KARACHI: Pakkay Dost,a children’s puppet show, conceived and produced by musician Bilal Maqsood that can be seen on YouTube, was launched at the Arts Council on Friday evening.

Calling it a special project, Mr Maqsood said ever since his son Mikael was born, it troubled him to note that there were no songs in Urdu for children.

He said in his own childhood, there used to be music composer Sohail Rana’s songs that to date transports him to his younger days. But his children grew up on shows such as Barney and Mary Poppins.

He said when he was with the pop band Strings, for 33 years he couldn’t find the time to do a project about children. From the time Strings broke up on March 25, 2021, that is, from March 26, he’d been thinking about songs for kids. So he started working on it.

Musician Bilal Maqsood produces the programme that can be accessed on YouTube

Mr Maqsood said the work began on three levels. The first level was to do with songs; and making songs for children turned out to be an entirely different ‘science’. Once done with the melodies, he got in touch with Ahsan Pervez Mehdi in Lahore and asked him to arrange the tracks with a ‘modern sound’.

The second level was related to puppets for which he got in touch with those who had made the hugely popular programme Sesame Street. He said they were kind enough to help but the timelines weren’t matching, so they referred him to someone else. Once that was taken care of, the third level was: now what to do with songs and puppets. Answer: make a show.

He said the whole process required a director for which he thought of Umer Adil and his wife Beenish (as art director) because he wanted parents for the project. Then came the job of picking the cast. Maqsood picked Usman Sheikh, Ahsan and his niece Alizeh who could mimic Fatima Surraya Bajiya.

After the speech, he showed clips from the show, which were very well received by a large audience.

There were songs and sequences on subjects such as friendship and sharing, and tracks on how to learn Urdu alphabets and the names of the days in a week. They’re masterfully done, something that will go a long way in helping children learn Urdu.

In the last segment of the launch, the host invited Umer and Beenish to speak to the audience.

Published in Dawn, September 2nd, 2023