Kashmiri artists mesmerise audience at Virsa in Islamabad

Maqsood Muntzer

ISLAMABAD: Leading artists and musicians from Indaian Occupied Kashmir performed in a cultural evening at Lok Virsa Complex Islamabad on Tuesday. Lok Virsa, the pakistan National Institute of Folk and Traditional Heritage in collaboration with Kashmir Cultural Academy (KCA) organised the cultural event to promote the Kashmiri folk music. The artists from Sri Nagar who performed on the occasion included Saeed Tariq Perdesi, Mussarat Naz and Syed Kabal Bukhari. They presented popular Kashmiri, Pahari, Gojri and Urdu songs and enthralled the audience. It was a well-attended show as a large number of music lovers from Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Muzaffarabad participated in the cultural evening and appreciated the brilliant performances of the visiting artists and musicians. “It is an initiative of Lok Virsa with purely a cultural perspective to highlight the achievements of folk artists and musicians striving hard in Occupied Kashmir to continue to practice their rich musical traditions despite the difficult situation,” said Lok Virsa Executive Director Khalid Javaid while talking to this scribe. He said Lok Virsa had already documented and preserved Kashmiri indigenous craft heritage in a beautiful three-dimensional cultural display on “Kashmir” at the first ethnological museum of Pakistan at Islamabad. “The famous crafts documented and projected here included papier mache, Kashmiri embroidery, gabba, namda, Kashmiri shawl, miniature, brass and metal works”, he added.