Off-Kendrik started over 16 years ago, “committed to building a broad platform for South Asian theatre groups and the next generation of South Asian Americans through theatre and storytelling”.
PERSONAL POLITICAL By Beena Sarwar
I went to see ‘Madho’ last night with my mother at the Third South Asia Theatre festival, SAATh 2024, in the Boston area. A musical play set in Lahore, it is written and directed by Sarbpreet Singh, an engineer by profession whose passion is music and storytelling.
Radical love, epitomised by the late Amrita Pritam and Fahmida Riaz is ‘one of the seeds of the revolutionary thought process’, to quote the Pakistan India People’s Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD) stalwarts who organised the event – Vijayan MJ, Tapan Bose, and Dr Syeda Hameed. Their consistent work over the decades for peace and justice is truly inspirational, and I feel privileged to know them personally.
I was also privileged to know one of the late poets personally, Fahmida ‘Khala’ (aunt) to me, who was close to my father Dr. M. Sarwar. He led the Democratic Students Federation (DSF), Pakistan’s first student movement while at Dow Medical College in Karachi, 1949-54.
I’ve uploaded archives about the movement here: drsarwar.wordpress.com. Principles of that struggle continue to show the way, like the importance of coming together across divides for a minimum common agenda. For DSF, it was student rights. For Sapan, it’s Southasia Peace. We need it now, for the sake of the people of the region, and beyond.
The Videos section of the Dr Sarwar blog includes a playlist of video clipsfrom the event held at the Karachi Arts Council in January 2010 to commemorate DSF and the student movement, a few months after my father passed on.
Compered by the actor Rahat Kazmi, the event featured speeches from young activists, students, and academics like Amar Sindhu, Alia Amirali,Ali Cheema, and Varda Nisar, as well as veterans like I.A. Rehman, besides the singer Tina Sani, Taimur Rahman and his band Laal, and Fahmida Riaz.
Fahmida Khala recited her poem ‘Palwashey Muskurao’ (Palvasha, smile), dedicated to daughter of late Afzal Bangash of the Mazdoor Kissan Party (Workers’ and Peasants’ Party), and the followers of other late leftist leaders. They may no longer be on this earth, but their principles and aspirations for human rights and dignity continue to show the way.
Journeys to democracy 