2-day Basant festival starts on Jan.30 in Dubai

Jamil Khan, Senior Reporter

Asian communities from Pakistanis, Indian and others showed their excitement on the announcement of the 2nd edition of Basant Bahar to be held in Dubai on Jan 30-31.

The 2-day festival is to welcome the Spring Season to fly kites and make the sky colourful with every size and colour of paper kites and will be held at  Wahat Al Zaweya on Dubai-Al Ain Road.

The festival is being organised by Al Ghurair Exchange in association with a number of partners from food and beverage to varied other  sectors.

Basant is one of the big events celebrated throughout the Pakistan and India on the start of the Spring season. Everyone  takes part in the festival to fly kites which are of different colours and shapes and add the joy with drum beaters in traditional attires and a number of traditional food dishes.

Talking to a media gathering in a local restaurant, Syed Umer Farooq, general manager of Al Ghurair Exchange expressed his gratitude towards the Asian communities to show great interest through various platforms on the organising of the second edition of the Basant Bahar 2020 festival.

“With the great response extended by our large Asian communities in the country, we witnessed huge turnout at the last year’s event and it encourages us to make arrangements for a bigger festival this year. Last year we witnessed around 5000 to 6000 people from different communities residing in Dubai, Sharjah and other Emirates and celebrated the event with a number of activities,” he said.

He further mentioned that this year they are expecting around 8000 to 10,000 visitors to enjoy the festival. “Our main objective for this 2-day festival is to entertain and bring the communities together for a joy and family event. Diaspora from Pakistan, India and other are residing in the UAE and has been contributing huge to economic and they are our loyal customers,” he added.

Nasir Bangash, social media expert and responsible of ‘Pakistanis in Dubai’ platform on Facebook in his comments said that the event will be a great success as they have already started promoting the festival on various social media platforms and the response are amazing. “This is one of many occasions for Pakistani community residing in the country to get together and enjoy their local festival in Dubai along with other nationalities,” he added.

Officials from the Pakistan Consulate in Dubai, Dubai Healthcare Authority and other prominent guests expected to attend the festival.