On May 3rd, over one thousand people gathered at the Baylands Park in Sunnyvale to celebrate a memorable and colorful Basant festival. Basant, also known as Jashn-e-Bharan, has recently garnered broad appeal in Pakistan. The event is traditionally known for colorful kites and kite fighting competitions. Many people flew traditional Pakistani kites and showed their children how to fly these paper-thin kites and do ‘paicha’. PACC also organized the first kite competition in the South Bay Area. People enjoyed food fresh off the BBQ grill, while Ajay Academy performed traditional Panjabi Bhangra and Gidda dances. Community children decorated the park with kites, participated in the kite parade, and won prizes for their kite decorating skills. With this event, PACC, under the leadership of Uzma and Suhail Sardar, has started a new annual tradition of Basant in the South Bay.

Following are some pictures from the day of the event (Courtesy: Nasreen Aboobaker; Copyright: Thru-the-Lens):

Following are some more pictures from the day of the event (courtesy of Shariq Qureshi):

PACC celebrated Pakistan Day on March 21st 2008 at Chandni restaurant in Newark, CA. The program started after dinner with children’s performances which were extremely entertaining. They closed the section of the program with national anthems from Pakistan and United States. Chair of PACC Board of Trustees, Asghar Aboobaker ask the audience for a moment of silent prayer for Abdul Sattar Rydhan, a beloved community leader who passed away two days earlier. Then president of PACC welcomed the guests and invited Mayors of Fremont and Milpitas to come to the podium and say a few words. Ausaf and the Aura band performed popular Pakistani songs. Dr. Agha Saeed gave a speech on the significance of the Pakistan resolution and its connection to the Pakistan’s constitution and how it compares with the US constitution. President of PACC, Farrukh Shah Khan gave the history, the current activities and the funding requirements at the PACC. PACC then conducted a short fundraising drive for the first ever Pakistani community center in California, the Pakistani American Culture Center. The program concluded with main performer for the night, Iqbal Qasim, entertaining the audience with his magical and melodic voice signing the ghazals, punjabi songs and lively jokes.

Here are some of the pictures from the event (Courtesy: Nasreen Aboobaker; Copyright: Thru The Lens):

On February 17th, 2008 PACC conducted its first Family Music Night combined with Valentine’s day celebration.

Following are some of the pictures from the day (Courtesy: Nasreen Aboobaker; Copyright: Thru The Lens):

PACC celebrated first and Pakistan’s 60th independence day on August 18th with a picnic in Baylands Park, Sunnyvale, CA. This was the first time that Pakistani independence day was celebrated in such a grand scale in the Silicon Valley area. Almost 400 people attended the picnic on a gorgeous day full of nice cool breeze and warm sunshine. PACC arranged for children’s fun games such as bean-bag toss, ring toss, face painting, hoola hoops, and many more. There were traditional games such as pittho garram, kabbadi and cricket. Traditional Pakistani kites were available for kite enthusiests. Mehran restaurant provided delicious Pakistani lunch. Main attraction of the event was traditional Pakistani national songs sung by Ausaf Masood. Many of the attendees took the mic and sang songs for the crowd as well.

Following slide show tells a partial pictorial story of that day (Courtesy: Nasreen Aboobaker; Copyright: Thru The Lens):

PACC celebrated Pakistan Day on March 23rd. About 280 people attended the event in Cupertino, CA. The theme for the event was Peace through education and culture where we profiled The Citizens’ Foundation (TCF) which is busy building 1000 schools in the poorest of the neighbourhoods of Pakistan. By educating these under-previliged children of Pakistan, TCF is helping Pakistan root out ignorance, extremism and despair; the main factors leading to war and terrorism. We also profiled traditional Pakistani and Indian dances showing how closely our two cultures are linked and that we should be respecting each other for we have a shared heritage. Peace activists Ragging Grannies also sang a peace song at the event. Thank you Grannies. Main entertainer of the event was legendary performer Alamgir who swept the audience off their feet.

Following are some pictures from that event (Courtesy and Copyright: Annie Lin):

PACC conducted an open house to invite community members to see PACC building and activities, specially the books and curriculum for our Urdu classes for children. Nahid Niazi was our guest of honor. She recently released a new audio CD of children’s songs in Urdu. She got her fame from Pakistani film industry, along with her husband Muslehuddin. Together they also launched a children’s music and talent show program for PTV

Photos (Courtesy and Copyright: Annie Lin):