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A (sub)cultural revolution in Lahore
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 Whenever someone who is familiar with the beautiful history of South Asia hears the name of Lahore, a grand culture signified and coloured by a great history usually comes to mind. Lahore has always been the peaceful cultural capital of the Punjab province in Pakistan, home to beautiful Mughal gardens, historical buildings, mosques, libraries, museums, shrines, forts, towers and monuments dating back centuries to old civilizations and empires of great rulers. The city is inhabited by the lively and joyful Lahoris, people who are always in the mood for fun, games and cultural events spiced with great fiestas and delicious food.
My experience of this culture started when I accidentally walked into a meeting being held by the members of a group called Danka, while I was waiting for a friend at one of Lahore's relaxed, artistic cafes, "Nai Rang", owned by Pakistan's famous architect Nayar Ali Dada, in the heart of Lahore.
Danka is the name of a site which hosts online electronic culture from the region. The site was built using free and open source software, and if it's happening in Lahore, it's right there on Danka!
The Danka ship (as I now call it) was founded and is steered by Pierre Jolit, a sophisticated Frenchman with more brains than emotions, a business graduate from the esteemed Edhec Business School in France.
The captain of the Danka ship is Dr. Andreas Daniel Matt, a creative Austrian who holds a Ph.D. in Computers and Mathematics from the University of Innsbruck, Austria. Luckily, he landed in Lahore three years ago and if Danka hadn't been founded here in Lahore, he would have crossed the world twice by now.
The DANKA online platform was cooked up by Yasir Hussain, who is believed to be half Islooite and half inhuman. Yasir also runs his own entrepreneurial venture here in Lahore named Al Rug.
The drivers of Danka are Jakob Steinkogler and Foaad Nizam. If there was ever a feature film made about Danka, Jakob would be the lead. On the other hand, even though Foaad teaches guitar at Lahore Chitrkar, and is found at almost every musical evening in Lahore, he still has all the skills needed to be part of the Pakistani cricket team.
Danka's Spiritual Guide is Jakob Steiner dubbed 'Sufi Sahab', a writer, thinker, social servant and charming young dude who gets modelling offers almost every time he visits the café. He makes sure Danka's Newsletter is delivered to its members every Thursday.
Sajjad Haider manages to be the Speaker for Danka while carrying out a professional "sarkari naukri" (Urdu for a 'government job'), at the Punjab InformationTechnology Board.
Nawab Manan Ejaz is the Steward of Danka, even though he isn't an actual Nawab but the design-champ who designed Danka's cool logo.
Once I got acquainted with the crew, they shared the spirit of Danka with me. Lahore is the cultural capital of Pakistan, and offers a wide range of cultural activities. As Andreas explained, "Danka realised the need for Lahore to have a strong and independent tool to organize the communication of cultural events in order to inform the public and establish the essential link between cultural life and the public, like in all major cultural cities. Danka is evolving a cultural networking spirit to promote active cooperation between artists, organizers, the public and cultural management to improve the quality of events, their communication and organization."
Danka was originally developed within the frame of the culture branch of ProLoka, an Austrian based NGO which works towards cultural development. The name proLoka is based on two words in Latin and Sanskrit: "pro" means "for" in Latin and "loka" is a Sanskrit word equivalent in meaning to "the world". The name reflects the overall goal of the organization: to contribute meaningful activities to this world. ProLoka is a platform and network to exchange knowledge and competencies between people, institutions and cultures, thus improving the quality of life and personal development of everyone involved in its projects. Danka is its live example of cultural and civil exchange in the region.
"In order to understand Danka, one has to visit the website where we invite everyone to announce upcoming or ongoing events. The best part is, it's free to post and free to share!" said Andreas.
'Danka doesn't critique or judge the quality of the events that are registered on its website. The objective of Danka is to host the widest range of cultural activity registered on the site, and promote the website among Lahoris by also offering a cultural picture database, online forums and discussions on culture and related issues." Furthermore, they plan to publish directories of cultural centres, cultural and historical places, artists and creative events.
"Danka is a networking and management effort dedicated to assist the cultural organizers and artists in their needs, these activities can range from event management, exchange programmes and technical assistance to consultancy and marketing. Danka also plans to carry out its own cultural projects in the fields of theatre, dance, music, film, poetry, recording, documentation and conservation of art and culture. Feel free to contact the Danka team for any enquiries."
DANKA is destined to be a link between artists, cultural events organizers and the public. The link has been created by collecting, organizing, providing and broadcasting free information, all under a Creative Commons licence, a first for any cultural group in Pakistan. Danka is confident that such steps will improve cultural activity in the South Asian state both in terms of quantity and quality.
Danka also sees the need to establish culture as a strong value by educating people and motivating them to add, create and experience their own culture.
This subculture revolution is in full gear as DANKA evolves into an online reference for cultural information and coordination between Lahore and other cities of Pakistan. So if you are thinking about hosting a cultural event and want to announce it to the world or want to know "what's on" in the cultural scene in Pakistan, just log on to Danka and live your culture.
It was with great sadness that, at the time this story was published online, we learnt of the death of one of the founders of Danka, Pierre Jolit. Danka.com.pk continues in the full spirit of what Pierre has created and has left behind; guided by its captain, Dr. Andreas Daniel Matt, and the creative and dynamic team of enthusiastic cultural people.
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