Pakistani Talent in Bulgaria - - Story of Friendship With My Childhood Friend Saif

My friend in Bulgaria sent me an interesting video clip of his one-man-show type of performance on the stage in a cultural show on Indian National Day. Before you go through the video clip below; I would like to have an introduction of the guy in this video and background of our friendship.

The guy in the video is my childhood friend Saif, actually Saif-ur-Rehman, who settled in Bulgaria long back in mid 90’s. During this long period of 15/16 years he came only once in the year 2001 to visit his homeland and his family; but thanks to electronic media, we had been in a continuous touch with each other. He got married there and has a very cute son “Ilyas”.

Roots of our friendship go to the year 1985-86; when his father was transferred to PAF base Shorkot. (I’m trying to scratch my memory to dig out the as much details as possible and frankly speaking it’s really amazing to remember good childhood days.) I was studying in seventh standard that time and he got the admission in the same class; so soon we were good friends. But after only few months my father was transferred to Kamra (another PAF base); so our friendship had a sad end just at the beginning. After five years we again came across at PAF Base Sargodha in early 90’s, again due to our parents’ respective job postings.

We had a great fun during this tenure of our friendship. I was a good student contrary to my friend Saif; who was more interested in extra-curricular activities and games. I used to help him in his exams’ preparations. (I would not tell the way I was helping him…………….but I’m sure he would have reminded, if he read this story. It was a real fun). He had always been an active participant of college functions and games. He was crazy about acting and no doubt he has immense talent in this field. To satisfy his thirst of acting he made a dramatic society, named “Allah Tawakkal Art Society”. I’m proud to tell that I was also a humble part of it but he was quite active and enthusiastic member of that Society.

Our dramatic society was engaged in production of commercial stage plays in an open air theatre made on temporary basis. The best part of it was that we were spending the earnings from those stage plays for any social welfare work in our area.

He also made me to travel with him to Islamabad (Capital of Pakistan) to visit TV channels to get an opportunity in TV plays. That time there was only one semi private channel STN (Shalimar Television Network) with Government owned PTV (Pakistan Television). Despite of many efforts he couldn’t succeed to get any chance.

He was in his final year of college; when he decided to visit abroad just for fun. One of our common friends was also accompanied with him. When they were flying towards Bulgaria on a visit visa; no body knew that they had plans to settle somewhere very far from Pakistan. The other friend came back after 5/6 years but Saif couldn’t. He visited us for few days in 2001 and I was there at Jinnah International, Karachi to welcome and see him off again. Since then I didn’t see him live, until I got the video clip to share with you.

He earned a lot of respect in Bulgaria; as a founder member of Bulgarian Cricket Team and presently serving the team as captain and coach. He is trying to establish their name in cricket arena. Bulgarian cricket team participated in different tournaments arranged by ICC and exhibited impressive performance.

Along with his cricket career; he is also pursuing with his acting mania. So he took part in this cultural show on Indian National Day. I wish him very best of luck in his career in the fields of cricket and acting and wish to see him very soon here in Pakistan.

Now see the video below and enjoy.