Celebrating Quaid’s birthday: Children perform at Lok Virsa cultural show

PM’s adviser on history says local and regional languages should be included in the national curriculum


Photo: Mudassar Raja December 25, 2016
Students perform at an event held at Lok Virsa to mark Quaid-e-Azam’s birth anniversary. PHOTO: MUDASSAR RAJA/EXPRESS

ISLAMABAD: Hundreds of children and students from various schools and colleges of the twin cities performed folk songs at the Lok Virsa on Saturday in a cultural show.

The show was part of the week-long celebrations for Quaid-e-Azam’s 140th birth anniversary.

Students from Islamabad Model College for Girls G-6/1-4 and Islamabad Model School for Girls, G-6/1-3 sang national songs including “Aye Quaid-e-Azam tera ehsan...”, Allama Iqbal’s poem “khudi ka serre nihan...” and Sindhi folk song “more thor tella rana...”.

Ataul Qadeer, a special student from the Directorate General of Special Education presented a popular Pashto folk song “bibi sherini.”

Students from Islamabad’s Model School for Girls F-11/1 presented a diversity show “Rhythm of Unity” depicting different folk tunes and folk songs which focussed on the message of peace, love and unity among all provinces. Javed Nauman, a young artist sang the Balochi folk song “laila oh lai.”

Young folk artists Ashir Niazi, Subhan Niazi and Muzammal presented the Punjabi folk song “lai bey kadran nal yari teh tut gai tarak ker ke”. Irfan Siddiqui, Adviser to the Prime Minister for National History and Literary Heritage, spoke about the teachings of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

“Children have great potential to express their creativity. By watching their energetic performances, one cannot imagine that these are children. We should continue such efforts to inculcate knowledge about our culture and music in the younger generation, which is the future of Pakistan,” Siddiqui said.

He added that local and regional languages should be included in the national curriculum to promote harmony among the provinces.

Later, while talking to the media, Lok Virsa Executive Director Dr Fouzia Saeed said that the show was part of an effort to “sow the seeds of a pluralistic society in the youth of Pakistan.”

“We believe that it will serve to provide an orientation to children about our rich musical heritage and contribute towards creating ownership among children regarding Pakistan’s cultural heritage besides reaffirming our identity of being multi-cultural and pluralistic country,” she added.

Apart from the cultural show, work of artisans was on exhibit at the Heritage Museum.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 25th, 2016.

COMMENTS

Replying to X

Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.

For more information, please see our Comments FAQ