LAHORE: The Punjab Lok Sangat, in collaboration with Afra Bukhari Book Club, organised a competition of singing Shah Hussain’s Kafis among college and university students and a music evening in connection with Mela Chiraghan at South Asia Free Media Association (Safma) on Monday. The competition was of the singing of the Kafis of Shah Hussain.

The event started with about two hours late than its scheduled time of 1pm. There were sound issues when it came to microphones and other equipment. The participants got bored because of the delay in the event. The organisers justified the delay with ‘a host of reasons’.

Amjad Saleem Minhas from the Punjab Lok Sangat while speaking on the occasion apologised for the massive delay in starting the event. He said by holding this event, the Sangat wanted to provide the youth with a platform for a different kind of extracurricular activity.

Minhas said it was the need of the hour that the youth got involved in cultural activities to avoid extremism.

Amir Faraz from the Afra Bukhari Book Club said the club was trying to involve the youth in literary activities. He added that the Lok Sangat had played a vital role in arranging literary and cultural activities for the youth and lauded Minhas for it.

The participants, coming from various colleges and universities, took a keen interest in Shah Hussain’s Kafi singing competition.

Nisha Sarfraz from the NCA Musicology Department opened the Sufi music evening but she was not part of the competition and sang a ghazal sung by Noor Jehan.

Noted poet Baba Najmi gave the shields and prizes to the participants. Third position in the Kafi singing competition was shared by Meesam Abbas Jaffri from the GCU and Laiba Kashif from Shalimar College.

The second position was bagged by Shakiana Zaheer from the FC College University while first position was secured by Ubaid Gill from the Punjab College.

There were cash prizes too for the first three positions, Rs10,000 for the first position, Rs7,500 for the second position and Rs5,000 for the third position.

Musfara Naeem from the Lahore College Women University (LCWU) was given a special cash prize of Rs5,000 by Amir Faraz for her singing. All the participants were given participation certificates by the organisers.

Published in Dawn, March 21st, 2023