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Literature Festival ends Children told all about Panjgur dates

By Shazia Hasan 2014-02-23
KARACHI: The session on `Children`s theatre in Balochistan` on the final day of the Children`s Literature Festival at the Arts Council of Pakistan on Saturday could have also been titled `Children`s theatrics in Balochistan`, but whatever the name, Mohammad Ayub Baloch of the Institute of Balochistan Studies enthralled his audience by telling them about the rights of children in the largest province, especially in its Panjgur district.

`When researchers do research, they somehow bypass the children.

I didn`t want to do that,` he said.

`I belong to Panjgur district that touches Iran. It is an oasis of date palms with some 12 villages. We have 109 types of dates there. Date palms have become a big part of our culture so much so that when a baby is born his or her umbilical cord, too, is hung in the braches of date palms, his broken milk teeth are also kept among dates,` he said.

`If a child is ill and his or her temperature goes up, an elderly relative takes him or her to a date palm and ties his or her finger to the tree with a thread while requesting the fever to kindly stay there with the tree as they have to travel further and the place they are going isn`t suitable for the fever.

Then they run from there without looking back, and miraculously the fever is gone,` he shared.

`Another tradition is that of the `parenjee`, which is the promised share of children in the fruit of every date palm. If they don`t get their share when the fruit is ripe, they get after the person on the treeand are joined by nomadic children, too. All carry beautiful bowls with them and sing insulting songs for the person who has denied them their right. They follow him to his home and light a bonfire in which they burn his effigy. And at that time they don`t care about their share anymore. They are having toomuch fun insulting the person,` he laughed.

As usual the day was filled with all kinds of fun activities for children, including music, theatre, cinema, storytelling, art of bookmaking, book launches, creative writing workshops, etc. Later, it was mentioned at the closing ceremony thatsome 2,000 teachers and 25,000 students visited the festival.

Ameena Saiyid, managing director of Oxford University Press, one of the organisers, said the festival wasn`t just about reading but learning, healing and friendship, too.

`We learned how to teach in fun ways. And we were introduced to somany wonderful books. When you give a birthday gift to someone, let it be a book. The prizes in schools should also be books instead of cups or trophies,` she said.

`I know books are expensive but you can open libraries to remedy that. There should be a library in every neighborhood.