New Delhi, July 12 -- Dreamy synths shimmer over crisp, snapped-off club percussion. Finger-plucked santoor notes usher in a static-draped voice extending a simple invitation: "aa ja romance karein (come let's romance)." The voice belongs to Nahid Akhtar, often called the Nightingale of Pakistan, lifted from a song that once filled discotheque dancefloors in Lahore in the late 1970s. Nearly half a century later, Baalti and Lapgan thread it into Romance, a club-ready bite of desi sampledelia.

The accompanying music video, directed by Mumbai film-maker Kevin Rathod, is just as densely layered. Wrestlers grapple in a mud akhara, their bodies locked in intimate poses that blur the line between sport, ritual and fraternal tenderness. In just ...