Knowledge festival: Puppet show, qawwali enthrall audience

Knowledge Festival staging a puppet show, lecture and qawwali attracts many young students.

A puppet show by Rafi Peer was the highlight of the Knowledge Festival on its fourth day on Monday. Titled ‘Education through Puppetry’, the show’s thematic segments attracted keen interest from participants, particularly young students.

Next, a lecture titled ‘Pleasures of English Literature’ was delivered by eminent scholar Maj Gen (R) Mohammad Tahir. He read extracts from a number of novels, plays and poems to the sheer joy of the participants, highlighting themes such as life, death, love and fate.

‘Mysticism and the rich tradition of Qawwali’ was the concluding programme on the fourth day. An audio-visual presentation depicting the rich history and tradition of Qawwali was shown.  It was not just a presentation of Qawwali, but a knowledge-oriented programme that informed listeners about the tradition of Qawwali and its link with Sufism.

The audience felt like it was transported to a divine world when a video of Maulana Rumi’s poetry was shown. Later, a live Qawwali by Akhtar Sharif-Sabir Sharif (Aroop Walay) stole the show as the audience roared with applause.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 25^th, 2011.