PHOTO: Express
The four-day Qaqlasht festival concluded with much fanfare and colourful activities at a tourist resort near Booni in Upper Chitral on Sunday.
Held at the 8,000 feet high tourist resort, the festival was attended a large number of tourists and students from different educational institutions.
The festival featured a number of sports competitions such as the traditional polo, tug-of-war, skeet shooting, rock climbing, zip-lining, marathon race, volleyball, cricket, football, archery, hockey, falcon prey and sports for the differently-abled people. During the festival, stalls of traditional food were set up while a cultural show, and music night was also held.
A host of other activities such as quiz competitions, mushaira and adventure sports such as paragliding were also organized during the festival. Local poets and artists participated in mushaira and music programmes.
On the penultimate night of the festival, a grand music night was held in which the visitors and tourists were enthralled with traditional dances and music.
One of the spectacles was a recital using reed instrument and the Chitrali sitar apart from the folk dance ‘Chong Righishi’ and ‘Tatali Wawali’, and ‘Mamashish’.
Jashan-e-Qaqlasht is a 2,000 year-old-festival celebrated by the people of Chitral.
The festival had been organised with the objective to protecting the indigenous Kho culture and to highlight and market it as a tourism product to attract maximum national and international tourists to the region apart from promoting cross-cultural understanding and harmony.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 16th, 2018.
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