KARACHI: The Arts Council of Pakistan, Karachi commemorated Defence Day with impassioned and heartfelt performances by the faculty and students of its music and theatre academies on Sunday.

The event, in which the DG Pakistan Rangers Sindh, Maj-Gen Iftikhar Hassan Chaudhary was chief guest, was shown online on Monday.

The evening began with the Arts Council Music Academy’s rendition of the patriotic song ‘Sathio mujahido’. The young ones, led by Arman Rahim, followed it with the popular number ‘Hai jazba junoon to himmat na haar’ mixing it up in between with ‘Junoon se aur ishq se milti hai azadi’. A young girl sang the famous ‘Wattan ki mitti gawah rehna’ after which the heart-warming ‘Allah O Akbar’ was presented.

The students rounded off their stint on stage with ‘Ay rah-i-haq ki shaheedo’.

Next up were the seasoned singers Bano Rehmat and Ghulam Abbas. Bano started off with a Kashmiri song and then sang Madame Noor Jehan’s Punjabi number ‘A puttar hattan te’. Ghulam Abbas warmed the hearts of a receptive audience with ‘Apni jaan nazr karun’ and ‘A khitta-i-Lahore tere janisaron ko salam’.

The last part of the event was a theatrical presentation, Battle of Barki, a tribute to Maj Raja Aziz Bhatti Shaheed, Nishan-i-Haider. Directed by Azaib Khan and Ubaid Iqbal, and supervised by Meesam Naqvi, it was a diligently put together piece. The young actors put their heart and soul into their performances and there were negligible technical hiccups. The play moved everyone present in the auditorium.

Lauding the efforts of the musicians and theatre practitioners, Maj-Gen Iftikhar Hassan Chaudhary said although he wasn’t supposed to deliver a speech on the occasion, seeing the passion and jazba of the youngsters had compelled him to say a few words. He said, “What a beautiful evening, what a tour de force of talent which was displayed here. The evening could not have been used in a better way.”

The council’s president Ahmed Shah said we as a nation may have differences amongst ourselves, but the one thing that keeps us united is the Pakistan flag and Pakistan’s name.

Published in Dawn, September 8th, 2021