When a joke beat Jai Ho

Imagine an obscure April Fool joke outdoing an Oscar-winning number in a Bollywood crazy country. But surprisingly, Jab Dekho Phone Kar Dete Ho, a humorous sound clip has just done that...

Imagine an obscure April Fool joke outdoing an Oscar-winning number in a Bollywood crazy country. But surprisingly, Jab Dekho Phone Kar Dete Ho, a humorous sound clip has just done that, by becoming the most downloaded music of the year, ahead of Jai Ho of Slumdog Millionaire.

The startling find is one of the results of Airtel’s Mobitude 2009, a mobile phone usage survey, which captures the preferences of over 116 million mobile users across India. It lists actors Katrina Kaif and Aamir Khan among the most downloaded celebrities by mobile users ahead of Kareena Kapoor, Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan. The survey adds that domestic subscribers also have a fondness for downloading Hollywood content. It also reveals that most SMSs in the year were sent around New Years’ time, followed by Diwali and Dussehra.

During the year, over 200 million music downloads were witnessed by the company. The song Ab Tere Bin Jee Lenge Hum from the 1990 musical hit Aashiqui remains the most downloaded track.