KARACHI: As the country’s 71st Independence Day anniversary approaches; enthusiasm and zeal can be seen increasingly among the people belonging to every walk of life in Larkana city.
Children are especially showing their vigour, zeal and traditional enthusiasm to celebrate August 14 and the selling of national flags and other items are in full swing at all main bazaars here.
The items most prominently displayed at markets, roadsides and small neighbourhood shops are small paper flags, badges, paper caps, buntings and large flags.
“Children, of course, are the most eager to buy these items,” a shopkeeper of a bookstore at Bunder Road Larkana said.
Apart from official arrangements to celebrate Independence Day, people of all age groups are making arrangements on their own by decorating their houses and streets, as well as, organising functions.
The main bookstores in Larkana city show great national fervour among the people, who are busy in buying different items to express their enthusiasm for celebrating August 14.
In commercial areas like Shahi Bazaar, Bunder Road, Pakistani Chowk, Jelus Bazaar, and Station Road, shopkeepers have set up special stalls for flags and other items.
Booksellers and shopkeepers say stickers and hand-held stickers are in high demand this year. The bazaars are decorated with national flags whereas, stalls of colourful buntings, national flag buntings, portraits of Quaid-e-Azam and other national heroes have been set up too.
Badges, caps, balloons and shirts inscribed with “Jashan-e-Azadi Mubarak” are stacked in large numbers at every market.
“The sale will gain even more momentum before August 14,” a shopkeeper said while adding, “The date reminds every one of the sacrifices rendered to carve out a separate homeland for Muslims of the sub-continent”.
“It is our moral obligation to remind our children of the importance of Independence Day. We should be grateful to Quaid-e-Azam who struggled for the rights of the Muslims of sub-continent and gave us Pakistan,” said a high school teacher Muhammad Azam Soomro.
Talking to APP, shopkeepers Wazir Ali Shaikh, Naeem Soomro, Muhammad Ibrahim Qureshi and Imdad Ali Shaikh said that people, especially children and the youth keep visiting from morning till late evening to buy the items required to celebrate the day.
They said that overall, people of all ages visit the stalls and shops. People in their teens to middle ages buy national flags to hoist on their bicycles, motorcycles, cars, jeeps, offices and houses.