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Everybody needs love
The sun shone bright as one walked through the entrance of the Children’s Benefit concert, put together by the Family Educational Services Foundation recently. The invitation stated 9:30am, so one naturally assumed it would start a little late, but the concert had begun on time. The time was not the only atypical thing about this event featuring HeartBeat, FES’s lively show troupe and guest artists Strings. The audience was another, which surprised many in a lovely sort of way. The Karachi Parsi Institute ground was filled with 3,000 handicapped and underprivileged children from 25 different institutions in and around metropolitan Karachi.
HeartBeat is a group of young and enthusiastic foreigners based in Karachi. Working for a very good cause, these children produce lively yet meaningful music. Despite having no real command over the Urdu or Punjabi languages, they sang numbers like Abrar-ul-Haq’s Kuriyaan Lahore diyaan, Jawad Ahmed’s Uchiyaan majajan wali and Sajjad Ali’s Sohni lagdi. These famous Pakistani numbers sounded rather interesting when rendered by the group in their foreign or vilaytee accents.
Strings arrived halfway through the programme minus Bilal Maqsood. Faisal Kapadia, accompanied by a guitarist, sang three songs including the so-called World Cup song on which the crowd went berserk.
It was astounding to see those children up on their feet cheering and dancing, making one wonder that despite being special, these children still have an ear for music. A part of the crowd consisted of deaf and dumb people who raised their hands and wriggled their fingers after every song as they couldn’t hear their claps. It was their way of appreciating the performers.
The credit of this well organized concert goes to Mr Richard Geary, the director of the volunteer organization, and his team. Now that some of Pakistan’s renowned singers and artists have formed trusts for the needy and the underprivileged, one observes fundraising concerts nearly every other day. But organizing a concert meant especially for underprivileged children with the aim of putting a smile onto the faces of these special kids who need extra love, hope and encouragement in their lives is something to be appreciated.
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