Hadda, Pakistan

Hadda is a small village about 18 km from the Pakistani city of Sargodha. This is small agricultural town in district sargodha. About 18 Km from sargodha city. Population is about 4,000. These people are actually the original inhabitants of KARANA BAR before the irrigation canals were constructed and new villages called 'CHAKs' were created in the whole area. Language of people here is PUNJABI with JANGLOCHI or JHANGOCHI version. This version of PUNJABI is considered to be the oldest and richest in culture and traditions including the famous folk story of HEER RANJHA. Unfortunately due serious exploitation and planned destruction of local cultures by vested interests these and other local languages and cultures are in serious threat.Famous Singers of this PUNJABI version are ALLAHA DITTA LONAY WALA, TUFAIL NIAZI, Basheer Ahmed Choki Bhagat WalaOne of serious loss of innumerable folk stories is the vanishing tradition of DORRHAY. These are actually folk stories with lot of rich historical facts and were told in the form of a poem sung by a man who actually learnt it from his forefathers and so on. These people used to go from village to village and sang these stories and they were paid in the form of wheat or other grains not in the form of Fraudulant paper money which is destroying the world now. There is another very traditions of remembering the names of all forefathers and they were remembered by village's MARASI or Singer who remebers and keeps records of all forefathers of village's tribes. Of course he used to learnt that from his forefathers and so on. I want to mention here that in the same fashion I have got the names of my forefathers up to 40 generations from this MARASI of our village. Fortunately my father recorded it in tape in around 1974 and now both my father and that MARASI have already died about a decade ago. Well I feel really really sad when I think about these rich local traditions and cultures which are like antiquities which no money can buy are dying.I have posted some pictures of the village and people on PANAROMIO (R) and will post more if you want to see.