If you were to chart Bilal Maqsood’s trajectory in Pakistani music, it would map the soundtracks of a generation. As one half of the pop rock band Strings (with Faisal Kapadia), he helped define a collective sense of longing, nostalgia, and the complexities of love, drawing millions to his plaintive guitar riffs and poetic lyricism. However, in recent years, his artistic journey has veered into unexpected terrain.

Bilal is now the pen and mind behind the comic shenanigans of his puppet show, Pakkay Dost. “Strings was a romantic band. Our songs were mostly about love. Now making a song like that feels very superficial to me,” he reflected in a recent interview. Bilal also mentioned of a Strings fan he met recently who declared his transition to puppetry and kids' entertainment a “fall from grace.” A sentiment, no doubt, shared by many fans of a band lucky enough to inspire inexhaustible nostalgia. But the singer has moved on.

“This, right now, is fulfilling a much bigger purpose. It makes me really, really happy. Maybe this is what I was looking for all my life. Mothers come to me with their little kids and they say, ‘This uncle made Pakkay Dost’ and I feel happy. I have a new fanbase in the making, one whose height is just about two feet,” he shared.