Pakkay Dost is a brand new Pakistani kids’s collection created to advertise the Urdu language.
The collection was created by Balil Maqsood, a well-known singer-songwriter with the Pakistani rock band Strings. When Strings disbanded in 2021, Balil was impressed to create a musical kids’s program out of each an extended standing need to work with puppets, and private frustration that had been no songs in Urdu for youngsters.
Urdu is a South Asian language spoken primarily in Pakistan and India. One in every of Pakistan’s two official languages (the opposite is English), Urdu is extensively understood all through Pakistan, however solely a small variety of folks speaks it as their native language. Preserving and selling using Urdu is taken into account an essential cultural precedence in Pakistan as a result of English exerts a heavy linguistic affect, resulting from each the nation’s colonial historical past, in addition to the worldwide reputation of Western media.
The Urdu language shouldn’t be evolving as a lot because it ought to have been…The youngsters today, my kids, aren’t that well-versed within the language like we was once, as a result of they’re uncovered to the Web and globalization.”
Pakkay Dost Director / puppeteer Umer Adil (supply: CBC NEWS)
To supply Pakkay Dost, Balil initially reached out to Sesame Workshop to gauge their curiosity in producing a present. Whereas they had been reportedly very supportive of the undertaking, a manufacturing deal couldn’t be reached. Balil then determined to provide the collection himself, recruiting the help of Umer Adil, native director who was a fan of the Muppets and cherished the concept of manufacturing a Pakistani puppet collection in Urdu.
Initially, Pakkay Dost consists of 4 fifteen minute episodes with 13 authentic songs. The present’s forged is fully Pakistani, and contains Usman Sheikh, Ahsan Khan, and Shahzeen Khan, in addition to Umer, Balil and Balil’s niece, Alizay Jaffer. The collection even has a shocking Canadian connection; all of Pakkay Dost’s puppets had been constructed by Saskcatchewan’s Allison Ewert.
To see extra of Pakkay Dost, you’ll be able to subscribe to their YouTube Channel and comply with them on X (previously Twitter, registration required) for behind-the-scenes images, movies and extra.
Through Arab Information.
