KARACHI: A bunch of children eagerly waited for Khalid Anam and the Grips Theatre to come up on stage and sing at the Goethe-Institut’s auditorium on Monday. They shouted for ‘Khalid Bhai’ over and over again till the actor-cum-singer gave in and grabbed an acoustic guitar from the corner of the room.
He got the crowd excited by asking the institute’s director, Dr Markus Litz, to join him and sing a German folk song. With a printout of the song in his hand, Litz and Anam started to sing, and had the entire room singing along with them.
Soon the rest of his gang - Ameed Riaz, Hina Riaz and Faiza Kazi to joined Anam on the stage and sang one of their most popular songs from ‘Chhoti, Moti, Tota aur S M Hamid.’
The children from, an orphanage called Education Institute Charity, and, the Thespians Foundation School, swayed with the music as the singer encouraged them to sing along. As the song came to an end, the children urged Anam and the others to sing some of the more popular Bollywood songs from Shahrukh Khan’s Ra One and Salman Khan’s Bodyguard. They also sang ‘jab koi baat bigar jaye’ and Anam’s classic ‘Peera ho.’
According to the institute’s programme manager, Kashif Paracha, the Grips Theatre had been performing since the early 1980s and now it was time to put all their music on one CD and make it available for everyone.
The event ended on a sad note as Dr Litz told the children that his stay in Pakistan was coming to an end and he will return to Munich next week. He said that he wanted to dedicate the CD to the children of Pakistan. Litz said that he would miss the institute because of the educational and musical activities organised with the children and the Grips Theatre.
While speaking at the event, band member Kazi said that the theatre performed their first play in English in 1980 and later decided to translate the play into Urdu and perform for a wider audience.
Since then they held a play every year, she added. In the press release, Litz said that the audience’s response to Anam and his group was always overwhelming and showed how meaningful and effective the ‘Grips Methodology’ was. The word ‘Grips’ in the Northern German dialect means the ability to understand quickly. The Grips Theatre was founded in the 1960s by a group of students in West Germany. It also stated that today, the theatre performed for children and young adults and had over 60 plays which have been seen in over 1,500 productions in 40 languages.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 28th, 2012.
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Why should they be singing Bollywood songs in Karachi. I would prefer if the band just sang German songs but it is insulting for these singers to come to Pakistan and instead of giving the kids a taste of European songs, they want to give us the songs of another neighbouring country.