Staff Reporter
A large number of people on Tuesday continued visiting vibrant culture of the country at the ongoing folk festival “Lok Mela” organized by National Institute of Folk and Traditional Heritage (Lok Virsa) in collaboration with provincial and regional culture departments.
Visitors were taking keen interest in tradition of all the provinces and regions like Punjab, Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh, Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan while visiting their pavilions presenting folk music, dance and traditional arts from their respective areas.
Visitors were much excited to enjoy the colorful ambiance, folk dances, rural music and hoards of artisan stalls.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa pavilion has its own charm. The replica of ‘Bab-e-Khyber’ as entrance to the pavilion stands tall with its grandeur. The pavilion boasts of thirty five diverse craftsmen and craftswomen from different parts of the province.
This year, many stalls have been allocated to the female artisans, which created a new look. Women artisans including Rameem Naz in crosia and wool work, Ishrat Safdar in shawl weaving, Noshaba Noshad in Haripur phulkari, Munaza Hayat in handmade motifs work, Farah Naz in cross stitch calligraphy work, etc.
Among them, Noshaba Noshad is specialist in ‘Phulkari’ which is the famous form of embroidery of Hazara region. ‘Phulkari’ means flower work or flowering on a hand woven coarse cotton cloth.
As the tradition of embroidery runs in her family, she attained the mastery in this field from her mother and other female members at very tender age. Embroidery is the embellishment of any material with patterns or designs done with the needle and thread on material.
It reflects the local traditions, culture and physical environment of people and place where it developed. Phulkari is well known for its intricate designs. Silk threads in yellow, shocking pink, white and green are used and darning stitch is employed in vertical, horizontal and diagonal movements to create elaborated geometric and floral patterns.
