Chapter-2 Early Years

The new country had come into being against all odds but it immediately ran into a bucket load of problems. First and the foremost was the settling of millions of refugees pouring in from all parts of India. They had arrived destitute and had suffered heart rending tales of loot and plunder. But they generally showed remarkable patience and resilience, and were full of hopes for building a new country of their own. The newly set up offices had to make do with the barest of furniture or stationery supplies but work started in earnest and slowly picked up speed.

The Independence Day celebrations were not even finished when Pakistan was confronted with the problem of Kashmir, the ‘K’ in Pakistan, which is unfortunately present even today with devastating consequences for both Pakistan and India. The underlying facts of the issue were simple: the Mountbatten Plan announced by viceroy Mountbatten on 2 June 1947 for transfer of power to India and Pakistan and granting them dominion status required all the princely states to accede to either of the two countries before 15 August 1947. Most of them had done so. Some rajas or nawabs, however, had found it difficult to jump this way or the other. Kashmir, Hyderabad and Junagadh were the three most problematic ones. The State of Jammu and Kashmir was ruled by a Hindu Maharaja, Hari Singh Dogra, but majority of its population was Muslim. The reverse was the case in the other two states where the rulers, Nizam of Hyderabad and Nawab of Junagarh were Muslim but Hindus were in majority there.

All logic dictated that Kashmir would be part of Pakistan as its population was not only overwhelmingly Muslim, it was contiguous to Pakistan. Its history and culture was closely aligned with that of Punjab. The two major rivers of Pakistan, Jhelum and Chenab originated in Kashmir. Still, Hari Singh procrastinated till the end. Troubles started when citizens of Poonch revolted against the Dogra rule. Exasperated by this delay, thousands of tribesmen belonging to Gilgit (which was part of Kashmir State) and tribal areas started to march towards Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir state, on 23 October. They moved up to Muzaffarabad (now capital of Azad Kashmir) but halted there and then started burning and looting the area. India started to airlift its regular armed troops to Kashmir valley on 27 October to confront the tribals though the Raja was still undecided and the action was illegal.

Now the real drama started. Quaid e Azam, alarmed at this aggression by India, had moved to Lahore and ordered his ‘acting’ British commander-in-chief General Gracey (as the C-in-C General Messervy was on leave) to move two brigades of Pakistan army immediately to Kashmir. This timely action was certain to hold the Indian troops pouring into Kashmir and secure Kashmir for Pakistan. General Gracey, amazingly, refused to obey these direct orders from his governor-general. His excuse was that this would “lead to armed conflict between the two dominions and the withdrawal of British officers.” Jinnah insisted on the orders being issued at once. In the meantime India, now in control of Srinagar, had managed to force Hari Singh to sign the instrument of accession in its favour, ‘by fraud and violence’ as described by the Quaid later.

Kashmir’s fate was sealed the next day, 28^th October 1947. Supreme Commander of British forces, Field Marshal Auchinleck, flew to Lahore and, accompanied by General Gracey had a marathon day-long meeting with the Quaid. They used every trick in the book, every shell in the armory, to dissuade Pakistan from countering Indian forces in Kashmir. Some of the reasons cited were, India’s “legal” right to Kashmir after its accession, military weakness of Pakistan army, its virtual “uselessness” without British officers, etc., none of which reflected the true state of affairs, and even if true, could not be cited as an excuse for an army commander to refuse to accept orders issued by his direct superior. At the end of the meeting, Quaid was virtually forced to withdraw his orders to move the Pakistani troops to Kashmir. The icing on the cake was the visit by Mountbatten, now the governor-general of India, to Lahore to meet the Quaid two days later in which he naively tried his best to justify Auchinlech’s actions. Predictably, he failed to move Jinnah. Mountbatten’s nerve and audacity to confront Jinnah as a purportedly impartial conciliator was remarkable because it was he who had, according to Wolpert, “assembled over a hundred transport planes, civil as well as military, at Delhi airport with less than a day’s notice, and packed India’s best Sikh regiment inside those planes, fuelled up and kept ready to take off before dawn on October 27” to fly to Srinagar and occupy Kashmir.

A critical part of the diabolical plan to gift the State of Jammu and Kashmir to India, nurtured by Mountbatten with help from British military commanders, was the Radcliffe award. The award was ready and handed over to Mountbatten by Radcliffe on 13 August. It was however revealed to the political leaders only on 16 August and made public on 17 August, two days after India and Pakistan had celebrated their independence! Why was it delayed and what happened during these three days?

According to the Radcliffe award, districts in Punjab were to be allocated on the basis of contiguous Muslim-majority, meaning that districts should have both Muslim majority and be contiguous (sharing a common border).  However, there was one major exception, and that exception was the Mountbatten’s gift to India. This was the Muslim majority district of Gurdaspur. Only one tehsil of Shakargarh was given to Pakistan, while three tehsils of Gurdaspur were given to India which included the Pathankot tehsil; the crucially important fact was that the road going from India to Kashmir passed through this Pathankot tehsil. Put another way, without Pathankot, there was no access to Kashmir from India’s side.

Alistair Lamb, the famous British writer, in his book ‘Kashmir’ sums it up, “the mechanics of Partition as applied to the Punjab, more than any other single factor, created the immediate background to the Kashmir dispute. The theory was that all Muslim-majority districts contiguous to the Muslim core of the Punjab would go to Pakistan. In the event, with the awarding of three out of four tehsils (sub-districts) of Gurdaspur District to [Indian] Punjab, the accession to India of the State of Jammu and Kashmir became a practical, as opposed to theoretical, possibility. Because two of these tehsils, Batala and Gurdaspur, were areas with significant Muslim majorities (only Pathankot tehsil had a small Hindu majority), this award seemed to go against the basic spirit of Partition”. In other words, had the Gurdaspur district not been awarded to India, Hari Singh would have been left with no choice but to allow the accession of his state to Pakistan on the grounds of its being, a) a Muslim-majority state and, b) contiguous only to Pakistan.

Fighting continued in Kashmir as more and stronger Indian forces kept flying in to push back the tribals and later regular Pakistani troops who however managed to hold a line east of Muzaffarabad. This later became the western half of the Kashmir ceasefire line after an agreement brokered by the United Nations putting an end to the hostilities on 1 January 1949. In the meanwhile, people of Gilgit and Baltistan had rebelled against the Dogra rule and declared for Pakistan on 3 November 1947, and this became the eastern portion of the Kashmir ceasefire line. According to Lamb, “the line between the Indian and Pakistani control in the territories of the State of Jammu and Kashmir now virtually cut the State into two portions of [roughly] comparable area. Pakistan held the Gilgit region, Baltistan and a narrow strip of Kashmir. India held Ladakh and the bulk of Kashmir.”

India’s claim of invading Kashmir simply because of the Maharaja acceding his State to India was shown in its true colors when it invaded and forcibly occupied the state of Junagarh in November 1947 even though the Muslim Nawab of Junagarh had acceded to Pakistan. Subsequently, Indian army invaded and occupied the state of Hyderabad on 13 September 1948, just two days after the death of Quaid e Azam, despite the Nizam of Hyderabad persistently refusing to accede to India.

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Kashmir was always supposed to be an integral part of Pakistan, its letter ’K’. Its loss, coming soon after the massacre in Punjab, had a profound effect on Quaid e Azam. According to Wolpert, “a mood of lonely resignation and fatalism shrouded Jinnah through the rest of that last bitter year of his life. His hopes of breathing the cool, fresh air of Srinagar faded with each passing day”. He confided to an old parsi friend visiting from Bombay, “ I am so tired, Jamshed, so tired’. He was seventy-two, had won most of his battles, and now wanted to rest.

His spirits were not lifted when India started to find frivolous excuses for not paying Pakistan its share of the net assets of Reserve Bank of India, amounting to Rs 55 crores (Rs 550 million), which had been agreed between the two countries after lengthy deliberations. This was part of India’s plan to try to stifle Pakistan financially. At the last moment however, Nizam of Hyderabad came to Pakistan’s rescue and advanced a loan of Rs 20 crores. Because of that loan, and an advance from Habib Bank, Pakistan remained solvent and its first annual budget was presented by its finance Minister, Ghulam Mohammad, on 28 February. Defence expenditure was projected to be £ 28 million out of the total estimated expenditure of £ 40 million (70%), and a net deficit of £ 25 million. The disproportionate share of defence expenditure started in the first budget was to continue, it seems, throughout the country’s life.

As his health started to deteriorate in the last days of his life, Quaid e Azam became increasingly frustrated with the performance of his cabinet ministers and government officials. He could not tolerate the inefficiency and incompetence he saw all around him and grew impatient with the usual excuses for not getting anything done. He was extremely unhappy with the way the resettlement of refugees was being neglected in Punjab and wanted to replace Nawab of Mamdot, the chief minister of Punjab saying that “he was useless as chief minister”.

In June, he and Fatima Jinnah flew to Quetta and then to Ziarat, a hill station forty miles away from Quetta, for rest in its cool and reinvigorating environment. “Within a few days of our arrival  . . . he was able to sleep and eat well, the coughing subsided and his temperature came down to normal. For the first time in many years he seemed relaxed,” Miss Jinnah recalled. Despite his illness he went to Karachi to speak at the opening ceremony of the State Bank of Pakistan on 1 July, returning on 4 July and started running a fever again. Quaid was however quite sanguine about his health telling his doctor Lieutenant Colonel Ihahi Bakhsh, who had flown specially from Lahore to treat him, “I don’t think there is anything organically wrong with me . . . if my stomach can be put right I will recover soon.” The doctor examined him noting how thin he was and could not make out, “how he had managed to survive and work in such an advanced stage of emaciation”. After extensive tests, he was told the news which was to prove a disaster for the young newly born nation, “tuberculosis had turned into lung cancer that had almost totally consumed both the lungs.”

He grew weaker every day and became irritable complaining about everybody being unpunctual. Miss Jinnah explained that “ her brother attached a great deal of importance to punctuality, and had all his life been most punctual himself.” His doctor was shocked to find that he now weighed only eighty pounds and, to make the matters worse, he practically stopped eating after 28 August. When the doctor urged him to take some food, he replied “Doctor, you are overfeeding me. I have never taken so much food before, even when I was quite well.” From then on he lived on a few cups of tea and coffee, and some plain water to swallow his pills. He lay in bed quietly all day, listless, apathetic, and said to Miss Jinnah “Fatti, I am no longer interested in living. The sooner I go the better.”  As Dr Bakhsh said, “I had always felt that he had been kept going despite his low vitality by an indomitable will.” But now the great Quaid, “the man of iron will, had given up the fight.”

By September, Quaid had developed pneumonia as well as TB and cancer. Oxygen was required to help him breath. Even in this condition, he kept thinking of Kashmir somewhat like a missing child. He was heard muttering aloud as he tossed about uncomfortably in bed according to Dr Ilahi Bakhsh, “The Kashmir Commission have an appointment with me today, why haven’t they turned up?”

It was now the fateful day of 11 September and it was decided to move him to Karachi. A bed had been made in the front cabin of his plane and they landed at the Karachi airport after two hours of flying. Miss Jinnah recalled, “here he had landed just a year ago, full of hope and confidence that he would help build Pakistan into a great nation. Then thousands had thronged to welcome him. But today, as instructed . . . there was no one at the airport.” Quaid was carried on a stretcher to the ambulance for drive to his residence. After about four miles, the ambulance coughed and came to a sudden halt. It transpired that it had broken down due to some engine trouble and another ambulance would have to be called. The Quaid was left stranded lying on a stretcher in the ambulance parked in hot sun by the side of the road. Miss Jinnah reported the ghastly scene, “ there was no breeze, and the humid heat was oppressive. To add to his discomfort, scores of flies buzzed around his face, and he did not have the strength to brush them away . . . Sister Dunham and I fanned him in turns, waiting for another ambulance to arrive . . . . Every minute was an eternity of agony. He could not be shifted to the car as it was not big enough for the stretcher.”  In the meantime his pulse was getting weaker and irregular. He was given some hot tea to drink.

This was truly a macabre scene. “Nearby stood hundreds of huts belonging to the refugees,” thought Miss Jinnah, “who went about their business, not knowing that their
Quaid, who had given them a homeland, was in their midst, lying helpless. Cars honked their way past, buses and trucks rumbled by, and we stood their immobilized in an ambulance that refused to move an inch . . . . We waited for over one hour, and no hour in my life has been so long and full of anguish.”

Finally, the other ambulance arrived and they reached the house at 6:10 p.m.  “He slept for over two hours,” Miss Jinnah reported, “then he opened his eyes and . . . whispered, ‘Fatti’ . . . .  his head dropped slightly to the right, his eyes closed.” The doctors arrived, gave him some injections, stood around, and sometime later covered his body, head to foot, with a sheet. Quaid e Azam breathed his last at 10:20 p.m. on 11 September 1948.

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The entire nation was thunderstruck at hearing the news of the great Quaid’s death. They were aware of his falling health generally and that he was recuperating in Ziarat, but had no idea it was this bad, and were not prepared for his death.  My parents remembered the day like it was yesterday. They felt numb with grief. Not just like losing somebody close in the family they loved dearly but more so having been left shelter-less. It was like losing somebody who could help them make sense of the chaos all around and somebody who was feared by the country’s enemies just by the force of his personality. No wonder, India invaded and annexed the state of Hyderabad just two days after the Quaid’s death despite the Nizam having declared his intention to remain independent.

People were crying openly in the streets. The nation went into a long period of mourning. People were already reeling from the aftereffects of the partition and the loss of Kashmir valley and Quaid’s passing away on top of all this hit at the heart of nation’s psyche. There are few instances in history where circumstances combine to make the loss of one person felt so deeply by so many.

Why was this so? Why was he loved by his people so much? Of course, since the Quaid was the main architect of Pakistan, this was the main reason for his popularity.  However, it is not so well understood that Jinnah was a well-known and respected leader even as far back as 1914 when he was selected to visit Britain as head of the Indian National Congress delegation. Back home much of his effort was directed at promoting Congress-League understanding. The famous Lucknow Pact of 1916 between Congress and Muslim League was the handiwork of Jinnah. Calling for a joint struggle against British rule, the agreement achieved major legislative safeguards for Muslims in the central and provincial governments. The Pact established Jinnah’s leadership qualities and made him a household name among Muslims of India.

A more fitting tribute to Jinnah of those days cannot be found other than what Raja of Mahmudabad, Ali Mohammad Khan, who was elected President of All India Muslim League in 1916, had written in August 1916. According to him, “Among the people who have dedicated themselves to the cause of serving the nation, I cannot see anybody more commendable than Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Despite his youth, the way he has displayed his decision making powers, political acumen and perseverance, and furthermore, the objectivity and sincerity with which he has served the Muslim League in the previous years, make it incumbent that he should be elected the president of the current year’s Muslim League annual session.”

My maternal uncle Sajid Hasan, about the same age as my father, always remembered with pride the day he was presented to meet Quaid e Azam when he was a young boy. Jinnah was visiting Lucknow and as usual stayed at the Mahmudabad Palace. Sajid Hasan’s uncle, Ali Hasan, was a senior official at the Mahmudabad State being responsible for protocol and had promised to take him there. Jinnah was sitting on a sofa among other dignitaries. My uncle went there, presented his compliments and was allowed to sit with him for a few moments. These moments became an unforgettable part of uncle’s memory and cherished by him all his life.

This was the way the people had always respected him and loved him all over India.

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It is the way of the world that when a king or a great leader passes away, there is a tussle for the throne. Sometimes it is between the natural heirs of the leader and his close advisors while at other times, the heirs fight it out between themselves. When the great Mughal kings died, for example, there were bloody battles between the heirs. King Jahangir’s four sons Khusrau, Parviz, Khurram and Shahryar were each contenders for the crown. Khurram, who later took the title Shah Jehan when he ascended the throne, had both Khusrau and Parviz conveniently eliminated during the last years of his father’s reign. Shahryar, being the son in law of the all-powerful Queen Noor Jehan, then became the favorite but Khurram had him killed too by his father in law Asif Jah (who happened to be Noor Jehan’s brother!). Shah Jehan, in turn, was not even allowed to die before the wars of succession broke out between his heirs: Dara Shikoh, Shuja, Aurangzeb and Murad. Dara Shikoh was killed after a battle with Aurangzeb who then had his other two other brothers executed as well.  After confining his father Shah Jehan in his palace at Agra for life, Aurangzeb taunted him by asking him, “how do you still regard the memory of Khusrau and Parviz, whom you did to death before your accession and who had threatened no injury to you?”

Fortunately, there were no such battles for the throne after the death of Quaid e Azam. There could be no doubt in anybody’s mind about his successor, Liaquat Ali Khan who, being the prime minister, and commanding immense respect among people as a trusted lieutenant of Quaid e Azam during the Pakistan movement, automatically assumed the top leadership role.  Liaquat Ali Khan belonged to a Nawab family of United Provinces (later Uttar Pradesh) owning lands at Muzaffarnagar and studied at Oxford University followed by bar-at-law at Inner Temple of London in 1922. Coming back to India he joined Muslim League in 1923 and was later elected to the UP legislative council. His most important contribution during this period was to persuade Jinnah, who had moved to England in 1930, to move back to India. “You must come back,” Liaquat urged. “The people need you. You alone can put new life into the League and save it.” Begum Ra’ana Liaquat Ali Khan, who regarded him as a hero, appealed to him also with her customary charm and enthusiasm. The heartfelt passionate appeals worked and Jinnah moved back to Bombay in 1934.

At the annual session of the League in 1936, Jinnah moved a resolution proposing Liaquat as the Honorary General Secretary and he held the office till the establishment of Pakistan in 1947. In 1940, Liaquat became the deputy leader of the Muslim League Parliamentary party. He represented the Muslim League in the interim government formed with Congress in 1946 and held the portfolio of finance, presenting the famous ‘poor man’s budget’ taxing the rich which rattled the Congress leaders and the Hindu industrialists so much that they began to think of Pakistan as a better option after all.

Liaquat took over a Pakistan in the grip of a multitude of problems, most critical being the war in Kashmir, which finally ended with a ceasefire agreement concluded with India with the promise of a plebiscite to ascertain the will of the people. His rule covered a period of only four years but, remarkably, the decisions taken by him as the head of state during this time were to set the course for the country for years to come, the effects of which are visible even today.

Under his premiership, Pakistan took the first steps in constitution making. Liaquat presented the Objectives Resolution in the Legislative Assembly which was passed on 12 March 1949. It defined the objectives upon which the future constitution of the country was to be based. In time this document proved to be the foundation stone for the ideology of the country because it attempted to combine the basic principles of Islamic philosophy with those of western democracy. It thus departed from the secular system of governance, where the state purports to be officially neutral in matters of religion and treats all its citizens equal regardless of religion. The growing influence of religion in the coming years on the country’s political, economic and social structure as well as jurisprudence can be said to take its root from this time. The Objectives Resolution served as a preamble for the 1956, 1962 and 1973 constitutions and, under the influence of President Ziaul Haq, became part of the Constitution in 1985.

Liaquat also laid down the foundations of the country’s foreign policy. The cold war between the two super powers, United States and Soviet Union was only just beginning after the conclusion of the 2^nd world war. Pakistan was not formally part of any block but its policies began to tilt towards the US after Liaquat went for a state visit there in May 1950 and met President Harry S. Truman. No reciprocal visit was paid to Russia despite reportedly an invitation from the premier, Joseph Stalin. The course was set for Pakistan and it soon became part of two military pacts SEATO in 1954 and Baghdad Pact (later called CENTO) in 1955, designed to protect member states from communism. Soviet Union which had up to that time maintained a neutral stand on Kashmir now started to put its weight behind India. This was in marked contrast to India where prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, being of a socialist frame of mind, started to develop warm ties with Soviet Union immediately after independence and was cool towards US in those days.

Liaquat’s third major policy decision with long term implications was when he appointed General Ayub Khan as the first native commander-in-chief of the Pakistan army in January 1951 after the retirement of General Gracey. Ayub Khan at that time was the junior-most Major General in the army and bypassed three senior Major Generals, including the senior-most Major General Akbar Khan recommended by the General Headquarters. In fact, Ayub Khan was not even included in the nomination list! A crucial role in his appointment was played by the then Defence Secretary, Iskander Mirza, who lobbied strongly for his appointment with the prime minister.

Liaquat Ali Khan was keen to start industrialization in this country and formed Pakistan Industrial Development Corporation which began to set up a series of large scale industrial units all over the country. He has to his credit also the planting of the first seeds for the education of science and technology in the country. He invited the famous chemist Salimuzzaman Siddiqui from abroad appointing him as his first government science adviser in 1951. He also called world renowned physicist and mathematician Raziuddin Siddiqui to come and start teaching in Pakistan and the latter was instrumental in setting up the Atomic Energy Commission of Pakistan.

Perhaps Liaquat’s greatest contributions in those difficult days was, firstly, to pull the country out of despondency after Quaid’s death and, secondly, the way he stood up boldly and valiantly against India’s threatening postures. The Congress leaders had grudgingly accepted the creation of Pakistan in the belief that, faced with the immense political and economic problems that would inevitably crop up, it would not be able to survive more than a few months anyway. They observed with disbelief and dismay the way the nation began to resolve the multitudes of challenges faced by it one by one, and showed no signs of bowing to the might of its powerful neighbour. India lost no opportunity to test Pakistan’s patience and in 1951 threateningly mobilised its forces on the border. It was at this time that Liaquat Ali Khan showed his resolve and waved his famous fist in a public speech at Karachi’s Jahangir Park on 14 August to warn India that if it dared attack Pakistan, it would get a matching response.

The waving of fist would long be remembered by people in those days whenever the word India was mentioned. My father used to mention “Liaquat’s mukka” proudly even a long time after the event happened and in my childhood the words Liaquat Ali Khan and the fist were somehow bound together in my mind.

He did not have long to live after that. He was addressing a large public meeting at Company Bagh In Rawalpindi on 16 October 1951 when shots rang in the air and it was discovered that he had been shot twice in the chest. The police immediately shot the presumed murderer who was later identified as Said Akbar, an Afghan national of the Pashtun Zadran tribe. Liaquat was rushed to a hospital and given a blood transfusion, but succumbed to his injuries. His last words were “Khuda Pakistan ki hifazat karay”. The exact motive behind the assassination has never been found.

Upon his death, Liaquat Ali Khan was given the title of “Shaheed-e-Millat“, or “Martyr of the Nation”. Company Bagh was renamed Liaquat Bagh. It is the same location where Benazir Bhutto, the future prime minister, was assassinated in 2007.

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Fifty years passed. A news item appeared in a Karachi newspaper in August 2021 reporting that a woman had pleaded with the government for some financial assistance to be provided for her husband’s medical treatment as he was seriously ill and had to go for a dialysis three times a week. The Sindh government, the report continued, had graciously agreed to bear these expenses besides sanctioning a small monthly allowance. However, the husband died next year.

The woman was the wife of Akbar Liaquat Ali Khan, younger son of the first prime minister of Pakistan Liaquat Ali Khan and his wife Ra’ana Liaquat Ali Khan. Akbar’s father was a Nawab with a vast landholding left in India when he migrated to Pakistan. He had donated his residence in Delhi, Gul-i-Ra’ana, to the new state of Pakistan which is now the official residence of Pakistan’s high commissioner in India. He left that house fully furnished with expensive and exquisite items, and left it with just one suitcase having clothes for daily use.

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And we now turn to my life as it unfolded then. The first few years were rather lonely. I was the first born and my kid sister came into this world much later. We did not have any close relatives living in Lahore in those days and so the army of aunts, uncles and cousins which is usually part of one’s day to day existence was missing from my life. I always played with myself in those days.

My life very nearly came to an end when I was about two years old. I began to have low fever of about 99º which all children experience off and on. However, after the treatment started, rather than subsiding it gradually started to rise, until after a week’s time it had gone up to the persistent level of 102º. By this time, I had become so weak I was barely breathing. There were no blood tests in those day, or any medical tests for that matter. My father decided to consult the top most children’s doctor in Lahore, Dr Wasti, who had his clinic within his bungalow at Nabha Road near GPO and took me there. Having listened to my father describe my condition, the doctor examined me calmly, turned towards my father and then suddenly blurted out in anger saying, “Why have you brought him to me now? You have already managed to nearly kill him. Take him away.” My father, stunned by this sudden outburst, asked him meekly what he meant and what could now be done about it.

As his temper subsided, he explained to my father that I was suffering from typhoid, but the immediate cause of concern was not the fever but the extreme weakness, and this had to be taken care of urgently. He then told my father to stop all medications forthwith and begin a diet. The diet that he prescribed however, left my father worried. It consisted of only two things: egg yolk and finely ground shami kebabs. My father protested saying how could a little child of two years and being so weak, be able to digest this kind of food. These remarks had the doctor fly into a rage once again. “Now tell me’, he thundered, “who is the doctor, you or me? Either do what I say or you can get out”. My father picked me up, came back and narrated the whole incident to my mother, who was even more horrified. They had no choice, however, and started me on the diet as recommended. Miraculously, I began to get better, and in less than a month was completely cured.

I had the occasion to see my saviour once again when my father took me to visit him about ten years later. He had been the foremost child specialist of Lahore for decades by this time but had such a modest personality that it left a mark on me. He happened to be a tall, somewhat heavyset man with a mop of greying hair on his head, wearing baggy trousers which came only to his ankle’s length. The picture was completed when you looked down at his feet; he was wearing old worn out black shoes without laces and without socks! Such is the lifestyle of truly great men and we ordinary mortals can only sneer at their eccentricities.

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We were then living in Chamra Mandi (leather market) situated on GT Road at the back of the Lahore railway station. It was accessed from the city side by Do-Moria Pul, which was a two-way underpass built under the railway lines. Anywhere we wanted to go from our home, we had to go through this Do-Moria Pul. To my young mind, this was a kind of door to all kind of good and attractive things existing on the other side of the railway lines, things like markets, gardens and cinemas, rather anything other than home which coming back always seemed drab and boring to the extreme.

The very first memories I have of a home is a flat consisting of two rather dark small rooms situated on the ground floor of an old building. The building faced a narrow street leading down from the GT Road towards Misri Shah, and started almost exactly opposite the pedestrian bridge straddling the huge expanse of railway station. But we soon moved to another flat, this one situated on the first floor of a building housing a raw leather godown facing GT Road, where my father had his business. This flat was a marked contrast to the earlier one, bright and airy and, to my extreme delight, giving an excellent view of the hustle and bustle always there on the busy GT Road below.

My father had by this time decided to move away from his job at Bata shoe company and start his own raw leather business under the name Bufco Traders, the word being a combo of buffalo and cow. He must have had good relations with the bosses there because Bata agreed to become the firm’s sole customer. Going into business was not an easy decision for my father, as any person with a comfortable job at a multinational company would know. Other than job security, there was also the question of finances, the working capital required to commence a new venture. For a long time before that, my father and mother started to save every penny they could to build up reserves. They even stopped subscribing to the daily English newspaper (which must have been hard for my mother) or having paans. The saving would not have amounted to much; it was more like a psychological prop to boost their resolve. Still, my father could not make up his mind and kept procrastinating.

On his daily walk in the morning one day, he saw a fakir like figure coming from the opposite direction. The fakir was probably high as he was walking unsteadily lurching this way and the other. My father seeing this tried to avoid him, but the fakir kept coming and then suddenly punched him in the chest. Without stopping, the fakir then continued on his way, saying something in the air like, “ What are you afraid of? Don’t you have belief in God?’’ My father, momentarily numb with the shock of this unexpected blow, regained his senses and continued the walk. Neither my father nor my mother believed in heavenly signs but this strange incident could have helped him to make up his mind sooner than he would otherwise have done.

I found a new hobby as well – playing with the mini-hides stored in father’s godown. I used to watch father and his assistants conduct the categorization and valuation of raw hides of buffaloes and cows by inspection. This was done by a set of two workers picking up one hide at a time from a ‘lot’, turning it and then putting it back to another ‘lot’. The inspector standing at one end glanced at each hide during this quick picking and turning, announced the value of the hide as judged by him and this was noted down by a clerk. All this was done in a matter of seconds and thousands of hides were valued and classified in this fashion every day. The small sized hides of goats and small cows were kept in a separate lot, and I used to spend hours picking and turning these in my free time. The workers at the godown used to enjoy this, remarking, “Chota Saab seems very busy in his work.”

A raw leather godown is extremely smelly and one can start noticing the foul smell from a long distance away. But people living and working there become immune to this stench and they don’t feel it. Living there was a bonus for me because I developed a life-long immunity not only to the smell of raw leather, but to all kinds of foul smell. For example, I am immune to the stench of manure used as fertilizer for plants. I take my morning walk in one of the many beautiful parks spread around in the Karachi Defence area. Just before the onset of spring every year, the gardeners unload tons of manure in the park and spread it all over the lawns and in the flower beds. The stench coming out of there is unbearable for most people, many of whom stop coming to the park altogether. I don’t feel anything. To be fair, I do feel the smell for a few seconds but then it just seems to disappear, like my brain’s parietal lobe controlling smell telling my brain’s cerebrum storing memories to freshen up its memory bank.

This particular ‘qualification’, being oblivious to smelly things, stood me in good stead once during my brief stint at the well-known firm of Chartered Accountants, Fergusons in Lahore. I had done my B.Com which required completing a four-months internship which I was then doing at Fergusons. After the completion of internship, I had planned to apply to the same firm for articles of apprenticeship, a requirement for qualifying as a chartered accountant. I therefore had to prove my worth to them in the face of stiff competition from other applicants. As chance would have it, I was assigned to go for audit to a factory called Crushing Ltd which was in the business of manufacturing gelatine and this it did by crushing old bones of animals. When our audit team landed in the factory, consisting of myself and the senior in charge of the job, we were hit by an overpowering stench. Old bones of animals, in their tens of thousands and piled mountain high, are obviously not expected to give out sweet smell like saffron but even for old bones, the smell was as foul as it could ever be. My senior in charge cursed his luck for having been assigned this job, used some expletives for the manager who had done this, and then got busy in his work. I, predictably, sensed the foul smell for a few seconds and then . . . nothing. A week there went like a breeze.

A few weeks later I found myself in the company of that manager. He was discussing the assignment with me and commented on the ‘smelly’ nature of the job. With as much sincerity as I could muster, I told him that though the smell was something which was definitely there, I found the assignment quite interesting and rewarding and that I would very much like to be sent there again whenever required. For me, I told him, the duty took precedence over any other consideration. The manager looked down at his papers, raised his head and there were tears in his eyes. “Son,” he said to me, “I have handled hundreds of jobs before but this is the first time I have seen such loyalty and dedication. I so wish there were more people like you. This,” he declared, “is simply commendable.” Though it was with some difficulty, I managed to keep a straight face.

Spending one’s childhood in the old stinking raw leather godown in Chamra Mandi did have some blessings after all.

(6)

Around this time, my mother started to explore the possible schools for my education. She took me to the nearest school which looked quite nice but we were told that it was reserved for the children of railway employees. As there were no good schools nearby, it was decided to get me admitted to a school called Madrasa-tul-banat (school for girls) which was located on Lake Road (near Chauburji) which was about 7 km (4 miles) from my home. As the name indicates, it was a girl’s school but was open to boys in lower classes.

The decision to send me to school hit me like a bomb. I was the first born so I did not have any elder brother or sister going to school. We did not have any relatives living in Lahore so I had never seen anybody else going to school either. I could not understand just why I had been so selected to go to a place called school when nobody else was doing so. To complicate matters further, my father’s office was also located in the godown just below our flat, so he too was practically home all day. I was the only one, I thought, forced to go away from my mother for a whole day and I didn’t like it.

To go to school in the morning we, I and my father, had to walk about half a mile to a bus stop where I would board a school bus which would take me to the school. After a couple of days of following this routine, and after reaching the bus stop, I refused to board the bus. My father tried his best to coax me into getting onto the bus but I dug my heals. So we started our journey back home. I was running and jumping with joy on getting a holiday. However, tragedy awaited me as soon as we entered the flat and I was given a mild thrashing by my father. This was rather unexpected because I had not seen him in this kind of mood before. I never refused to go to school after this day.

A set daily routine established itself now. For some reason, the bus would reach the school every day after the morning assembly had started. I was therefore expected to go directly to the classroom. I would go the empty classroom, place my bag on the seat, put my hands around my head on the desk and start crying. This would go on for about five minutes, I would then raise my head, wipe the tears off my face, try to appear normal, and be ready for the children when they rushed into the classroom a few minutes later. Then the teacher would come in and the school work started.

This routine went on for many weeks. Imagine a little boy sitting all alone in an empty classroom with his head buried in his hands on the desk, weeping silently and crying his heart out. That was me. I am not sure why I did this. Perhaps I had realized the futility of protest with either my father or mother and as there was nobody else to turn to, I got resigned to the status quo. Or maybe, it was my natural loneliness which did not allow me to share my feelings with other children. While I was crying, the only thoughts in my mind would be that of home and mother, and this was enough to start the tears rolling out.

Strangely enough, this unusual trait, that of being able to cry on demand, came to my rescue many years later when I went to England for studies. I was about twenty years old then. I did not have any relative or friend living in London, or the whole of England for that matter. Immediately after arriving there, I found a place in a students’ hostel managed by the Pakistan High Commission, sharing a room with another new arrival, Habib Khan. Habib sahib was at least ten years older than me, heavily built and ponderous. He was a government officer serving as a district education officer in Punjab and had come to England for training. He felt as lonely and homesick as I did. We found a way to let out this grief.  Every day, at two in the afternoon, we would close the door of our room, sit on our beds and start crying. This collective teary session would go on for a few minutes, after which we would go to the bathroom, splash water on our faces and comeback fully refreshed ready to face another day.

———–

Sadness has always been a part of my life. Sometimes a fleeting moment of grief, at other times, a deep, gnawing sadness, so much that it hurts. But it is always there. Like a shadow, like a constant companion, like a melancholy oboe. It comes and goes in waves, but it is there in the background. It hits one more when one is listening to music, maybe because “music has that power to revive memories, sometimes so intensely that they hurt”. It doesn’t have to be sad music, any music with bass chords or a chant, or a slow rhythm produces the same effect, that empty feeling in the chest. Sometimes I wish, like the Japanese writer Murakami that, “there was a machine that could accurately measure sadness, and display it in numbers that you could record.” Like the pulse rate or the oxygen level. And then you could show your loved one your chart of sadness . . . . maybe it would mellow the heart.

Sadness is different from depression. I have never felt depressed, in fact I am remarkably optimistic. Even on some bad days, when nothing seems to be working and problems somewhat overwhelm you, I tend to remain cheerful. And positive. Unlike depression, sadness does not take over your life, it accompanies you. As a psychologist will tell you, sadness “surfaces sometimes, bringing sighs or tears, but it is not the dark obstacle to fully functioning life that depression can be.”

May be because I am so used to it, I can recognise sadness in other people, usually through their eyes, because as they say, “eyes never lie”. Usually, it reflects intense grief after the loss of a loved one like a child or the tragic end of a love affair. But it could be the result of any event in life, or be just part of one’s biological makeup. People associated with creative arts, like poets, story writers or actors often happen to be intensely sad. It is not unusual to find poets being heavy drinkers or famous actors being chain smokers, and it could be their intrinsic sadness which makes them do so. But the odd fact is that comedians are often the people who are the most sad; similarly the actors who play the part of jokers in circus. This looks like a paradox but there may be some psychological connection. Look at the great Robin Williams, leaving us when he was at the prime of his career. One just had to look at his eyes to see his inner feelings, when outwardly he was making us laugh with his funny imitations.

I can see it in the early life of our great prophet (PBUH). His father had died just before he was born. The Arab culture puts great store in ancestry and young men used to boast about the achievements of their fathers with relish. How deeply he would have felt the loss of his father in this highly masculine society. And then he lost his mother too when he was just six years old. His foster-mother Halima recalls that as a child whenever he had a chance to visit his mother’s grave near Medina, he would not just sit by the side of the grave, he would lie down on the grave face down, stretching his little arms and legs fully, like he was embracing his mother.

(7)

Madrasa-tul-banat was a big school with over five hundred girls. I was admitted into their junior most class called KG 1 and our class teacher was Miss Rosalind. She was an extremely sweet woman with a smiling face and treated all children with much care and kindness.

One of the students in the tenth class, which was the senior most class, happened to be a niece of my mother, Farhana, though I had never met her before. My mother had introduced her to me, telling me to go to her if I needed something. It was a timely advice because I did need something on the very first day in school. I wanted to go to the washroom but when I got there, I could not untie my belt. I was too shy to ask the teacher and then found the courage to go to Farhana Baji in her class. She was much too amused but helped me and I finally found relief. She remembered this incident for a long time and teased me about it whenever we met again.

I still remember the school’s arrangement for keeping our food that we brought from our homes warm till the lunch time. In the morning, we used to place our tiffin boxes in an oven which was the size of a big fridge. The temperature was kept just right so that by  lunch time, the food was warm but not very hot. I have never seen anything like that at any of the schools that I have known since.

After a month or so, we came to know that three other boys from our area went to the same school by tonga and arrangement was made for me to join them. They were all much older than me but good company. My morning crying sessions came to an end.

Lahore in those days was unlike what we see around us now. There were very few cars plying on the road. The only motorcycles one saw were the big ones, over 500 cc at least, vrooming around the town, often with sidecars attached, which is something one doesn’t see at all now. My father had one too, but he preferred his bicycle for daily use which he kept in a pristine condition, polished and shining. It had a front light which worked with a dynamo attached to the back wheel of the bicycle. He could never imagine going out at night without the front light on, as people were often issued a challan (ticket) by police if found riding a bicycle without the front light on. Before starting his journey, he would tie a clip round the bottoms of his trousers to prevent them getting tangled in the chain, and in the summer wear a solar hat. The usual traffic on the roads consisted of a few trucks and cars but more of the tongas, rehras (horse carts), gaddas (ox carts), cycles and, occasionally, a horse rider. There were hardly any donkey carts around. It was still quite noisy and boisterous on the GT Road. Gadda walas were always cursing their charges loudly with little effect as they continued to walk slowly at their own pace, mindless of the shouting. One of their curses for the oxen was ‘mar jaaen’ (drop dead). I could never understand the logic of this, because surely, a dead pair of oxen would be of little use to the owner. Obviously the gadda walas were not trained in logic and went about their business as usual. I could see sometimes from my window below during night time a gadda wala dozing off on his gadda while it was moving. The oxen would continue to walk slowly in a straight line towards their destination through the night, like an auto pilot on a plane.

There was nothing much to do in the evening, except to talk, read or listen to the radio. My father and mother were in the habit of walking long distances on foot in those days; I had to trudge along with them protesting that I was tired almost as soon as we started,  chanting continuously, zee-tuck . . . . zee tuck, meaning, Saeed thuk (tired). We used to go to bed early and got up early. I remember once packing my school bag at night, suddenly finding that I did not have the English writing copybook with me as the previous one had been used up. It used to be a special four line copybook designed to write English alphabets; top and bottom lines red in colour and the middle two lines, blue. I panicked. It was now too late to go to the stationery shop. My father went downstairs to his office, found a blank page copybook and came back upstairs armed with a red and a blue pencil and a foot rule. He sat down before me and started to draw red and blue lines on the blank copybook with the ruler. The work took about an hour but I took a sigh of relief when it was finished.

On Sunday mornings we, my father and I, would go to Akbari Mandi on his bicycle for the weekly grocery shopping. It was a huge market, mainly wholesale, and one could get good bargains there. It was part of the old city of Lahore with incredibly narrow lanes but kept very clean and had mostly pedestrian traffic. It was quite close to our home, about ten minutes distance on bicycle and I thoroughly enjoyed the ride, feeling very important. Going down the GT Road, one turned left on Circular Road, past Yakki Gate and then Delhi Gate to get to Akbari Mandi. It all seems like a dream now, part of another world, never to come back.

We sometimes visited my mother’s cousin Sarwar Jehan (daughter of her maternal uncle, Murtaza Hussain) whose family had recently arrived in Lahore. He husband, Naqvi Uncle, had a job as a senior foreman at the Pakistan Railways factory, called loco workshop, and had been allotted a house in Mughalpura Railway Colony. This was a hugely impressive house. Situated at the junction of Sabir Road and Mughalpura Road, there was a vast garden attached to the bungalow, located at the tip of the V formed by the two roads. The house itself was more than a thousand square yards in area with five servant quarters at the back. Down the road was the Griffin Club complex with large playing grounds for the exclusive use of railway staff. The colony had lots of trees on the road sides and was very green all around. During season we could have as many shahtoots (mulberry fruit) and jamuns (Indian blackberry) as we liked from the big trees grown in the garden They had many boys and the eldest, Izhar Haider, was a couple of years older than me and we played for many hours together. He later became a doctor, joined the army and found himself in Dacca during the 1971 war, spending time in a prison in India.

The Mughalpura railway colony, along with another one for senior employees at Mayo Gardens, must have been typical of the housing estates the British had built for their railway employees all over India and showed why a job in railways commanded much respect in those days. These jobs held a special attraction for the Anglo-Indian community of India who were associated with it almost from the days the first broad-gauge train chugged from Bori Bunder to Thane in 1863. All railway key jobs such as engine drivers, guards, lines men, foremen and station masters were often held by Anglo-Indians. Their women worked as matrons, nurses, teachers and secretaries in the railway hospitals and schools. The main characters of John Master’s famous novel, Bhowani Junction, which is woven around the lives of Indian railway staff, were Anglo-Indian. Most of them opted to remain in India after partition.

Around this time, my mother’s another cousin (daughter of her paternal uncle, Ali Hasan), who we called Khala Amma, had also arrived and settled in Lahore with her husband Ghulam Abbas (who the family called Doolha Bhai, a fond name for elder brother in law) and other members of her family. The family had left large tracts of properties in India upon migration and had been allotted the house 1 Queens Road, next to the junction of Waris Road and Queens Road. It was a large mansion type house with a big garden in front and dozens of rooms. Her son, Agha Hasan (called Munna Bhai) was at that time a senior officer in Habib Bank in Karachi and later became well known, first, as head of the United Bank and then as the founder/president of BCCI. My school saviour Farhana Baji mentioned earlier was also one of her daughters and lived there.

———-

Let us pause here. The ‘present’ sometimes seems too drab and boring. A trip down the past to the exotic times of nawabs and maharanis may add some spice to the proceedings. We go back in time to the period when the nineteenth century is just about to give way to the twentieth century.

The year is 1899 and a woman, living in a village in the state of Mahmudabad, about 50 km from Lucknow, has recently been widowed. She is only thirty three years old and has a seven years old son to look after. Her husband, a state official, was a tower of strength for her and his sudden loss has left her wondering how she would now be able to cope with this world all on her own. She belongs to a respectable family and has no desire to spend the rest of her life being dependent upon others. When the period of mourning comes to an end, she starts thinking. She is astute and resourceful; she thinks of a plan.

The Raja of Mahmudabad, Ali Mohammad Khan, would be passing through her village on the way to Lucknow soon. Among her many skills, she possessed a talent for cooking the highest quality gourmet food; her husband loved to eat well and she had always managed to oblige him. She checked the exact details of Maharaja Sahib’s itinerary and arranged to have some food served to him as a courtesy during his brief stay. She then prepared seven dishes of the most delectable quality which were presented to the Maharaja Sahib with the usual pomp and ceremony associated with durbars. Maharaja Sahib loved the food and summoned the chef to commend and reward him. When he came to know of her circumstances, Maharaja Sahib immediately ordered for her to be appointed as a member of his palace staff.

The Maharani Sahiba, a formidable lady herself, now took her under her wing. She undertook to bear all the expenses for her son’s education. He was a precocious child and completed his education with honours. He then joined the palace staff and rising swiftly through the ranks, was eventually appointed Munsarim, one of the highest administrative positions of the State.

The boy’s name was Ghulam Abbas, Doolha Bhai of my mother, and father of Agha Hasan Abidi.

(8)

While we were living in Lahore, most of my mother’s close family had migrated from India and settled in Karachi. The Muslim government officials in India had been given an option at the time of partition whether they wanted to go to Pakistan or remain in India. My mother’s eldest brother Hamid Hasan, a government servant, had opted for Pakistan and arrived in Karachi along with his family consisting of his wife, two sons and a daughter, and also his mother (my nanna), a brother and a sister. Life was tough in the early days of Pakistan. All they could find was a two room flat situated on the fourth story of an old building in Ranchore Line, a  busy market area. Mamoon’s family occupied one room while the rest of the family started living in the other room. This was a far cry from their house in Lucknow but spirits were high and nobody complained. After sometime, the younger mamoon, Majid Hasan, was allotted a small two roomed house in Martin Road Quarters, a newly built colony at Jehangir Road, and moved there with nanna and khala. Other people fared even worse. Some of our relations who had also arrived in Karachi from UP lived for a time in hut type dwellings called kholi before moving to better accommodations.

People left back in India could have no idea about the living conditions in Karachi in those days and this often caused bitter misunderstandings. Mamoon received a letter from a friend in Lucknow indicating his intention to migrate here with his family and seeking his permission to stay with him for a while. Mamoon replied explaining to him politely that conditions here did not allow him to accommodate another family. Back came a letter from the friend, expressing his disappointment at mamoon’s attitude, suggesting that he would have been content to briefly park himself in his “diorrhi” (a small outer room or lobby common in houses in Lucknow) causing him no trouble. Little did he know that there was no such thing as a diorrhi in a Karachi flat!

As nanna was now in Karachi, my mother used to go and see her every year or two. We  used to travel there by train, always in inter-class. Nowadays there are two classes in the inter-city trains, Upper and Economy, but in those days there used to be four classes: First, Second, Inter and Third. Inter and Third had similar lay out, about the same as the present economy class, but Inter class had leather mattresses on the seats. Second class had thicker mattresses and cabins; while the First class had 6” thick mattresses of fine leather with smaller cabins and attached bath rooms. First class bathrooms were spacious and furnished with bath tubs. The only time I had the opportunity to go inside a First class compartment was when Khala Amma, was travelling to Karachi in this compartment and we had gone to see her off. This kind of luxury would sound unbelievable to some people for a train these days but such compartments were the relic of colonial days, and built for the use of senior British officers and their ladies. With passage of time, these compartments were allowed to be run down and then disappear all-together. Trains in those days were also kept immaculately clean and ran on time.

There used to be special, women only, compartments in all the trains. However, my mother always preferred to travel in the general compartment as, according to her, the women only compartments were much too stuffy and scruffy. Most men would be travelling with their families and so the environment was quite congenial. I have a somewhat hazy recollection of one of our first journeys to Karachi. I was about four and a half years old at that time and suffering from mild fever. In those days, I was never too keen to receive medications prescribed by the doctors. Patent factory produced medicines were not in use in those days and each doctor prescribed his own concoction, mixed by an assistant called compounder, in a small dispensary tucked in a corner of the doctor’s room. All such preparations, consisting of a liquid (called mixture) poured in a small clear bottle and half a dozen tiny packets containing some white powdery stuff, had one thing in common: they were extremely bitter and foul tasting, and something to be avoided at all costs. Same was the case with me; I used to resist every attempt to be given the medicines with full force. My mother, on the other hand, having by now becoming used to being my mother, and being a trained girl guide herself, had developed a special technique to counter this force, usually with successful results. And this technique she proceeded to employ on that particular journey to Karachi when it was time to give me my medication.

I was lying down on the berth when she calmly put her right knee softly on my chest and the left knee on my right hand. Holding me pinned to the berth, she poured the bottle’s contents in a spoon and bending down locked my left hand with her right elbow and putting her left hand firmly on my head, shoved the spoon down in my mouth. I was by now familiar with this hardy but painless manoeuvre and made only token attempts to protest. However, there were loud noises of protest coming from some other quarters that I could hear. Most onlookers of this scene, it seemed, were horrified. Women, especially, were unanimous in declaring that this was not the way to treat innocent children. My mother applied her usual technique in dealing with difficult people; she whole heartedly agreed with them!  The tempers cooled down and the innocent child soon went to sleep.

———

Karachi, on this trip and others later, was a whole new world for me. I had never seen such wide roads, busy with all kinds of traffic, and people rushing around in great hurry everywhere. So many things were new; cycle rickshaws with their drivers huffing and puffing with the strain of pulling the passengers, grand Victoria horse carriages with horses trotting down in all directions, trams hissing away slowly on their tracks, people standing calmly in long queues boarding buses to go to their offices in the morning, bus conductors loudly announcing their next stations to invite customers, smartly clad policemen with army style boots stopping traffic on busy roads to allow pedestrians to cross the road, everything was so fascinating and loveable and different! Lahore seemed a universe away.

I loved the life at Mamoon’s flat as well. It was the first time I had seen so many people living together. It was a two roomed flat and my mother and I started sharing the room which was in the use of my nanna, chote mamoon and khala.  In the other room were living my barre mamoon and his wife, with two sons and a daughter all much older than me, and a younger son then a few months old. Their youngest daughter, who would become my wife, was to arrive sometime later.

We were on the fourth floor and for a small boy like me looking down below the balcony at the busy Ranchore Line street was like watching a live movie. All along the road side there were shops of all kinds and hawkers with push carts plying their wares. At any time of day, one could see hundreds of people moving on the street below busy in going about their usual business. Looking towards the left, one could see a huge clock tower and, as I came to know later, nobody in the family had a watch, making do with the time shown on the clock tower. There was always a constant low humming sound in the building which, it turned out, was the sound of a water pump pushing up water to the overhead tanks. We had also discovered something totally new and wonderful in the flat, the flush system in the latrine.

I adored the daughter, who was five years older than me, watching her every movement with wonder and awe. She also treated me very kindly. She went to school every morning and returned in the afternoon. I used to park myself on the balcony every day much before that time, my hands resting on the railing, waiting anxiously for her to appear on the street below. The street made a T junction with a road about 200 meters away, and I  focused my eyes keenly at the street corner. The moment she turned the corner and I could see her, I would start jumping with joy. She didn’t disappoint me and brought a tiny packet of spicy powder especially for me from the school every day.

We returned to Lahore a couple of months later. We were now three people, my little sister accompanying us in our journey.

(9)

I had barely had time to settle in my life at school when another change hit me from nowhere. It seemed that adults would never let me have a peaceful existence free from sudden changes. This time, it was a change of home. The flat that we were living in at Chamra Mandi was rented from a man called Jattoo who had obtained it on lease from a third party. It seemed that the third party now wanted the flat vacated, and wanted it vacated immediately. And so we had to vacate it too . . . . and do it within a day. Fortunately, my father had already bought a house in a brand new locality called Samanabad. The colony had been planned under a government scheme to build low cost housing in the city suburbs and developed by an authority called Lahore Improvement Trust. There were one thousand quarters, numbered imaginatively one to thousand, being built under this scheme and a few of them were ready for occupation.  We moved to one of them, numbered 103 N. These were twelve marla (300 sq. yards), single story houses each with three rooms and verandas at front and back. I am not sure what N stood for because there were no houses with any other alphabet in Samanabad. May be N stood for New because Samanabad was definitely a new locality.

So new in fact that there was neither electricity nor water connection provided in these houses. In Chamra Mandi we were enjoying all the fruits of civilization and electric power or water in the tap was taken for granted. We suddenly found ourselves transported back to the stone age. We had to buy oil lamps and lanterns for light and install a hand pump to get water. There was of course no gas connection in those days; the town of Sui in Baluchistan did not even appear on the map then. It was truly a weird existence.

Power lines were being installed in the locality but for some strange reason, which only the government officials would know, the lines were prioritized for the areas where the houses were only half built or even where there were no houses at all!  My father and I used to go round the colony in the evening, watch the snail like progress of electricity poles coming up and wait patiently for the power lines to reach the street where we were living.

Samanabad it seemed was now becoming popular with men of letters. Ibadat Barelvi, a well-known Urdu critic and researcher, lived five house down the road from us. Waqar Azeem, another Urdu critic and writer had his residence in Lal Quarters, half a mile away. My mother felt very happy when the family of Muhammad Hasan Askari, the renowned Urdu scholar, moved to live in the house exactly opposite ours. He was already well known as a literary critic, writer and linguist of modern Urdu language. It was a family of four brothers, he being the eldest, followed by Hasan Mussanna, Hasan Salis, and Hasan Rabey, all unmarried. I can still remember him, wearing thick reading glasses, reclining on a chair in the veranda of their home, always reading or writing something. My teenaged female cousins and their friends visiting us used to track the younger brothers’ movements from our house, giggling all the time.

Three houses down the road from Hasan brothers, lived three sisters, Miss Akhter, Miss Gulzar and Miss Gulnar. They ran a small higher secondary girls school, called Samanzar School, located at the back of Samanabad main market. One of my cousins, a few years older than me whose father had a job outside Lahore and had come to live with us, was studying at this school and regarded them with much reverence and affection especially Miss Akhter who had a commanding personality. Some other cousins living close by also began to study at the same school, one of them even started teaching there, and it became a kind of family institution still remembered for its intimate and homely atmosphere.

Soon the vacant houses around us began to come to life with their occupants. The house next door was rented by a distant relative, Sajid Bhai, who was an architectural draftsman at the Lahore Improvement Trust and was an extremely affable and delightful character. He made a small opening (called mokha) in the adjoining wall of the back courtyard of the house and the two ladies of the house started to exchange notes on everything happening under the sun. Sajid bhai was a man of slightly less than medium height but strong and stoutly built, and spoke with a resonant voice. He possessed boundless energy which he used tirelessly to perform chores for other people. Anybody needing anything got done turned to him and he would do it, as naturally as if this was part of his job.

At the marriage functions of friends or close relatives, he would be responsible for taking care of the endless chores relating to the wedding. He would also offer to supervise the arrangements for cooking of food items for baraat or walima at the wedding site, which was the norm in those days as there were no marriage halls. He would be seen moving around the cooking stoves, wearing shorts and cotton vest, drenched in sweat in the intense heat, and shouting orders at the cooks and workers to hurry them on.

He used to smoke beerri which was a kind of thin cigarette wrapped in dark tobacco leaves instead of paper, and much cheaper than a cigarette. He once decided to take the matriculation exam – probably a requirement for his promotion – and threw himself into the job with his usual zeal. My mother agreed to guide him as best as possible for the required studies. He told us later that he had insisted on smoking his beerri in the exam hall, which was obviously against the rules, but was allowed to do so by the amused invigilators in deference to his age and personality.

A few years later, my father decided to get his own house built on a plot of land situated on Poonch Road which was at the other end of Samanabad. Sajid Bhai as usual offered his services for drawing up plans for the house and, being an expert draftsman, did a good job. Our family house where all of us spent the best part of our lives bore a testimony to his imagination and expertise.

In the busy everybody-for-himself-life these days, a selfless person like him was like a breath of fresh air. His early and sudden death some years later as a result of a car accident came as a heavy blow to me.  As so often happens, it was only then that I realized how dear he was to me, and by then it was too late. At that time I was in the middle of a particularly sad phase of my life and his death tipped the scales and I went under. I wanted to be somehow close to him. I started to go and sit by the side of his grave at night. This was very soothing for me; sitting alone quietly with him resting there, in total darkness under starlight with not a sole around. I would sit there for an hour or so and then come back. After a couple of nights, I felt better and stopped going there.

———-

I continued my studies at Madrasa tul Banat for another two years. There were no buses in those days coming down to Samanabad; the nearest bus stop being at Nawankot mor which was quite a distance away from our home. A cousin of mine, Shakir Bhai, who had come to live with us was given the task of taking me to school on his bicycle every day. He was in his early twenties, lean to the point of looking emaciated, but strong and athletic. I remember coming back from the school with him on foot sometimes. It was a distance of about 3.5 km (2 miles) from Lake Road and he used to pick me up on his shoulders when I grew tired.

On one occasion, Shakir bhai did not turn up for some reason and I had no idea what to do, as there were no telephones in those days. I started to look around and found a senior student in her early teens who was also going the same way to Samanabad with her younger sister. She lived in the quarters facing Doongi Ground and the two of them used to walk to their home every day. She was kind enough to take me along with her, drop her bags at her home and then walk a further half kilometre with me to get me safely to my home. I never saw the sisters again but remember their kindness to this day. Somehow, I have always been blessed with people who have come to my help when I needed them most.

Soon, a government school opened in Samanabad, which was hardly five minutes’ walk from our home, facing the other side of Doongi Ground. This was the Government Junior Model School and, after a test, I was admitted into their Class 3. My teacher was a sweet Miss Agarwal. Moving into Class 4 a year later, we encountered a Miss Qureshi, an extremely competent but rather strict teacher, who continued for the next class as well. In the coming years all my sisters and brother followed me into the same school.

There was hardly any crime in those days but one fine day we found our radio set stolen from our home. It was a 40’s model oldish looking radio set, quite heavy about 2’x1’ in size, and placed on a table in the living room which faced the front veranda. As was the custom in those days, doors were kept unlocked during the day. It was noon time, my mother was busy in the kitchen while the radio was as usual belting out songs. After a while, she sensed that the radio had gone silent but did not give it further thought. When she came back to the living room, she found the radio missing. It seemed that somebody had simply walked into the room, picked up the radio and hurried out as there was nothing else missing. A report was lodged with the police, the station house officer who was wearing a smart uniform and talked mainly in English, visited our house. He carried out the usual investigation including questioning the servant and left. We had little hope of finding the radio ever again.

Less than six months later however, a policeman came to our house announcing that the radio had been found and my father should come to the police station and pick it up. Apparently, the thief whoever he was, had sold it to a person dealing in stolen goods, and it was that person who had been caught. The police faithfully recorded all the goods recovered from him and returned them to their owners. We got our cherished radio back. The police had indeed acted with remarkable efficiency and consideration.

(10)

Sometime later, Shakir Bhai started working at Shahnoor Film Studios as a scenery painter for painting the giant screens serving as background for the scenes in the films. These were painted in meticulous detail as there were no special effects in those days. He took me once to visit the studio which really was an out-of-this-world experience for me. The studio belonged to the days much before partition when it was called Shorey Studios. After independence, the famous producer and director Shaukat Hussain Rizvi who had produced many blockbuster movies in India, took over the vandalized remains of this studio and renamed it Shahnoor Studios, taking the word ‘Shah’ from Rizvi’s name and the word ‘Noor’ from his wife and famous actress Noor Jehan’s name. Next door there was another studio called Evernew Studio which had just come up.

Shahnoor was situated about 4 km from Samanabad as the crow flies. Starting our excursion in the evening, we went through mile after mile of lush green agricultural fields on foot to reach the studios. Once we got there, I saw intense activity going on everywhere in both the studios and well-made up actors and actresses could be seen preparing for their performances. There were beautiful gardens and fountains which were used as background for the films being shot there. Later on, we went to see a dance being filmed, or rather being endlessly rehearsed, in a big hall with the famous actress Nighat Sultana as the lead actor. It was a village scene showing about a dozen girls pounding wheat strewn on the floor, singing a song in unison. On two sides of the wall, village scenes were hung on huge canvass screens, some painted by Shakir bhai, to create the illusion of a thriving village. After every few minutes, the director would say ‘cut’, give instructions to the dancers and the pounding would start again. The girls seemed to have immense stamina to go on like this hour after hour. After a while, Shakir bhai nodded towards me to signal that it was time for us to move. We came back home close to midnight walking and stumbling through the fields in pitch darkness.

Pakistan film industry was thriving in those days, producing several block busters every year –  classics like Intezar and Gumnaam or public favourites like Naukar and Chanwey. Actors like Noor Jehan, Santosh and Sabiha Khanum were in great demand and pop idols. Likewise, Indian films were also very popular with likes of Aan, Andaaz, Deedar, Mahal and Mela being hot favourites. There were more than thirty cinema halls in Lahore spread all over town doing good business with more coming up. The Lahore downtown area of McLeod Road and Abbot Road alone had more than a dozen cinema halls which ran packed to capacity showing both Urdu and English films.

All cinemas were double storey in those days. There were three classes of tickets for the seats on the ground floor: front seats were the cheapest at 12 annas (0.75 rupees), in the middle was the one and a half rupee class while the back seats were two and quarter rupee, called ‘stall’. On the upper storey, most of the space was occupied by ‘gallery’ with three and a half rupee seats, and there were boxes at the back of six seats each. These rates continued unchanged through fifties and most of the sixties until inflation overtook them. 12 anna class had in fact became an idiom to describe common folks, but if fact this was the class of people who seemed to enjoy films most and was the back bone of film industry.

My parents used to take me along to see the films with them ever since I was a toddler. As I grew up, I began to notice the things around me. We always sat in the ‘gallery’ as most of the families used to sit either in gallery or the stalls. There were always three shows in the cinemas: 03:30 (called the matinee show), 06:30 and 09:30. We usually went to see the 06:30 show and sometime the matinee show on a Sunday. My parents had a strict rule of watching one film every six months. I didn’t like this rule at all, feeling  unhappy at the end of the film when everybody stood to hear the national anthem and the flag began to flutter in the air, that it would now be another six months before I would watch another picture. (It was only much later that the national anthem began to be played at the beginning of the picture).

Sitting in the gallery demanded strict decorum, no shouting or name calling. Hawkers used to arrive inside the hall during the interval quietly to sell eatables which were limited to items such as confectionary, potato chips (crisps) and cold drinks. I loved to eat naan-kebabs in those days but the vendors of naan-kebabs could sell these only in the stalls; they were not allowed to come in the gallery. All I could do was to look at them wistfully from the gallery upstairs, making do with the potato chips on offer there.

Almost all the Urdu films in those days ended in a tragedy. It seemed that the people and especially the women loved tragedy. The concept of the hero or heroine overcoming all the odds to always win in the end, sometimes miraculously, came much later. This was not surprising. After the partition, the entire sub-continent was wallowing in pathos. It was not just the mayhem in Punjab that was responsible for the prolonged grief, it was the parting of families; millions of people, Hindus and Muslims and Sikhs, being uprooted and having to settle in strange lands; and the unexpected animosity developing between India and Pakistan making travel between the two countries impossible, which left most people bewildered. Almost everybody had thought, on both sides of the divide, that partition notwithstanding, the two brand new countries would live with friendly relations, with a border more like that of United States and Canada. The reality hit them hard.

Urdu literature of those times reflected this mood. Novelists and short storywriters, whether from India or Pakistan, wrote stories soaked in grief and tears. Novelists wrote novels like, Aag ka Darya (River of Fire) by Quratulain Hyder, Udas Naslain (Sad Generations) by Abdullah Hussain, and Aangan (Court Yard) by Khadija Mastoor. Short stories like Saadat Hasan Manto’s Toba Tek Singh, Krishan Chandar’s Peshawar Express, Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi’s Perimishar Singh, Rajendra Singh Bedi’s Lajwanti and Ashfaq Ahmad’s Gudarya (Shepherd) are unforgettable and worth reading to get a glimpse of the mood prevailing in those days.

Films followed the same pattern. Women cried through almost half the duration of the film. My parents once went to see the film Mela and Khala accompanied them. The film ended but Khala remained glued to her seat weeping uncontrollably; it was with some difficulty that my father was able to coax her to get up and leave the cinema hall.

(11)

Our family continued to grow in the meantime bringing us much joy and happiness. My sister Sameen Nishat arrived in 1953 followed by Nageen Hayat and Ambareen Sifat, joining the eldest Tazeen Sabat. In keeping with the literary bent of my mother and father, each component of their daughters’ double names had to rhyme with the other names, while the name had to have a literary meaning as well. Much effort went into finding and discarding various combinations and then fine-tuned by scholarly discussions with other family members (somebody had suggested hazireen salawat!). Words in the hands of my mother were like clay; she could mould them into any shape she liked.

Each of the children had his or her birthday celebrated every year according to the dates of Islamic calendar. There were usually no invited guests unless one happened to be present that day. The proceedings followed a fixed routine: my father would pick up a garland of thick flowers on the way home for the birthday child, all of us would sit together on the floor on a carpet; my father would recite some Quranic verses praying for the wellbeing and happiness of the family; he would tie a knot on a special thick thread (called narra) touching the head of the birthday child and we would then take a bite of some sweets, mostly barfi, to celebrate the occasion. The birthday would often be followed by a photograph of the garlanded child, either taken at home or sometimes at the studio of the local photographer. The narra, separate for each child, would then be stored for use next year. We still have our photographs of those early years, garlanded and showing changes year after year, thanks to the meticulous care and regard of our parents for their children.

We all used to sleep together in those days, in a room full of charpoys. My sisters, would be very happy seeing everybody together and keep shouting and jumping on the beds until exhaustion overtook them and put them to sleep. During one of those nights, I noticed some movement near Sameen’s bed who was then picked up by my mother and taken out of the room. In the morning, I found out that her condition had suddenly deteriorated around two in the morning and she had been taken to a hospital. I then went to my school; I was in class 5 then. Sameen died later the same afternoon suffering from pleurisy.

Everything was so sudden and overwhelming that I have very little recollection of that day. I however do remember two things: my mother wailing and crying bitterly, which came as a shock to me because she would hardly ever make a public display of her emotions; and then my father telling a friend that, “mera tu dil toot gaya hai” (my heart is really broken) which surprised me coming from a person like him. I was very fond of Sameen, who had her fourth birthday only a few days earlier, and who was the most vivacious and lively among all her sisters. However, the fact that my feelings didn’t match my parents’ intense reactions made me feel unreal. I could not even begin to understand then the boundless love that the parents have for their child and the feeling of utter despair a parent would feel at its loss tearing a hole in the chest.

I sometime go to visit the Miani Sahib graveyard in Lahore to offer fateha for my mother and father. The caretaker there who knows me, always reminds me asking, “wouldn’t you go to that little thing there?”. I reply that I shall. And then I go there and sit by the side of that little thing there, a tiny grave.  And I can hear in the distance far away the faint sound of a little girl shouting and jumping on a bed, and laughing with joy.

(12)

After Liaquat Ali Khan’s death in 1951, Pakistan entered one of the most turbulent phases of its life. During Quaid e Azam’s last days and the short period of Liaquat Ali Khan’s rule, the country had two leaders who commanded immense love and respect among the masses due to their long and selfless contribution to the Pakistan movement. It was our misfortune that no other leader, with the possible exception of H.S. Suhrawardy, could claim to enjoy even a fraction of the same stature as the Quaid or Liaquat. Rather, most of them were regarded by the people even in those early days with nothing but contempt and derision. This critical lack of competent and dedicated successors to rule Pakistan during its formative years would play a decisive part in its history, the aftereffects of which we are seeing and experiencing today.

None of the people who enjoyed the limelight during this period had the stature or the tenacity to stay long in power. As many as six prime ministers served during the next seven years after which democratic rule ended with the imposition of the first Martial Law. In India, on the other hand, Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister, continued to serve his country for seventeen years until his death in 1964 giving his country a long period of stability and consolidation. As a result, he was able to plant firm roots of democracy there.

Khwaja Nazimuddin, who had become the governor-general after the death of Quaid e Azam, stepped down to become its second prime minister (1951-53). He was a respected Bengali politician but, according to author M.R. Kazimi, “temperamentally unsuited to combat the intrigues of the new governor-general, Ghulam Mohammad, who had given himself overriding powers”. The latter, a civil servant by profession, was a particularly disreputable and unscrupulous character, responsible for irreparably contaminating Pakistani politics by arbitrary dismissal of successive democratic governments. Ghulam Mohammad can be said to be the prime architect of laying the seeds of misuse of power, favouritism and autocracy in Pakistan.

Nazimuddin’s rule was marked by two powerful agitations which ultimately led to his downfall. Firstly, the Bengali language movement in East Pakistan striving for declaring Bengali as a national language, and then the anti-Ahmadi riots in Punjab.

A group of religious parties had started to put pressure on the government for declaring Ahmadis, a sect calling themselves Muslims, to be declared as non-Muslims and for Ahmadis to be banned from holding political office. The chief minister of Punjab in 1953 was Mumtaz Daultana, who, according to author M.J. Akbar,  “set in motion a cynical manoeuvre to bring down the central government and become prime minister in the ensuing vacuum.”  Despite the central government rejecting the demands, he instigated the religious parties through his secret service to launch a violent agitation against Ahmadis. However, when the violence became out of control, the central government called in the army and imposed martial law in Lahore on 6 March, administered by General Azam Khan, known for his ruthless efficiency and determination. The army was able to quickly restore order but only after bloody suppression of crowds agitating on the streets. Daultana had to resign soon after. As a little boy, I was a personal witness to the curfew imposed by the martial law authorities on this day and the event has been described in the prologue.

Though Nazimuddin had retained the confidence of people as well as the national assembly, Ghulam Mohammad still dismissed him as prime minister on 17 April 1953. The success of this dishonourable manoeuvre was a curtain raiser for the repeated attacks on the democracy in Pakistan in the coming years.

Mohammad Ali Bogra, another Bengali politician, was Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States when he was summoned to be made prime minister (1953-1955). However, this did not pacify the Bengalis and Muslim League lost the 1954 provincial election in Bengal by a coalition of parties, called United Front. Ghulam Mohammad, having gained confidence with Nazimuddin’s removal, now dissolved the constituent  assembly on 24 October 1954, which was challenged by the speaker Tamizuddin Khan. A Federal Court headed by Justice Mohammad Munir, in a majority vote, decided against the speaker and in favour of the governor-general. This was the first judicial verdict to uphold the improper dissolution of an assembly, introducing the infamous ‘doctrine of necessity’, and was the harbinger of many such anti-democracy court decisions in future.

Governor general Ghulam Mohammad began to suffer from paralysis and was replaced by the interior minister Iskander Mirza on 7 August 1955. Three days later, Bogra was dismissed as prime minister. Iskander Mirza was born to an aristocratic family in Bengal and was a member of the Indian Army as well as the Indian Political Service. His ambition for power and unconstitutional interferences in political matters led to the dismissal of four prime ministers during a mere two years.

Next in line as prime minister was Chaudhary Mohammad Ali, our fourth prime minister (1955-1956). He was a distinguished bureaucrat and as Finance Secretary in 1946 had been responsible for putting together the famous ‘poor man’s budget’ presented by Liaquat Ali Khan for the Congress/Muslim League interim government. His tenure was known for two major events. Firstly, One Unit, meaning that the four provinces, states and tribal areas of the western wing were merged into One Unit, now called West Pakistan. This move, effective 5 October 1955, was engineered by the West Pakistani politicians to bring about parity with East Pakistan which had a population larger than all the four West Pakistani provinces combined and would have dwarfed the individual western provinces in any democratic parliamentary set up.

Lahore became the new capital of the province of West Pakistan. This meant that thousands of civil servants of the three provinces other than Punjab had to move hurriedly to Lahore and resettle with their families in totally new and strange environment. Their mothers, wives and children had no idea why their settled way of life had to be suddenly disrupted and uprooted to satisfy the selfish political aims of their leaders. These included my maternal uncle who arrived with his family from Karachi and found a place to live in Sant Nagar. In time, he moved to Wahdat Colony, a sprawling new and well planned housing scheme near Lahore canal consisting of thousands of quarters, which was built to accommodate civil servants especially those displaced by one unit. The word ‘Wahdat’ in fact means unity.

Chaudhary Mohammad Ali also gave the country its first constitution which was passed by the constituent assembly on 29 February 1956, designating Pakistan as an Islamic Republic. However, the newly created Republican Party, formed by civil and military bureaucracy and backed by Iskander Mirza to facilitate his power games, forced his resignation on 8 September 1956.

——–

Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy (1956-57), the leader of the Awami League, succeeded Ch. Mohammad Ali as the fifth prime minister on 8 September 1956 forming a coalition government with Republican Party. He was a seasoned politician, the first one after Liaquat Ali Khan, and commanded much respect in both the provinces of Pakistan. He had been the chief minister of Bengal in 1946-47 and had joined hands with Gandhi in Calcutta during partition to maintain peace in the strife torn city. He regarded it his duty to remain in West Bengal after partition to keep communal harmony and for this reason had refused the offer of ministries and ambassadorship by Quaid e Azam. According to his biographer, Begum Shaista Ikramullah, “He arrived in Pakistan literally in the clothes he stood in. All his belongings, his priceless carpets, his valuable collection of records, his house with all its contents, had been left behind”.

Suhrawardy started to lose popularity quickly when, displaying a lack of judgement, he decided to support the British-French-Israeli invasion of Suez Canal in 1956 against the hugely popular Gamal Abdel Nasser, the president of Egypt. It did not help matters when he called the Arabs ‘a collection of zeroes’.

I had the good fortune to see President Nasser personally and to hear him speak when he came to Pakistan for a six day visit in 1960 at the invitation of President Ayub Khan. He came to Lahore also and was the guest of honour at a function arranged at Islamia College, Railway Road. My father had taken me along to hear his speech. There were about 500 people there, listening to the proceedings quietly sitting on wooden chairs under a cloth canopy. Nasser addressed the people in Arabic in five minute segments, interspersed by its Urdu translation. I was too young to make much sense of what he was saying but was quite impressed by his tall and imposing personality. He was still extremely popular in the Arab and Muslim countries and was given an enthusiastic welcome wherever he went.

During the Suez war four years earlier, the people of Lahore had reacted to the invasion  with their usual fervour. A joke had made the rounds in those days and became very popular. There is a procession moving slowly on a road somewhere in Lahore with the usual banners and loud slogans when a passer-by, intrigued by the participants’ passion, happens to ask one of the leaders as to where exactly are they heading to.  “We are going to Egypt”, comes the bold reply. “In that case”, suggests the passer-by helpfully, “go through Beadon Road [a small street in downtown]. It’s a short cut”.

In line with Suhrawardy’s mercurial personality, his foreign policy was also marked with contradictions. His exchange of visits with Chinese premier Zhou Enlai made him popular but he continued to attack Soviet Union for its internal political policies forcing it to move further towards India. Suhrawardy was the pioneer of Pakistan’s foreign policy excessively supporting the United States, a policy that was pursued by the coming administrations. He accepted leasing out an air force base to the United States Air Force. The 1960 incident when the Russians downed an American intelligence gathering U-2 plane which was later discovered to have flown out of Peshawar airbase severely compromised the country’s relations with Soviet Union. Closer home, after the Republican Party withdrew its support, Suhrawardy was forced to tender his resignation on 18 October 1957.

The next prime minister, the sixth, was I.I. Chundrigar, who has the distinction of holding office for the shortest period of time – a mere two months. He was an ex-leader of Bombay Muslim League and was the member for commerce in the 1946 interim government. He resigned after losing a vote of no-confidence over the question of reform of Electoral College, which had ironically become a non-issue by that time.

Chundrigar was succeeded by the seventh prime minister, Sir Feroz Khan Noon, on 16 December 1957. Noon had an impressive background. He was the first Indian to be appointed as a military advisor for Indian Army affairs to the Churchill government during the war and was then appointed as member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council, the top governing body.

His tenure is notable for negotiating the purchase of Gwadar port located strategically on the coast of Balochistan, which up to that time was owned by the Sultan of Muscat and Oman, for a price of US$ 3 million. The port then became a part of Pakistan on 8 September 1958. His English wife Begum Viqar-un-Nisa Noon also played an important role in the transaction. The Sultanate of Muscat and Oman was a British protectorate and she lobbied with the British prime minister Sir Winston Churchill and the British parliament for getting approval for the purchase from the House of Lords.

Even this achievement failed to help Noon retain power as dark clouds soon started to gather on the political front. On 20 September, Abdul Hakim, speaker of the East Pakistan’s assembly was physically expelled from the House after he was alleged to have become insane. On 23 September, the deputy speaker, Shahed Ali, who was then presiding over the assembly’s proceedings, was physically attacked in the House and died soon after. The situation was exacerbated by rumours that the state of Kalat in Baluchistan was making plans to secede from the Federation.

Using the volatile conditions as the pretext, President Iskander Mirza proclaimed martial law against his own party’s administration on 7 October 1958 and removed the prime minister. The Commander-in-Chief of the army General Ayub Khan was appointed the chief martial law administrator.

Mirza’s rule proved to be a remarkably short one as he was forced to quit by General Ayub Khan only twenty days later on 27 October, making himself the president. Iskander Mirza was exiled to go to London where he spent the rest of his days running a small Pakistani cuisine hotel until his death. According to his son Humayun Mirza who wrote a biography of his father, he once said to his Iranian wife at the London hospital where he died, “Nahid, we cannot afford medical treatment, so just let me die.” This was the end of the once mighty Governor General / president of the country who used to dismiss prime ministers almost as a hobby.

This brings us to the close of the second chapter, which covered our first ten formative years. I and my country were now about to enter one of the most exciting and eventful periods of our lives, which brought us both happiness and tragedy. We encountered experiences in this phase we never thought could ever be possible and emerged from it much more sober and mature.