubai 04:56 06:10 12:26 15:53 18:37 19:52
29 March 2024

Mr 'One Pound Fish' to return to Pakistan

Published
By Staff and AFP

Pakistan citizen Muhammad Nazir will not have the best of Christmas despite his 'One Pound Fish' song becoming the Christmas chartbuster. Reason? His UK visa seems to have run out and he will be flown back to his home country on December 25.

He can return to the UK only after he sorts out his paper, reveals Daily Mail.

Nazir was under investigation by the Home Office over a potential breach of the terms of his student visa after he ditched his studies to work as a fishmonger.

The daily quoted his agent Samir Ahmed, who had told the Daily Star Sunday: 'He will be on a plane back to Pakistan on the 25th and when he will be allowed to return is uncertain.

Earlier, the mother of the Pakistani internet sensation was praying that her son has a Christmas No.1 hit so his wife and children can join him for a new life in Britain.

When Muhammad Shahid Nazir left his four children behind in Pakistan to study business in London, he could never have imagined he would one day be cavorting in a Warner video with scantily-clad Western beauties, singing about fish.

Nazir, who got a job as a fishmonger in east London's Queens Market in Upton Park, came up with a song to entice customers in which he urged local women to part with one pound ($1.60) for a single, glistening fresh fish.

"Come on ladies, come on ladies, one pound fish," he croons. "Very, very good one pound fish, very very cheap one pound fish."

Shoppers were charmed and after someone filmed a video and uploaded it on YouTube the song went viral and Warner Music offered Nazir a record deal.

A slicker version with Nazir shimmying and strutting Bollywood-style in a natty suit went up on December 10, launching the race to top the Christmas charts in Britain.

The original video has had a staggering 4.6 million hits, while the professionally produced one already has more than two million. Nazir has also gained nearly 28,000 followers on Twitter.

Back at the family home in Pattoki, a small town 146 miles (234 kilometres) south of Pakistan's capital Islamabad, his delighted 67-year-old mother Kalsoom says she is praying and fasting for Nazir's success.

"I appeal to people in Pakistan and abroad to give this song as many hits as possible. I am fasting and saying special prayers for my son so that his song appears as number one," she told AFP at the affluent family home.

Nazir's family run their own business in Pattoki where they settled after migrating from India to the new Pakistan when Britain closed the curtain on the empire in the sub-continent.

Today, they say they have been nicknamed locally as the "One Pound Fish" family and that people are flocking to download the song onto USBs and CDs.

Nazir's father was initially reluctant to let his middle son go off to England, "but now he is also very happy", Kalsoom said.