Chitral, GB people celebrate new year with grand musical event

KARACHI: People from Chitral and Gilgit-Baltistan gathered at Karachi Arts Council on Jan 4 to celebrate the New Year with a grand event highlighting their diverse culture and music.

The FEW (Folk Eastern Western) as a sponsor of the event provided a daylong platform for the families of Chitral and GB to meet and share and get bit relief from the year long busy schedule. The event opened at 3pm and continued till late into the night.

Famous musicians from Chitral and GB were welcomed by the crowd with loud applause and praise. The programme started with a speech about the uniqueness and impressive traditions of our origin and describing and praising all those golden attributes termed as an asset our culture.

The musical night started with a song by Mansoor Ali Shabab from Chitral and later Salman Paras from GB attracted the spectators with his performance.

Mansoor Ali Shabab and Salman Paras also jointly performed and entertained the crowd on the similar tune and rhythm of Khowar and Shina classical songs.

Among others, Mumtaz Ali Andaz and a Dhol group were also present to entertain the audience. But after a few tracks the decorum of the programme could not be maintained due to bad discipline by some of the participants who gathered around the stage.

We give culture as a solo theme to our programme but we quickly forget all those principles in the middle of our way. Organizing such events to celebrate our identity is essential to move on with the pace of time. However, we must keep our peaceful quality alive and practical.

Amin Hashwani, the chief guest of the event, conveyed his strong message about the importance of value system to be maintained by our society so that it remained thriving.

He stressed the importance of organizing such events to keep the culture alive in pace of rapid globalization.

Traditional Chitrali cap (khapol) was presented to the chief guest by one of the organizers, Syed Zulfiqar Ali Shah.—Wazir Ali Shah