The Magic of Fireflies

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 20 March 2018

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Fireflies lit up the evenings of Kashif Qamar’s childhood in Karachi. With his friends he’d collect ‘jugnu’ as they are called in Urdu into a large jar which then became a living lamp in the intense darkness. But the fireflies have gone – artificial light means they disappear and Kashif’s young daughters will never see their flickering magic. Kashif sets out to make a present for his daughters - a collection of memories from history, poetry and music all of which have the jugnu or firefly at their centre.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello from the BBC World Service and welcome to the latest edition of the
0:05.0	documentary podcast. Every week we bring you a range of stories from our
0:09.8	presenters and reporters across the world.
0:13.0	If you have the time, please rate the documentary on your podcast app and leave us a comment.
0:18.1	Let us know what you think.
0:21.8	The velvet darkness. Look at it now.
0:25.0	Look at it now.
0:26.0	No!
0:27.0	No!
0:28.0	No!
0:30.0	You look up into the sky in the night and everything is lit up and it almost seems as if there's never going to be any darkness anymore.
0:41.0	Orange, green, blue, red.
0:47.0	Red. H.
0:48.0	A Rhew.
0:50.0	Fire reds. Yivik! Fireworks.
0:54.0	Yes, you're back here.
0:56.0	You smell fireworks, eh?
0:58.0	Yeah, fireworks, no, yeah, fireflies.
1:02.0	In England, fireworks on November 5th are a big celebration. It is culture and politics, still
1:09.3	exploring 400 years after Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the houses of Parliament.
1:15.0	In my country of Pakistan it used to be fireflies that lit up the sky on dark summer nights.
1:23.5	But when I show my daughter, three-year-old Shiva,
	...

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