Events organized by BAP and other similar organizations

I am taking this opportunity only to emphasize what a great organization BAP is.
Last week I had an experience that made me long for my days with BAP intensely.

I left Pittsburgh in August 2010. So far, I have been starving. So when I saw that Farhat Fateh Ali Khan (from the family of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan) is singing here on 23rd April, I bought a pair of ticket for my wife and myself. The lowest was $35 each. The Auditorium was in downtown Sacramento. It is a vast and majestic Auditorium. There were 2000 very happy people from the sub-continent.

Soon our auditorium-awe started to evaporate. The time given was 7:30. It started at 8:45. They would not allow us even water bottles inside. But others were allowed with all kinds of food & drinks.

For us, all hell broke loose when the singing started. The sound was like 'the third world war has just started'. It was out of question to understand what the man was singing. The noise was so overpowering that all music were drowned. Music was converted into a psychological 'Weapon of Mass Destruction', by the mindless use of sheer volume.

The overwhelmingly young audience came here to enjoy themselves after a period of hard work spending a lot of their hard earned money. They were probably determined not to be defeated by WMD or any other kind of weaponry. I concluded that these indomitable spirited young men and women somehow convinced themselves that they were enjoying it, and tried their best to applaud after every song. Myself & my wife were only praying the interlude to last longer between every song.

Some people from the VIP seats were intermittently throwing dollar bills into air in front of them. I wonder if it was the first sign of neurological damage created by the WMD?

At first we thought with a sinking heart that we are stuck in this magnificent torture arena for many more hours, because due to the unusual crowd, we were double parked inside a paying parking lot. At halftime, I went out to discover that it was possible to back my car out.

We felt liberated when we left.

All this time, I was thinking of the events that BAP held.

You all should be proud of this organization.