After quite a long break, the auditorium of Pakistan National Council of the Arts (PNCA) witnessed a jam packed crowd the other evening where a cluster of musicians from across the country gave a resounding performance.
The PNCA organised the one day ‘Sufi Aman Mela’ (Sufi Peace Festival), with an aim to promote tolerance, brotherhood and interfaith harmony in the country. The performers, including Meena Gul, Sonia Azeem, Saien Mushtaq, Saira Tahir, Shaukat Manzoor, and Shabnam Majeed put up a brilliant show while singing the Sufi poetry of various saints in diverse languages.
The National Performing Arts Group (NPAG) students also presented a scintillating performance of Sufi fances in various costumes with the background music spellbound the audience. They performed on ‘Cheti Bori Wi Tabeeba’, ‘Aaj Rang Hai’, ‘Gharoli’, ‘Tery Rang Rang’, and ‘Dhamal’. The first to appear on stage was Meena Gul, a renowned artist from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, who sang ‘Maien Ni Mein Kinnu Aakhan, Dard Wichoray Da Haal Ni’, with her perfect Punjabi accent.
The audience were seen commenting that though Gul hailed from KP but her Punjabi accent was quite brilliant.” The other artists including Saira Tahir who has got her masters degree in Music from Punjab University, as well as Sonia Azeem, Shaukat Manzoor and Saien Mushtaq, also song harmoniously the poetry of Sufis from the subcontinent to spread peace, love and tolerance.
In between, Saien Mushtaq, who has roamed across the world and his booming enchantment of ‘King Wajda, Tara Wajda’ and delight of Shaukat Manzur, a local artist from Pothohar region, enthralled the people. The audience had a chance to listen and appreciate a wide range of music artists from across the country. The audience, however, were annoyed that there was no Qawwali in the Sufi night. They were also surprised over the selection of Sufi songs.
“We came to listen to our favourite kalam from Iqbal ‘La Phir Ik Baar Wohi Bada-o-Jaam ay Saqi, Haath A jay Mujhay tera Makam Ay Saqi’, sung by Shabnam Majeed but she also couldn’t please us,” said Oheed Ahmed a young Sufi poetry and music lover. The performers of NPAG also provided the mood for the Punjabi dhamal dance, widely practised at the Sufis in Punjab. Shabnam Majeed concluded the night with ‘Dama Dam Mastt Qalandar’.
The event was an extension of Sufi music project which PNCA started from Multan in 2010, taking it forward to Hyderabad, Karachi, and then returning to the federal capital. This year’s presentation was the continuation of the same project with the core theme on seeking harmony within the country, amidst the latest natural disaster in Sindh and the killings of innocent people in Dir, Amber Shah, an official of PNCA, said.
