At long last, there has been something other than cricket for British Pakistanis to cheer about and bring back the feel good factor something so rare that most Pakistanis would have forgotten the taste of it !

"Rhythms of the Indus" a music and fashion show celebrating Pakistan's cultural diversity staged at the Royal Albert Hall in the presence of the President of Pakistan and a full house, did Pakistanis proud. The show, sponsored by the Pakistan High Commission and the Bestway Group, featured rhythms ranging from the Soung Fakirs to Abida Parveen and including the pulsating beats of Junoon, was very planned, beautifully presented and included some top class performances by some Pakistan's top artists. Abrar ul Haq also put in a guest appearance during which he sang some of his popular songs, including "Bale hi Bale" which almost brought the house down. But there is more to Abrar than just his pop music for he is a thinking artist and a poem read out by him reflected the vista hope that many Pakistanis feel.

Most professionally hosted by Art Malik and Atiqa Odho, the show also featured some of Pakistan's top fashion designers including Rizwan Beyg and Deepak Perwani who unleashed a plethora of colours which conveyed in wonderful pictorial images the variety of a civilization that goes back some nine thousand years.

But the evening belonged to Junoon, Pakistan's most outstanding pop band and indeed one of the best band in the world. Their superb fusion of sufi lyrics and mysticism with modern rock rhythms represents one of the most enthralling musical fusions ever made. The trick, not by any means the easiest one to perform, is to get the balance right between teo contrasting cultures and musical traditions and this remarkable trio have got the fine balance this mixture demands with something coming as close to perfection as makes to difference. The anguish of the mystical identity of the individual was superbly depicted by the haunting melody of "Bhulayaa" to be followed by the ever lilting beauty of "Sayonee". The evening was concluded , most appropriately by Junoon with an outstanding rendering or "Pakistan hamara hai" in which the President, who had earlier been given a standing ovation, also joined in.

In keeping with the tenor of an outstandingly successful evening the crowd was also excellently behaved and the those in charge managed to stick to a schedule, which are not factors automatically associated with Pakistani events.

All in all, it was a show which as the T-shirt says, made one proud to be Pakistani and while everyone associated with it deserves credit, the lion's share must go to Junoon and their superb music. Theirs is the sort of music the memories of which linger in the mind and pulsate in the head not just through the evening, but through a lifetime.