Approximately 250 VHS tapes documenting Sindhi music, Sufi poetry, folklore, and history—currently housed at the VHS Library in the Mumtaz Mirza Auditorium, Hyderabad—urgently require digital preservation to protect Sindh’s endangered cultural heritage.
Dr. Mazhar Lakho | USA
Around 1995, I had the opportunity to visit the VHS library at Mumtaz Mirza Auditorium, Karachi, where I reviewed an extensive collection of approximately 250 VHS videos on Sindhi music, Sufi poetry, literature, folklore, history, archaeology, traditional weddings, Malakhro, Melas, and other aspects of Sindh’s rich cultural heritage.
At that time, I prepared a catalog of the collection and shared it on the SINDH-L mailing list hosted by the University of Illinois. Many subscribers appreciated the effort because it introduced members of the Sindhi Association of North America to an important cultural resource.
More than thirty years have passed, and I am deeply concerned that this invaluable collection may now be at serious risk of deterioration, neglect, or permanent loss.
I respectfully request friends in Karachi and elsewhere in Sindh to urgently help answer the following questions:
- Does the VHS collection at Mumtaz Mirza Auditorium still exist?
- If it does, approximately how many tapes remain?
- Are the VHS cassettes still in good, playable condition?
- Has the collection been cataloged or digitized?
- Is it available to researchers, students, and the public?
- If the collection has been moved, where is it currently housed?
These recordings are not merely old tapes; they are a fragile and irreplaceable part of Sindh’s cultural memory. VHS cassettes deteriorate with time, and every passing year increases the danger that these unique recordings may be lost forever unless immediate steps are taken to inspect, preserve, and digitize them.
If anyone has recent information, photographs, or the ability to visit the auditorium or contact the relevant officials, your help is urgently needed and would be deeply appreciated. Even a brief update could make a crucial difference in documenting the present condition of this cultural archive before it is too late.
Please share this message widely among friends, cultural workers, researchers, and anyone concerned with Sindh’s music, literature, and heritage. We must act now to help ensure that this precious legacy is not lost to time.
Read: No More Colonial Experiments in Sindh
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Dr. Mazhar Lakho, Belleville,Illinois, USA
