“The name is Mamdani..M–-AM-DA-NI. You should learn how to say it.”
This was his response to his opponent Andrew M. Cuomo for what he called a ‘deliberate attempt to mispronounce his name’. Cuomo has consistently mispronounced it as "Mamdami".
And then, the man who once rapped about rent in a slow hip-hop beat turned ‘My name is Mamdani’ into a slogan and he is now the mayor of New York City.
At 34, Zohran Mamdani, son of filmmaker Mira Nair and academic Mahmood Mamdani, hacked the attention economy. While others held news conferences, he posted reels.
He got ‘Aura points’, any Gen Z would say.
Mamdani’s first campaign clip, of him walking through New York talking about the cost of living over a lo-fi track, was a vibe on Instagram.
Each post looked breezy, but his point was deliberate: affordability.
He was seen running the New York City marathon.
Hugging strangers on sidewalks. Filming with cats at a pet shop. Eating biryani at Kabab King. dancing Salsa, performing Tai Chi.
In August, a video began with the camera swooping up towards Mamdani, who was eating from a bag of Herr’s Sour Cream and Onion potato chips. It was a reference to a report that a volunteer on NYC mayor elect Eric Adams’s campaign had handed a journalist a bag of potato chips, containing an envelope with a wad of cash inside.
As with many of Mamdani’s videos, this wasn’t just funny, there was a call to action. And he announced that day about a ‘scavenger hunt’ across NYC the next day.
Within hours, 2 million views. 245,000 likes.
Thousands of New Yorkers hit the streets the next day for the hunt. He engaged with campaign volunteers as they trekked across the city.
In the announcement video, Mamdani said, “Here’s how it’ll work: you’ll solve a series of clues all related to a very particular theme in New York City history…at the final stop, you’ll find a special surprise — not a wad of cash — so make sure you go all the way to the end,” he said in the clip posted to social media, along with the caption, “Game on.”
Multiple videos of his are filled with Bollywood film scenes and music. The politician used Hindi as his communication language, explaining the voting process and his agendas, and criticised his primary rival, former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, who was backed by US President Donald Trump.
In one of his videos from June this year, the sequence starts off with a dialogue by Amitabh Bachchan's character, 'Vijay' from Deewar listing his material possessions, "Aaj mere paas building hain, property hai, bangla hai, bank balance hai, gaadi hai. Tumhare paas kya hai?" To which Zohran does Shah Rukh Khan's signature pose and replies:"Aap".
He also quoted films like Roti Kapda Aur Makaan, the lyrics from Apna Time Aayega as 'Aapka Time Aagaya'. He was quoted as saying:
"We can guarantee cheaper groceries, we can raise the minimum wage, we can freeze the rent for more than 2 million tenants, and build more than 200,000 affordable homes. We are done settling for less...Billionaires ke paas already sab kuchh hai. Ab, aapka time aageya (Billionaires already have everything, now your time will come)”, the politician said.
When results came in, the mood was Bollywood. Literally.
“New York, this power—it’s yours. This city belongs to you,” Mamdani told the crowd.
Just then, the title track of the Abhishek Bachchan-John Abraham-starrer “Dhoom-Machale’ started playing in the background.
One X user wrote: “Probably one of the most iconic things to ever happen at the end of a New York mayor’s victory speech… they really dropped ‘Dhoom Machale’.”
Mamdani has indeed created a storm.
