Display of harmony: Little angels express solidarity with Kashmiris

The event featured songs, tableaus from students in connection to Kashmir Day.

ISLAMABAD: Garbed and styled as Kashmiris with colourful traditional clothes and jewellery, children from different schools of twin cities presented a lively performance in connection to Kashmir Day on Friday.

The event was held by the Pakistan National Council of the Arts (PNCA) in collaboration with the Ministry of National Heritage and Integration, Ministry of Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir Council to express solidarity with Kashmiri people.

Adorned with traditional jewellery with braided hair and matching dupattas, each school lined up to do their best to represent the disputed territory.

The children, mostly from schools in Rawalpindi, filled the auditorium with claps and cheers as each school made its way onto the stage to present songs and tableaus.

Some students who braved the stage included Sufyan Mir from Islamabad Model College for Boys (IMCB), who performed a traditional song on the region’s beautiful landscape.

In addition to that, children also presented colourful tableaus complete with props painted to look like trees and hills in the background.

The highlight of the event was a tableau by Divisional Public School Shamsabad on Hadiqa Kiani’s famous song Man di Mauj that successfully captured the scenes of daily village life of Kashmir.

Other schools such as Bright Land School and Jinnah Public School also performed tableaus on songs such as Zulm rahay aur aman bhi ho by Noor Jahan.

At the end of the event, children were given prizes and a special note of thanks was given to teachers for dressing the students in a beautiful manner.

Even though most of the children seemed to be too young to understand the significance of Kashmir issue, some of them expressed pretty mature views on the subject.

“Its been so long since the issue has been going on. It is about time Kashmir issue be resolved,” said a student of IMCB.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 4^th, 2012.