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A yellow festival
How many times has one heard that lament about there being not much to do entertainment-wise in Karachi? Quite on the contrary, there’s a lot to do. It’s just the fact that most of it is pretty much the same thing. Fashion shows, concerts, TV tapings — itt’s a vicious circle of culture (or lack thereof) considering some of the shenanigans that go down at these events in the name of arts and entertainment. Most happenings tend to attach themselves to socio-religious events or lame-duck corporate holidays (Valentines, Mother’s Day). Recently, there’s been a buzz of activity surrounding Basant, or Jash-i-Baharan or spring or whatever the heck you want to call it. Most of us can’t agree whether it is a harmless celebration of the natural cycle or if it is an evil pagan feast.
Joining the Basant bandwagon, Eveready recently held its own jamboree in Karachi in the lawns of a local hotel.
Preceding the ‘musical’ part of the evening (the word is in inverted commas as the ‘music’ was canned heat – i.e., the artists were mostly performing to DAT and CDs while plugging away at their instruments pretending to be hard at work) there was a kite flying extravaganza to help the gathered identify with the spirit of the event.
Najam Shiraz kicked off the proceedings in his usual style. It would have been a sheer delight to hear the gifted singer sing live, but alas that was not to be the case as the event was probably being recorded for TV. The stage was decked up in intricate kite motifs, draped in string, sponsors’ banners, matkas and garlands of gaindas.
Hanif Raja handled the compering. He was absolutely venomous with his acid-tinged zingers. Looks like the comic has finally developed some new material and has jettisoned his tried, tested and overly familiar act in favour of fresh, extempore jabs aimed at whoever is unfortunate enough to step into his range of fire. His act was the highlight of the night, and most of the time his one-liners stayed within the shifting bounds of decency.
Among the rest of the performers were the bouncy Saleem Javed, Jawad Ahmed, Hadiqa Kiani and Ali Haider, who surprisingly performed live with guitar ace Faraz Anwar backing up his saccharine-sweet melodies. Riff rockers Karavan were due to perform, but due to a scheduling spat (the band’s story was that they weren’t given the promised early slot) they bid Basant adieu without playing a lick. What a shame. Saleem did his usual song and dance, gyrating to hyper-fast beats (this guy changes his image more frequently than David Bowie does). For the second of his two songs, he brought out Anwar Bhai to rock the crowd with his dhol. Unfortunately, he failed to ignite the crowd and Saleem took Anwar bhai back with him.
Jawad came on stage and Hanif playfully messed around with him. People were treated to an extended spiel about the singer’s NGO. What’s this business with every other pop star launching an NGO? Have these people got too much time on their hands? There was a time when musicians concentrated on what they knew best: music. Another quirky thing about Jawad is that he makes it a point in his pre-song banter to announce that Punjabi is his mother tongue. Is it really necessary to repeat the fact every time?
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