LAHORE: The sixth session of “Bola Chali” series by My Voice Unheard (MVU) took place at Daftarkhawan.
The discussion started with the introduction of My Voice Unheard and “Bola Chali” series by the co-Founders Hammad Anwar and Anum Nawaz.
They said that MVU was a digital media project that envisioned highlighting stories from all spheres of life to create consciousness towards a counter-narrative around Pakistani lives.
They further said that inspired by the tradition of story-telling, MVU incorporated passing down and preservation of traditions and at the same time acknowledged the efforts that every individual invested in their lives.
“Bola Chali” ventured to explore the wisdom of a common Pakistani, by creating a space that spotlighted personal struggles, accomplishments, success and disappointments alike, the founders explained further.
“Bola Chali” was designed around a hybrid version of story-telling and oral history.
Explaining how sessions worked, the founders said that each session intended to focus on the personal journey of the narrator’s struggle, amidst, sharing an incomparable voyage to identity formation.
Explaining further, Anwar and Nawaz said that each session was premeditated by a moderator who established a personal connection with the narrator, supported the detailed expression of self and acted as a liaison between the audience and the narrator thus, transforming a simple narration into a personal experience and journey for everyone.
The sixth session of Bola Chali hosted renowned Pakistani-Canadian author Musharraf Ali Farooqi.
The talk focused on having a conversation about his experience as an author, editor, translator and the theory of language acquisition through literature.
Farooqi explained the traits of a good translator and his experiences of sharing classic text like The Adventures of Amir Hamza and Talism Hosruba.
The renowned author also discussed his online Urdu thesaurus project.
He also talked extensively about his Kahani Se Kitab Tak programme for teaching Urdu language to children through stories in a graduated reading program.
He explained how in the program, the children enrolled in the first to the third grades learnt synonyms of the words used in the stories.
Students of the fourth and fifth grades learnt antonyms of the words in the stories.
In middle school, they would learn the idioms associated with the words of the story and in the next stage, which stretches from O-levels and matric to undergraduate studies, students would learn the proverbs used in the text.
Farooqi emphasized the need of highlighting such narratives as an example of resilience which creates an image that is not associated with Pakistani’s all over the world.
He added that MVU would continue to bring forward such stories as they have done in last two years.
MVU covered over 250 stories ranging from different social initiatives to entrepreneurs and from Pakistani’s in the United States (US), Canada, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the United Kingdom (UK).
The event was attended by people from various walks of life including journalists, writers, student, veterans and professionals.
The audience appreciated the efforts made by the organisers and wished them well for their future projects.
The event ended with a few words from guests in the audience and was followed by a networking session where the guests interacted with the audience.
