Running Through Delhi for Karan Aujla

My Punjabi has never been great. As a Sikh of Afghan origin, we speak a dialect at home that most Punjabi's can understand — but when they try to speak it themselves, they usually struggle. I spent most of my Punjabi classes on Sundays the same way I spent most school days: tucked away in a corner, silently waiting for time to tick away. Unfortunately, in my second year, my teacher was a woman in her early 20s with serious anger issues. She made most of us cry. Including me. I was twelve. So on my final day in our in-class weekly test, I cheated. I sat there watching her yell at the other students while using me as an example of “progress.” And after that day, I never showed my face in that class again, though I did learn a few things from my time in Punjabi class. Firstly, I don’t learn well when someone is yelling at me. Secondly, if I’m not enjoying something… I tend to give up on it. Later in life I tried to avoid repeating those mistakes. Unfortunately, that also meant avoiding learning Punjabi. As I got older and started working, Urdu and Hindi became easier fallback options when communicating with staff. Meanwhile, everyone around me — my brother, customers, my dad, my dad’s friends — increasingly started listening to Punjabi music. From the iconic Yo Yo Honey Singh to the legendary Sidhu MooseWala, the genre grew rapidly. But I still didn’t understand it. Then I met my wife. And let’s just say she loves Karan Aujla “just as much” as she loves me. What does that mean? I’ve asked. Apparently it means she loves us both the same — just in different ways.
I love teasing her about this. It’s adorable. She’s made it very clear that she wants to go to many of his concerts. I even bought her surprise tickets to his Karan Aujla Abu Dhabi Concert, but unfortunately she couldn’t visit me at the time. Then, one week after we got married, Karan Aujla was performing in Delhi. ,She asked if we could go, but my fear of safety in large Indian stadium crowds made me say no...Anyway, this is the story of our Karan Aujla concert in Delhi.

On the 22nd, my wife’s cousin kept calling her. He insisted we could get tickets for 1000 INR on the day of the concert., and on the 28th, her brother (Sunny), her cousin, my wife, and I all decided to take that exact risk — relying on these supposed “tickets on the day.” When my wife and I met Sunny and her cousin at her house, her cousin was already showing off a ticket band on his wrist. I was convinced it was fake and that he was planning to somehow sneak into the concert. Soon enough, we were all in an Uber heading to Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, singing along to Karan Aujla songs. Well… they were singing. I was mostly listening, trying to learn more than the two lines I actually knew. Hopeless! During the ride, I also discovered that my wife used to be a TikToker back in the day — and it seems she was partly responsible for getting TikTok banned in India. Absolutely hilarious!

Once we were about five minutes away, we walked up to the stadium. It was around 4 p.m. And we quickly realised we weren’t the only ones hoping to find tickets. Hundreds of people were standing outside the gates, asking the same question we were — and getting told off by security to go and wait somewhere else. One officer looked at me and said, “Or else I’ll say something you won’t like.” Naturally, I turned around and looked him straight in the eye, just to see how serious he actually was. His round face and slightly annoyed little eyes were trying their best to look intimidating. I tried to hold it in. I really did. But I ended up laughing right in his face — immediately followed by a wave of guilt. It was just too funny not to. The sheer effort some officers in Delhi put into trying to instil fear is entertaining on a completely different level.

My wife’s cousin then used his wristband to get past security and said he’d pass it back to us so we could each use it to get through the first checkpoint. Apparently, that layer of security was as simple as someone quickly glancing at the band. I said no. Being the “foreigner” in the group, I figured things could go badly for me very quickly if I got caught trying that. That’s when I realised something. My wife’s cousin’s ticket was actually real. He had bought it earlier for around 4000 INR, and getting us all to the stadium was essentially just his way of securing an Uber ride. So he went in. Leaving the rest of us outside. That small, timid act of betrayal was enough for my wife to reach her limit. She decided she was ready to pay almost any price to get inside if it meant seeing Karan Aujla perform — especially after the slightly bittersweet betrayal from her own cousin.

We spent the next hour watching ticket prices rise online from 5000 INR to 9,000, still holding onto the dream of finding that mythical 1000 INR ticket. Somehow, my wife managed to get some money back that a friend owed her. Added to the 3000 INR I had, we suddenly had enough for tickets… About thirty minutes ago. Now they were 11,000.
Now what? We decided to walk to Gate 18, about ten minutes away. On the way, we started planning a completely different plan — an overnight trip to Jaipur for another Karan Aujla show. Train tickets were only 600 INR, and the concert tickets were around 2000 each. We called our parents to make sure we could go, then decided to try Gate 18 one last time… just in case we got lucky. My wife was giving me an evil look like all this was my fault and just like the police officer encounter, I just giggled constantly. At gate 18 we got told that there was nothing for us here. So Jaipur was looking increasingly likely. Walking back toward Gate 14, we were a little disappointed. Even though we now had the money, we still couldn’t actually get tickets. I told my wife to just go ahead and book Jaipur before we left to avoid all this there too. With a lot of struggle — there were signal jammers everywhere and none of our data was working — we finally managed to reach the checkout page.
April.
Not tomorrow.
The Jaipur show was in April.
Damn. Gutted. T kept asking angrily whose idea it was to book Jaipur, and I'm 90% sure it was mine and Sunny's but I was not going to say anything. We just blamed the cousin, my wife was already annoyed with him a little bit extra was not going to change much.

Hungry, exhausted, and with night slowly creeping in, we stood there watching the ticket-hungry psychos still desperately searching for tickets. We had given up. We started walking back towards Gate 14 and eventually passed it. That’s when I decided to give it one last shot. My wife had those depressed puppy-dog eyes on her face — the kind that silently say, please find a solution. So I tried again. I went online to the same website she had been trying to load all evening. Somehow, it actually opened. I tried checking out for three VIP tickets.
Oh my... It worked. Checkout. But we were short on money — by the exact amount I had sitting in cash. Now what? We turned to a trio of strangers nearby.
“Transfer the money to us, and we’ll give you the cash.”
Did it work? No.
Why? Signal jammers. Next option?
We asked a taxi driver nearby, he told us to get in the car and drive a little further away where the signal might be better.
Did it work? Yes.
Checkout again.
Make payment.
Loading… The three of us stood there, huddled around the phone screen. It was dark now — almost 7 p.m.
Payment successful flashed in green on the screen and we shouted 'Yes!'.

RUN.

We ran to Gate 18. That was where the ticket bands were being collected but running alone wasn’t enough. When buying the tickets online, it had clearly said purchases were only allowed until 7 p.m. I assumed getting the wristbands would follow the same rule — after 7 p.m they wouldn’t let anyone in. It was 6:55 p.m so we jumped into a rickshaw. We definitely overpaid, but he got us there quickly. My wife ran ahead with Sunny right behind her but I was held up making them rickshaw payment and I lost them in the crowd. All I knew was that she had to get in. I had never seen her so determined — a woman of focus and determination, chasing her dreams of seeing Karan Aujla perform live. By the time I reached the gate, security was already closing it, and the crowd was being blocked from entering. I tried messaging them to find out where they were, but nothing was going through. Signal jammers. I waited. I asked a few people nearby if I could use their hotspot, wondering if the issue was my eSIM. They laughed and told me they were having the same problem. Then, finally, a message came through from my wife.
“I’m in line.”

I waited. And waited. It was dark now. If I lost them in this crowd, it would be a major problem. I kept looking around to see if I could spot her or Sunny but no hope. She then spotted me and I heard her squeaky voice yell my name in relief. We both started shouting Sunny's name until he eventually appeared out of the crowd. She quickly explained that the wristbands had finished — we just needed to scan the QR code at the gate now.
So we ran. To Gate 17.
At this point I wasn’t even worried about getting hit by a rickshaw. Adrenaline had fully kicked in. I was jumping through gaps between people and weaving through rickshaws like my life depended on it. We finally reached Gate 17. Locked. Chains across the entrance, with hundreds of people waiting outside. Most of them were in the same situation as us — expensive tickets sitting on their phones… But no wristbands.

One thing led to another, and suddenly one of the chains snapped on the gate. They broke it. Instant chaos. Everyone rushed toward the now open gate. Luckily, we were slightly behind the first wave of people — because what happened next was exactly what I had feared about going to a stadium in India. Security started hitting people with sticks just like you see on Indian news channels. One officer looked furious. I could literally see the rage on his face as he turned after hitting someone. That’s when I realised this situation was serious. I kept repeating to my wife calmly, “They’re hitting people… they’re hitting people… calm down.”
We stepped back as I watched on. People were getting hurt, girls were screaming, and one girl fell and injured her hand in the chaos. All we could do is wait. After a while, someone told us that VIP ticket holders could enter through Gate 14. Now we had a choice.
Should we risk leaving? We were already so close to the gate. Then I remembered that earlier at Gate 14 they had been letting people in much more easily. Yes? No? Yes. We ran. Well… Power walked because my wife really needed to go to the toilet for the last two hours.

It was dark now, and people were in full panic mode even though we had tickets we just needed to get inside. Having finally made it to Gate 14, at one point, I came dangerously close to having my phone stolen by a man who was clearly much older than the typical crowd there. Who knows how many phones he managed to grab that night. We showed our tickets and rushed in, heading straight toward security. Sunny and I passed through first and moved over to the women’s side to wait for my wife. Moments later, she came through. In the final seconds, as our QR codes were being checked…
We heard it.

We knew he was supposed to come on at 8 p.m but it was only 7:30 so we looked at ourselves confused until suddenly it got louder. A different kind of loud.
It was Karan Aujla’s entrance.
Even I was impressed. And that small part of me that understands Punjabi — mostly thanks to watching Diljit Dosanjh movies — suddenly got excited.
My wife screamed along with the few hundred people who were still outside, despite being exhausted from all the running. Our backs were aching but we ran again. Fast. We pushed through into the VIP area… And there he was. From the distance we were at, he was just a tiny speck on the stage.
But the atmosphere?
Electric.

For the next few hours there was a lot of pushing, shoving, and screaming whilst we went forward. The concert lasted about three hours. I proudly sang my heart out to the “Tauba, tauba, tauba” lines, and that iconic noise he makes in one of his other songs that goes something like “aaauuuuhhhh." ('For a reason' , the song is called). My wife and Sunny, however, knew every single word — just like the other 60,000–70,000 people in the stadium. It really was an amazing atmosphere. But being from London, and having spent years living in Dubai, that little voice in the back of my head kept screaming about the level of security, organisation, and general lack of common sense at the stadium. People were tripping over each other, shouting, pushing. Even leaving the stadium took almost an hour because they basically just opened the gates and let everyone pour out like animals. My wife’s cousin?Remember him? Neither did we. It wasn’t until we were already on the way back that one of us suddenly asked, “Wait… where is he?”. We couldn't do much. He disappeared on us and we later did find out he eventually got in on the same tickets as us.

A slightly chaotic end to a very memorable and enjoyable concert by Karan Aujla. You couldn’t really blame him for the stadium situation. But then again… who could you blame? It’s something people often say is just expected in India, unfortunately. I’m not sure if it’s just Delhi or everywhere in the country, but by that point the only thing that mattered was that the three of us were safe. After the concert we had to walk for about thirty minutes before we could finally find a taxi. When we eventually got in and I saw the smile on my wife’s face — despite being just as exhausted as the rest of us — I realised it was probably worth it. She was happy. I did ask after we were exiting the stadium,
"Babe, do you still need to go to the toilet?". She nodded. She waited almost six hours. Her love for Karan Aujla really seemed worth the potential kidney issues.

I just wanted sleep.