NEW YORK - Moments after he made history as the first Muslim and Asian American mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani dished out a fiery acceptance speech and topped it off with a hit Bollywood soundtrack that boomed through a crowded hall of supporters.

Mamdani’s vibe, aesthetic and vocabulary often reference his global upbringing by two Indian-born immigrant parents in Uganda, South Africa, and the city he now will lead.

The Democratic Socialist's speech was peppered with an array of cosmopolitan references.

“Dhoom Machale... Dhoom Machale Dhoom,” the song goes, which loosely translates to “make some noise, have some fun.” The tune he closed out to is the title song from the 2004 Hindi movie “Dhoom.”

Moments earlier, Mamdani had a high-octane message for Donald Trump: “Since I know you're watching, I have four words for you: turn the volume up.”

Was the one-time aspiring rapper who became a state assemblyman urging the president to pay attention or flaunting the generational power shift? Maybe both.

At 34, Mamdani will be the youngest New York mayor in more than a century. Trump, a 79-year-old Queens native, is the oldest person elected to be commander-in-chief.

After the speech, as the fast-paced "Dhoom" song played, Mamdani's wife, Rama Duwaji, the Gen Z child of Syrian immigrants, who grew up in Dallas and Dubai, joined him on stage. The crowd hooted and cheered.

In his speech, he had referred to Duwaji as “hayati” or “my life” in Arabic.

He also quoted India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s famous "Tryst with Destiny" speech delivered in the Constituent Assembly on the eve of India’s independence on August 14, 1947: "A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance."

Mamdani was born in Uganda, moved to New York City at the age of 7, and took frequent trips to India. He's fluent in Hindi and Spanish.

His campaign ads featured him wearing kurtas, Indian tunics. His Instagram posts and speeches include words in Arabic, Spanish and Hindi. Before his bid for mayor, Mamdani represented Queens, a borough where more than 140 languages are spoken.

“Release your client list, habibi,” he said in one campaign ad, asking his opponent and "habibi" (friend, dude, darling), Andrew Cuomo, the former Democratic governor of New York, to disclose his business dealings.

He hopped into Arabic again after his resounding victory against Cuomo and Republican contender Curtis Sliwa Tuesday night.

He told voters: “You showed that when politics speaks to you without condescension, we can usher in a new era of leadership. We will fight for you, because we are you. Or, as we say on Steinway, ana minkum wa alaikum.”

Steinway Street in the “Little Egypt” section of Astoria, Queens is home to a large Muslim community. The Arabic phrase, which translates to something along the lines of "we are of you and you are of us."

Then he offered a nod to the cultural diversity of New York City's residents.

"Thank you to those so often forgotten by the politics of our city, who made this movement their own. I speak of Yemeni bodega owners and Mexican abuelas. Senegalese taxi drivers and Uzbek nurses," he said. "Trinidadian line cooks and Ethiopian aunties. Yes, aunties."

After the speech, his parents joined him and his wife on stage. His mother, the acclaimed film director Mira Nair, a Punjabi born in Odisha in eastern India, is a Hindu. His father, Mahmood Mamdani, a Gujarat-born professor of African studies and political science at Columbia University, is a Muslim who was raised in Kampala, Uganda.

Nair, the iconic filmmaker behind such classics as "Mississippi Masala," starring a young Denzel Washington, "The Namesake" and "Monsoon Wedding," was wearing a bright blue and green sari and sporting a traditional Hindu bindi on her forehead.

She kissed the mayor-elect's arm.

Earlier in the evening, Nair had been quick to point out her contribution before the results began rolling in.

“I’m the producer of the candidate,” she beamed.

Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on X @SwapnaVenugopal

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Zohran Mamdani salutes Bollywood, Indian history, Muslim tradition on victory night

Reporting by Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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