Youth Performing Arts Festival : UET play steals the show

Lahore College for Women screens Punjabi-theme documentaries.

LAHORE: University of Engineering and Technology (UET) students thrilled a packed crowd in Alhamra Hall No 2 with an entertaining play that was one of the highlights of the 9th Rafi Peer Youth Performing Arts Festival so far.

Young audiences were also treated to four documentaries and another play at the Alhamra Cultural Complex on Sunday.

Fay Fawaray, Ghain Ghubaray by Zumbeel Productions bore the hallmarks of a classic UET production: overall good quality and professionalism, and men playing female characters.

The play is set in a ‘60s movie, in which the impoverished hero, Shahid, falls in love with a rich girl, Shama. Her family is unwilling to accept Shahid, so he decides to slash his wrists. But he is stopped at the last moment by an old man who hands him a spear and tells him to take a new approach.

At this point, the ‘film’ goes into intermission in classic ’60s cinema style, with a couple of questions appearing on screen to tease the watcher: 1. Kia Shahid Ki Maan Olympics Mein Hissa Lay Gi (Will Shahid’s mother participate in the Olympics?) 2. Kia Shama Dama Ki Mareeza Hay? (Is Shama an asthma patient?)

Back from the intermission, and the 60s film is transformed into a Punjabi action movie, with Shahid in the ‘Sultan Rahi role’, meaning he kills everyone except his beloved. The play was thoroughly enjoyed by a large and vocal audience.

Earlier in the day, Lahore College for Women University (LCWU) students screened four documentaries. Three had a Punabi theme. The first, Ebadat Gah, was about the architecture and historical importance of Ranjeet Singh’s Smadhi and Gurdwara.

The second, Shakuntala, was about a haunted room in the LCWU hostel where a Hindu girl is said to have committed suicide after getting pregnant. The documentary was interesting for the students in the audience. The sound direction for this film was particularly impressive. Soch Belagam was about women patients at the Punjab Institute of Mental Health. The disturbing documentary had a deep impact on the audience. The fourth screening was of Parinda, a mime film made for the Aurat Foundation that is about emancipation.

At the end of the show, Omar Hashmi from LCWU appealed to students to take media seriously. Ahmad Bilal from Punjab University asked parents to pay more attention to the arts. Sunday also featured a disappointing play by Thespian theatre.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 29^th, 2010.