ISLAMABAD, March 31: The maiden musical function of the “Rawal Festival 2002”, a grand cultural and industrial exhibition that started on Saturday in a fiasco, progressed with mismanagement and caused head injury to an upcoming actress.
Over 100 stalls erected for the festival in the Ayyub Park gave a deserted look, and were still unoccupied.
According to reliable sources, the organizers chose Ayyub Park, when security agencies did not allow holding the festival at its traditional site near Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium for security reasons.
The festival promising cultural and food gala opened with “an evening with Nasibo Lal”, though there was no food available at all, except for tea and burgers being sold by mongers.
The organizers had removed 1,000 or so trees to create an open air theatre on a elevated piece of land, overlooking golf course and the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad. This, however, did not raise hue and cry from the environmentalists who seldom spared such opportunities.
High-priced tickets had been sold for the musical function which was scheduled to start at 8pm, however due to an inordinate delay, the audience became furious and started raising filthy slogans, besides pelting stones at the stage.
Finally, around 10:30pm Nasibo Lal appeared on the stage but without musicians. To appease the enraged audience, she performed on the tunes of her often-interrupted numbers on cassette player.
Haji Albela, the compare of the function, emerged on the stage at around 11:15 to formally start the event, and termed traffic mess for late arrival of musicians.
Rukhsana Khan, a TV and stage artist from Rawalpindi and now settled in Lahore, joined Albela with typical stage jokes, that prompted some of the audience to restart stone-pelting, injuring Rukhsana in the forehead. She was removed from the stage and, perhaps, taken to hospital for first-aid. After the incident, it was Albela to challenge the audience for more stones.
Moona Laila, another artist from Lahore, presented two Punjabi numbers including,Dil Leja Nikki Jai Haan Karke. This was followed by Hasan Rana’s performance on some western numbers and Ibrar’s songs, including the most popular Nach Punjaban Nach. Sidra Noor, a young performer from Lahore, enthralled the audience with dance on western music.
Nasibo Lal, the main artist, was invited on the stage at around 12:30. She sang around six numbers, but by the time people started leaving. Those who stayed really enjoyed Kadi has bol, Aapan duwen rus bethe tan manawe kaun, and Bukal de which chor ni mere.