Corona dulls Valentine’s Day

LAHORE : The year 2021's St. Valentine's Day may have remained the most colourless Valentine's Day throughout the world, including Pakistan, due to the sufferings and hardships faced by the entire world due to the cruel hands of COVID-19 pandemic.

It may not be inappropriate to term this year’s Valentine's Day as the “disappointing day” which dampened the otherwise highly charged spirits of all the young and old Valentine's Day bashers. In the provincial capital where one could see red gleaming balloons, red roses being sold in every nook and corner of the City.

But, this year, mainly due to Corona SOPs and unprecedented financial issues, people reverted to the virtual means of celebrating the Valentine's Day and remained glued to their cell phones and computers.

The hotel industry, the Valentines Day goody shops and the gift centres also faced a sharp decline in their sales.

Everyone was heard complaining against the economic hardships and the deadly coronavirus effects which dampened the spirit of joy and glee in the Valentine's Day's traditional activities.

Hardly a few people could be seen wearing 'red' on the Valentine's Day and a very few couples were seen enjoying a Valentine's Day special treat in restaurants which are already facing many curbs in the form of SOPs to ward off the deadly COVID-19 menace.

All said and done, the scary environment, the crushing economic hardships and the ever-growing fear of an insecure future amid an unexpected and confusing political environment, people have become more conscious about the essential requirements of life rather than spending on such less essential events without which life wouldn’t come to a halt.

Ajoka students: The Ajoka Art of Writing students Saturday presented online dramatic readings of new writings developed during a two-months course which were live-streamed on Facebook. This was the 8th presentation of Ajoka’s writing class students. The writers presented the dramatic readings on Zoom and were joined by acting class students, including two from the US as well. The writers were Feza Farooq, Quratul Ain Taj and Purva Ghazanfar while the readers included Sonia Shabbir, Ishrat Shahin, Bisma Ghazal, Yahya Ahmad, Naval Ghazanfar and Khurran Hamid.

“Sama Bond” by Feza Farooq revolved around the relationships between the US-based Pakistanis and their Pakistan-based relatives while “Khalish” by Qurrat Taj focused on the divergent professional views of two cosmetic surgeons. Purva Ghazanfar presented a story of the emotional bonds between a single mother and her daughter.

Shahid Nadeem, the course teacher and head of Ajoka Theatre, appreciated the meaningful and dramatic stories and congratulated the writers for their successful debut. The writers expressed their gratitude to Shahid Nadeem and Nirvaan Nadeem of Ajoka Institute for their mentoring. The event is also available on Ajoka’s Youtube channel.