Chapter-3 the Teen Years
An ancient Assyrian clay tablet dated 2800 BCE has this to say about the end of the world: “Our earth is degenerate in these days; there are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end; bribery and corruption are common; children no longer obey their parents; every man wants to write a book and the end of the world is approaching.” The world as it existed nearly 5000 years ago seems surprisingly similar to the present day, announcing the imminent end of the world just like many people are doing today. But what about every man wanting to write a book? Does it mean that writing my biography is also, along with bribery and corruption, hastening the arrival of doomsday? Indeed a sobering thought. I shall continue to dig for more proof of this, but in the meantime, shall plod on with my writing as before, doomsday or no doomsday.
(2)
The first Martial Law led by President General Ayub Khan was generally welcomed by common people who were fed up with the continuing political intrigues, instability and poor governance. They wanted somebody to take charge. “The military regime,” in the words of author M.R. Kazimi, “succeeded on cracking down on corrupt civil servants, black marketers and notorious smugglers. It also imposed strict traffic regulations and civic rules, thereby earning the gratitude of the common man.” I remember myself the day after the imposition of martial law visiting a butcher shop. To my surprise, the shop had been fitted overnight with wire netting protecting meat from the swarms of flies floating everywhere until the previous day. I had felt very impressed with the power of the government and the good it could do if it wanted.
The appreciation was not limited to common folk; it was shared by the few perceptive political leaders who had the feel of the people’s mood. The ex-prime minister Suhrawardy, when asked why he had accepted Martial Law replied, “Because things were deteriorating very fast and I could not stop it. Maybe Ayub Khan can. I want to give him the chance to do so by not putting hurdles in his way.”
One of the first actions of the new government was to promulgate an ordinance known as Elected Bodies Disqualification Order (EBDO). Anyone who had held office could be charged for corruption or misuse of power which, if proved, carried the penalty of not standing for election or holding office in the government for six years. This effectively removed all existing politicians from the political field giving a clean field to the President.
Ayub Khan introduced a system of indirect elections, called Basic Democracy, replacing elections on the basis of adult franchise. Under this system, the people would first elect an electoral body consisting of 80,000 members who would then elect the president and members of national and provincial assemblies. As expected, Ayub Khan was elected as president by this body on 17 February 1960. The basic democrats would also run the local government and union councils. In theory, it was a good system bringing governance closer to people but in practice it lent itself to coercion and corruption.
Many reforms were initiated in the law, education and population planning sectors. There was exemplary industrial growth in this period, spearheaded by Pakistan Industrial Development Corporation setting up units in the public sector and selling them to private sector, incentives for private sector to set up small and medium scale industries and liberal imports of capital goods. A green revolution in agriculture was achieved by mechanized farming, chemical fertilizers and sinking of a huge number of tube wells.
A major achievement of President Ayub Khan was the signing of Indus Water Treaty with India in 1960, brokered by the World Bank. The treaty gave the waters of the western rivers – Indus, Jhelum and Chenab – to Pakistan and those of the eastern rivers – Ravi, Beas and Sutlej – to India. It also provided for the funding and building of a huge infrastructure of dams, link canals and barrages. Warsak Dam on the Kabul River, Tarbela Dam on the Indus River and Mangla Dam on the Jhelum River were built under this agreement. These schemes compensated the loss of water to Pakistan that it had previously received from the rivers now given to India and also helped in producing thousands of megawatts of hydroelectric power cheaply.
Installation of two nuclear power plants was sanctioned, in Karachi and Dacca. Dr Abdus Salam personally approved the Karachi project. An oil refinery was established in Karachi. Work on building of a new capital in Islamabad started in 1961 and it was officially declared the capital in 1967.
Ayub Khan firmly believed in a liberal religious policy. Muslim Family Laws were promulgated for the first time in 1961 under which consent of wife was made mandatory for a second marriage and rules were made to restrict the practice of instant divorce. Arbitration Councils were set up for grant of sanction to contract a second marriage, reconciliation of domestic disputes and grant of maintenance allowance to the wife and children. These were fiercely challenged by the orthodox religious bodies but the government remained firm.
President Ayub Khan leaned towards United States in foreign policy because he considered military aid necessary for quick modernisation of Pakistan armed forces. He was invited as a state guest to Washington DC by President John Kennedy in 1961. However, the American supply of arms to India after the 1962 Sino-Indian War came as a rude awakening. Pakistan started to renew its ties with China, signing the historic Sino-Pakistan Frontier Agreement with China in 1963. President Ayub became the first Pakistan head of state to visit USSR in 1964. As a balancing measure, a three country friendship treaty – Regional Cooperation for Development (RCD) – was formed with Turkey and Iran as its members.
The Martial Law was finally lifted on 8 June 1962 and replaced by a constitution introducing presidential form of government. First elections under this constitution were held on 2 January 1965 with Miss Fatima Jinnah consenting to stand as the presidential candidate for the combined opposition parties. The elections were held under the indirect election system favoring the government in power and, furthermore, opposition felt the absence of the only politician of stature, ex-prime minister Suhrawardy, who had died in 1963. Ayub Khan won by receiving 64% of the electoral college votes. It is believed that had the elections been held via direct ballot, Fatima Jinnah would have won. The elections showed that people had no prejudice against women holding high offices, and they could be key players in the politics of the country.
Ayub Khan was fiercely opposed by the student body all over Pakistan. I was studying at the Hailey College of Commerce at that time for my bachelor’s degree which, along with the M.A.O. College nearby, was the hub of political activities in those days. There were daily processions against the government, hot speeches made on the streets and attempts to break down barriers, which were met with strong resistance from the police. I encountered the tear gas for the first time in those days and remember having to wash my eyes constantly from the buckets of waters being made available by student volunteers. Most of the students were really non-political but were swayed with emotions generated by the entry of Miss Fatima Jinnah in the contest. Overall, it was good fun and very exciting. Life reverted back to normal after the elections.
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(3)
I started the transformation from being a child to a young boy in 1957 when I moved from the junior school to Government Central Model School, Lower Mall, and got admitted to the 6th class. There were three elite boys schools in Lahore in those days: Aitchison College, Saint Anthony School and Central Model School. The first two were English medium schools while Central Model was Urdu medium. Aitchison College was founded in 1886 for educating the princes and, even after partition, retained the tradition of catering to the elite classes propped by its high fee structure and the upper class life style of its students. Saint Anthony was started in 1892 by catholic priests and was a good quality school. Central Model School was also an old institution established in 1883 and its building is included in the list of National Heritage of Pakistan. It was arguably the top ranked school in Lahore in those days judged by the highest number of A+ grades it produced in the matriculation (higher secondary) exam. A very high number of its students got admitted to the Government College situated next door, the top ranked college of Lahore if not of Pakistan, which accepted only the cream of the students applying for admission.
In fact, when I was in the tenth class, I took it for granted that I should be moving to the Government College later on and decided with a friend to visit the college in the evening to get a feel of this august institution. Unknowingly, we walked into the principal’s residence which was situated within the college premises. We found ourselves being chased by a ferocious looking black hairy dog and managed to get away only by scaling the boundary wall. The first impression of the college was not very encouraging but that didn’t deter us from applying for its admission next year. We discovered that the dog happened to be a pet of the then college principal Dr Nazir Ahmed, more about him later.
The school was an all-boys school supervised by male teachers which was a change for me having arrived from a co-education school under the care of lady teachers. The other surprise was the school fee – two rupees per month. Even in those days, two rupees was a relatively small amount, at least compared with Rs 11.25 which was the fee at Junior Model School. Getting into a government school also provided another bonus, Tazeen who had just got admitted into the Government Junior Model School had to pay only half fee. For this, I had to obtain a half fee voucher from my school’s admin office, which I continued to do every month for the next seven years until I joined the university. My sisters did the same for their younger siblings and all of them paid half fees for almost their entire educational career.
The school maintained its high standards not only by the high quality of its teaching staff but also by enforcing strict discipline as part of its culture. Corporal punishment was allowed but kept within reasonable limits. I got a taste of it within a few days of my moving to the new sixth class. Our class teacher was Imtiaz Sahib, a cool and competent English teacher and a strict disciplinarian. He was checking my homework once which was fine but, as he was about to hand the copybook back to me, happened to look at its last page. My heart sank what I saw there. My kid sister Nageen had picked up a lead pencil to have some fun and had drawn thick big circles on the page with it. Imtiaz Sahib asked me what it was and I tried to mumble some explanation but this was not found satisfactory. He told me to show my hands and caned me once on each hand, though mildly, but it still hurt a bit.
Punishments varied from teacher to teacher but we became so used to it, it was taken for granted. When I moved into the ninth class, the class teacher who was also our maths teacher, Mahmood Sahib, had a reputation according to the school gossip of breaking a student’s jaw with a slap the previous year. During the first week of joining the new class, he picked me to solve a maths question on the black board. I felt really terrified of him and found my hand slightly shaking while writing on the blackboard. However, my luck held and to my surprise I heard him commenting in mild tones how nicely the question had been attempted. This continued to be his general behaviour with everybody and, contrary to his reputation, he turned out to be an extremely efficient and kind teacher.
Our Persian teacher in the ninth class, Saqlain Sahib, had his own policy of handing out punishments. It was a small class of about a dozen students and he caned everybody immediately after the announcement of results of term exams. Punishment varied from student to student but nobody was spared. This was an equitable treatment, though to what purpose, nobody knew. In the tenth class, our maths teacher Allama Sahib, also had a simple rule. He asked us to solve theorems or problems in the class room and gave two canes for every question not solved correctly. This formula worked and almost all of us could solve the questions by heart before the end of the year.
By the time we reached the senior year we actually began to prefer the strict teachers, because getting good grades was vital for getting admission to Government College, especially in the medical and engineering faculties. Mohsin Sahib was the class and maths/science teacher of section C. Most top students wanted to be placed in this section despite him being known to be liberal with his cane because he was otherwise an excellent teacher and always managed to show the best results in school.
There were notable exceptions and my English teacher in the senior year, Alvi Sahib, was one such person. A thoroughly decent man, he could never dream of holding a stick. Nevertheless, he taught us with such passion and mastery over the subject that he developed in me a love for the English language that has remained with me ever since. He told us that words were like jewels and needed to be treated with as much care. He would encourage us to use our imagination to craft words and phrases creatively to suit any given situation. His kind and caring demeanor is a sweet memory with me.
Central Model School was known not only for its high academic standards, its debating society, drama society and cricket and athletics teams also won prizes. We were all members of Junior Cadet Corps supplied with army boots and uniforms; once a year there were army-type competitions followed by a mock battle played on our grounds with mock ammunition. There were frequent debates participated by students from other schools. The school’s big hall could accommodate hundreds of students sitting together. I remember a drama ‘Shah Jehan’ having been staged with almost real stage props and painted backdrops. The boy playing the part of emperor Shah Jehan, Shaikh Ilyas, was one class senior to me. We met again six years later in Hailey College when he was in M.Com contesting elections as president of the students union.
While corporal punishment is understandably looked down upon these days, I feel that it had its merits if kept within reasonable limits. This is especially so when I see some undisciplined students driving their teachers to frustration, even exasperation. The teachers feel helpless, and the only course available to them is to ignore and sideline such students. This only results in making them even more difficult and unruly, and deprives them of education. This was never allowed to happen in the old days; teachers took full responsibility for their charges and did not shift responsibility for keeping up the grades or maintaining discipline to their parents, as they do now. I have never attended a parent-teacher meeting in my life, because there used to be none. The parents’ job was to get their child into the school; preparing him or her to be fit for the college was the responsibility of the teachers. And they managed to do it admirably well, at least in Central Model School, as the results showed.
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(4)
Construction of our new home, N-889, started in 1957 and we moved there next year. This was a 700 square yards plot situated on Poonch Road which served as the western border of Samanabad. Beyond the plot there were vast agricultural fields stretching right up to the Multan Road highway about three kilometers away. We could hear the distant sound of buses and trucks hurtling along the highway throughout the night. On the southern side too, there were lush green fields between Samanabad and the newly built Wahdat Colony. Going to my mamoon’s house there simply meant twenty minutes’ walk through these fields which would otherwise take close to an hour’s travel by road. There was the added bonus of stopping midway and enjoying freshly milked goat’s milk bought from the shepherds living there.
The land for the plot happened to be three or four feet below ground level and had remained submerged in water for a good part of the year. Foundations of the house were therefore dug very deep and then fortified with extra thick walls. We didn’t need an architect to make the house plans because Sajid bhai, a family friend and a senior architectural draftsman, was at hand to offer his services. The construction of the house was supervised by a local builder called Mistri (technician) Khuda Baksh who was an old style professional; a mason, carpenter and plumber rolled into one. He was an extremely competent, experienced and sincere house builder, who remained associated with my father for almost thirty years supervising various alterations and extensions to the house over these years.
The kitchen was fixed with an old style cooking burner using wood and coal as fuel. One of my errands in those days, when our servant was on leave, was to fetch wood for the burner from the nearby log shop (called Taal) just round the corner. There the khan would make a small bundle of split logs, or split them there and then, and hand them over to me. It was a big place with surrounding walls made up of tons of logs packed one on top of another. Coal used to be delivered in jute bags. In the winter, when it was cold, we would often sit around the fire to have our meals. There would be smoke in the kitchen, either when the fire was being built up, or if the wood happened to be damp, and my mother would often be cooking dinner with teary eyes. Wood and coal gave way to oil stoves using kerosene oil after some time, and finally to natural gas in the mid-sixties.
There was no running hot water supply because geezers had not yet arrived. To have a bath in the winter required some planning. Water was heated up in kitchen in big pots which were then carried to the bathroom by hand. This was mixed with tap water to make it suitable for taking a bath. Tap water was not very cold in any case because it was received directly from the supply source and not from underground water tanks.
This was an era much before tiles or marble; floors were laid simply with cement mixed with assorted colours. Similarly, walls were white washed with lime instead of emulsion or distemper. When I see the modern houses and flats here, even the modest ones, with beautifully patterned tiles on the floor, plastic emulsion paint on the walls and shiny bath room fittings with running hot and cold water, it seems a different world altogether from those early days. Foam and spring mattresses have replaced charpoys or cotton webbing tape mattress. I remember watching English films in those days and looking with envy at the beautifully furnished apartments with elegant furniture and shiny kitchens shown in the movies. Now there is hardly any difference in the furnishings there and here, talking in general terms, though of course there are huge disparities in the living styles of upper and lower classes in both places.
Talking of homes, people used to play all kinds of home-grown games in those days, which few people would know now. Gulli-danda was a very popular game but it required big, open spaces to hit the gulli powerfully with the danda. Also common was playing marbles using colourful little glass orbs called Bantay, or playing Dabbi with flattened cigarette pack covers and little pieces of stone. Little girls used to play Keerri-Karra all the time. Other popular games for girls were Kokla-chapatee and Kho, played during the long summer evenings under cool moonlight.
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In the summer of 1960, my father decided to take a break and planned a trip to the northern areas. The journey was to be undertaken on crowded inter-city buses and the quality of hotels in the far off areas was suspect; it was only myself therefore who accompanied him on this long journey.
Our first destination was the Swat valley, a highly picturesque but largely undiscovered resort in those days. We went north to the city of Nowshera, took a right turn towards Mardan, climbed to Malakand and then down again to Mingora, the largest city of the former State of Swat. There was a brief stopover at a hotel in Mingora, which was not unlike any other city hotel in Punjab. This was the start of the Swat valley and the road from this point onward ran more or less next to the beautiful Swat river, coming very close sometimes and drifting away at other times. The weather now started to turn cool and the scenery on both sides of the road became breath-taking in its beauty. The river started to slowly getting narrower going up the mountains. Our bus followed the river until it reached the town of Madyan in the afternoon where it crossed the river to the other side.
Madyan Hotel, built on the side of the river, was our first stop and opened a whole new world for me. It was an elegantly built hotel with bright airy rooms facing the river. However, it wasn’t until we went for dinner that had my eyes popping out. The tables were laid elaborately with English style crockery and cutlery. This was the first time that I had seen multiple sizes of knives and forks laid artfully on both sides of the shiny white plates and a folded napkin placed next to the knives. The first course was a soup, also a first for me. After I had finished, the waiter arrived to take my plate away; I wanted to tell him that I hadn’t quite finished with my dinner yet, but my father nodded to indicate that it was all right. The soup was followed by fish, then the main course and, finally, the dessert. I was too excited by the surroundings to enjoy the meal but relaxed after a while. Breakfast the next morning was similarly an elaborate affair. I did not know then that I was to stay in Madyan Hotel once again, after nearly fifteen years, when I and my wife spent our honeymoon week there.
After a couple of days stay, we boarded the bus for the major attraction of this area, Kalam, then the last stop accessible by car or jeep. The road still following the river which was now even narrower, was crudely paved and not very wide and we frequently had to give way to the traffic coming from the other direction. There were occasional mud falls which made going even slower. We passed Bahrain and finally reached Kalam sometime in the afternoon. My father was quite taken in by the incredible beauty of the surrounding mountains, the rapidly flowing waters of the river and the streaking streams making little waterfalls, their water freezing cold to the touch. For me in those days, if I had seen one mountain I had seen them all, and so waited patiently for the return. We stayed there about an hour for a late lunch, and then started back.
By the time we reached Bahrain it had turned dark and my father decided to spend the night there. Bahrain, now a bustling town crowded or rather overcrowded with all kinds of hotels and boarding houses, was in those days a one hotel village, provided one could call a set of six small rooms built on top of shops facing the river a hotel. Each room had two charpoys, two wooden chairs and a small table as the furnishing. The menu for dinner was a freshly prepared chicken, hastily cooked on an oil stove placed on the balcony outside, served with naans. We went to bed immediately after having dinner because that was all that we could do. It was pitch dark outside with not a soul around and the only sound one could hear was the water constantly rushing down the fast flowing river across the road. I tried to imagine myself having dinner in the brightly lit dining room of the Madyan Hotel with a knife and fork and soon went to sleep. My father didn’t, as I found out the next morning. He told me that the surroundings made him so uneasy that he had hardly slept and began to relax only after sunrise. We packed our bags and began the long journey back, but there was still a lot more to see.
Our next stop was Abbottabad, a scenic town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on the way to the picturesque Kaghan valley. Abbottabad had a serene calm and cool ambience which was unique to this town. In the evening we strolled down from our hotel to see a film, the famous English movie The Vikings, starring Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis, which had been released recently. There was a scene in the film with high drama, the only one I still remember: Kirk Douglas’s character, a prince, throws a kick at Tony Curtis’s character, his slave; and in retaliation, the slave orders his falcon to attack the prince, taking out one of his eyes. Kirk Douglas appears in the rest of the film wearing a black patch over his eye. As a punishment, the slave is left standing in the sea to drown slowly with the rising tide.
The next morning we took the bus for the journey through the winding mountains of Himalayas, going steeply up from Abbottabad (1200 meters) to the commanding heights of Nathiagali (2600 meters). The scenery on the way is probably one the most breath taking and beautiful in the country offering views of the hills full of pine, cedar, walnut, maple and oak trees. My father was engrossed in enjoying the scenery when he noticed me reading a magazine as usual. He told me in a somewhat pained tone to please look outside and start enjoying the breath taking views going past the window. I glanced at the mountain outside, watched the next one trying to see the difference between the two, couldn’t find any, and went back to my magazine. This scene was repeated almost exactly many years later when we were visiting Hunza and my son hardly ever raised his eyes from his cell phone to look at the mesmerizing beauty of the mountains there, much to the disappointment of his mother.
Nathiagali in those days had retained the colonial outlook and was a laid back town known for its scenic beauty, hiking tracks and cool weather. After having a short break there we proceeded onwards to Murree, the famous hill resort, for a one night stay. It was as usual crowded with tourists and shops were doing hectic business. My father now felt tired and wanted to rest in the evening so I took his permission to watch another film. There was a cinema hall in Murree in those days at the intersection of the road coming up from Rawalpindi and I walked down the Mall to watch an old Indian film Deedar, starring Dilip Kumar, Nargis and Nimmi. This was the end of our tour and we boarded the bus for Lahore the next morning.
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(5)
My father’s business had been doing well helped probably by his intense hard work and professional integrity. Progressing from the business of trading in hides and skins, the venture now acquired a tannery, naming it Bufco Tanneries. Tanning is a process where hides and skins are treated to produce leather and, in modern jargon, it would be called forward vertical integration though it is doubtful if my father had ever heard this term. The tannery was located at Kot Lakhpat, an outlying industrial township about 12 km away from the city, which in those days was mostly an unpopulated open land area. We also had a car now, a Morris Eight saloon. I don’t remember my father in those days ever coming home before ten or eleven at night and we were usually asleep by that time except my mother who would wait for him in order to have dinner together. Sundays were reserved by him for visiting the tannery early in the morning when we, my sister and I, would hitch a ride with him to go to our mamoon’s house in Wahdat Colony (which happened to be on the way) to play with our cousins there, coming back home by lunch time.
Our car, the black Morris Eight, was bought in a slightly used condition but was still in a perfect shape. It had a push button ignition which surprisingly has been reintroduced in some very modern cars. The other distinguishing feature of our car was the starting handle which proved very useful in winter when the battery didn’t have enough power to start the engine. Rather than having to find people to give the car a push, one simply inserted the starting handle in the engine at the front, cranked it once or twice and the car would come to life. The starting handle had another use as well, to move the car out of mud or sand. I am not sure why this extremely useful gadget was done away with in the later models. The car remained with us for a few years until it was replaced with a light blue Ford Prefect.
Around those days, there was a major change in our life when the family of my taya (my father’s elder brother), Syed Ali Jafar, migrated from India to settle in Pakistan and started living with us. My father’s family in India had belonged to a class of land owners, called zamindars, who had a comfortable living being owners of large tracts of land. However, all this changed dramatically because unlike this country, the land reforms in India introduced in the early fifties through abolition of the zamindari system were really effective. It took away all the rights of the zamindars – mostly Muslims – over their lands and destroyed their political and economic power. At a stroke of pen, it made more than 20 million mostly Hindu tenants the owners of the land they cultivated. My taya tried to survive in the changed conditions as best as he could but life was eventually made so difficult for them that they had no option but to say good bye to the land of their ancestors where they had ruled with almost unchallenged powers and try to make home in a new country.
Tays’s family consisted of his wife, three sons and three daughters, in ages ranging from about seven to twenty five, three of them being older than me. Three elders daughters of his were already married and settled with their families. It was a big enough family to accommodate in an existing household but my mother rose to the occasion and welcomed them wholeheartedly. Tai Amma too was a kind and delicate lady who adjusted to her new life with grace and dignity; and the two women between them ran the household as smoothly as if we were borne into it. We had two spare rooms built on the upper story which were put to use to house the new family. The kitchen was however common with shared cooking between the two families which meant that ‘our’ family was introduced to ‘their’ way of cooking meals, with mixed results. Generally, all went well except that the food they cooked was done using mustard oil which was something new for us and its taste and smell was not at all to my liking. Gradually, however, I started becoming used to it though by that time Taya’s family had moved their cooking to ghee.
My mother was extremely particular that we treated our guests with due consideration and dignity and never do anything which could hurt their feelings. One of my elder cousins used to stutter slightly in those days. Once, while listening to him talk, I too said something in a stutter, forgetting that my mother was standing next to me. I received a resounding slap on my left cheek which I remember to this day.
It was a crowded dining table in the evening. This was the usual eight seat table which meant that a good number of people had to have their meals standing round the table but we became so used to it that it looked totally natural. It was a noisy meal as well because there was constant talk between all of us interspersed with witty remarks and then loud laughter echoing round the room. Taya had a great sense of humour shared by the members of his family; little incidents happening during the day turned into funny jokes which my cousins shared with us accompanied with loud guffaws.
About a year later, some portions were added to the upper story structure including a drawing/ dining room and kitchen, and my taya’s family moved upstairs. There was much discussion during this time about how best Taya could support himself and his family now that they had decided to settle here. The best option seemed to be to start a bookshop and stationery store in the local market as there was none in this area while the Samanabad locality was fast expanding. My mother came up with the name, Variety Book Stall, and the bookshop was soon in business. My elder cousin, Hibbi bhai, took charge of the shop and worked day and night to make it a success. It soon became a household name far and wide and our family started to be known as ‘Variety Walley’.
Hibbi bhai used to visit the market in the morning to get supplies and Taya was in charge of the shop during that time. This time was not particularly popular with the kids to visit because Taya chose to deal with his young customers in his own way. He would not allow the kids to buy expensive items of stationery if a cheaper option was available or to buy too many items in one go. This was obviously against all marketing principles, but fully in keeping with his own ethical principles. The parents however didn’t mind and the sales soon started to grow quickly.
Taya was the kind of person who would always remain true to his principles. His proud and dignified personality and perfectly erect posture was about the same as it probably would have been when he was lording over his lands back home. Taya had a commanding demeanor but treated people with care and kindness. He would mellow down considerably over the years forced by the massive change in his life style but studiously maintained his dignity and composure to the end. A few hours before he left us, he called me to his bedside. I kneeled down beside him listening to him talking in a feeble voice. He had turned very weak and thin by this time. He said he was soon going to leave us which made me start crying. He tried to console me and said something which I would never forget. He told me to be kind to all family members and to always try to live in harmony with them. He then closed his eyes. These were the last words I would hear from him.
My cousin, Hibbi bhai, was a charming character in every way. In his twenties at that time, he was pleasantly handsome with a naturally smiling face. Being the eldest son, he understood his responsibilities only too well and took over as the sole earning hand for his family at a young age to ensure that his younger brothers and sisters could receive a decent education. Usually, the earning hand in a family is known to throw his weight around, expect special treatment and demand obedience. Not so with Hibbi bhai. It was just not possible for him with his sweet nature to order people around. But still, by the sheer force of his personality, he commanded respect and affection from everybody he came in contact with. I had become his fan almost from the first day I had set my eyes upon him when I was a little boy and remained so for the rest of his life He treated my wife too with brotherly affection and regard and she felt the same. He reciprocated these sentiments and later in life used to visit us riding his bicycle almost every week to our home in New Muslim Town.
He never married and remained single all his life, the ultimate sacrifice for his younger brothers and sisters. He saw to it that they were happily married and settled in their own homes. By the time he left this world, he had achieved his life’s goal; to give his family a decent start in life as best as he could.
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(6)
It was now the beginning of my teen years. These years bring many physical, mental and social changes. Adolescents develop the ability to think abstractly, make long term goals and compare oneself to one’s peers. They tend to want independence from their parents or guardians. Peer influence and acceptance become important to young people and they start to develop long term commitments in relationships. All these changes affected me in one way or another.
One of my cousins, about four years older than me, had recently arrived in Lahore and I began a lifelong friendship with him. Having a thin body frame, short hair and wearing thick glasses, he gave the appearance of a conscientious student immersed in his books but this was deceptive. He had seen the world from an entirely different perspective compared to my secluded and protected upbringing which had made him much more mature and worldly than I was, greater in fact than the difference in our years. By nature, he was quite candid and even cynical and held most people in low esteem. I craved his company like any typical boy would for a young man and his comments used to make a deep impression on me.
It was a warm summer evening and we had gone to see a musical show at the Lahore cricket stadium. There was the usual long delay before the start of the event and there was nothing to do except to just sit there on the bare floor of the stand and look at other people. After a while, my cousin started getting bored and said that he wished there was somebody to give him company. I innocently said that I was there to give him company. To this, my cousin retorted that he wished there was somebody there for a more lively company.
More lively company? These words fell like a ton of bricks over me. They travelled like a clot through my veins up to my brain where they ricocheted furiously around the skull. More lively company? I felt numb with self-pity and shame. I knew I was a nerd and would always remain a nerd. My life revolved around books and magazines and newspapers. But I guess there was still a tiny element of self-respect left there and my cousin’s candid appraisal was an unexpected blow.
When I came home, my cousin’s remarks were still echoing around my brain. More lively company? I started thinking about it to dissect their real meaning. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the comments were in fact true. I was not a lively company and in fact quite a tame and boring company. I also realized that I would have to do something about it. From that day, I began consciously and purposefully to change myself. To present an image to people which may not be my true self but a more likeable and endearing self. It took me a little while to do this but eventually I was successful in developing a side of my personality which I wanted.
Whenever I am sitting in the company of many people, recounting funny anecdotes on the spur of the moment, making witty remarks and drawing laughter all around, my mind goes back to that warm summer evening in Lahore. I wonder whether it would all have been possible without my cousin getting bored and demanding to be provided with a more lively company.
———–
Looked at from the eyes of an adolescent, this period – roughly between 1960 and 1965 – appears to me as a long running film. At that time, our immediate family and some close family friends numbered more than 200 people in Lahore, all living in close vicinity and in close contact. There were frequent parties and all day picnics. Life was a never ending series of family events. There were undercurrents of romance, but all very decent and subdued. There was much laughter and some heartaches. Lahore had a number of beautiful picnic spots: Shalimar Bagh and Jehangir’s tomb had vast gardens where people could sit under the shadow of tall trees all year round to have picnic with their families. Jallo Park about 20 km and Changa Manga forest with its wild life park, lake and jungle train about 70 km from the city were even more attractive spots for picnic. My favourite picnic place was Kamran’s Bara Dari ( a building with twelve gates), also a Mughal era monument, located on the banks of River Ravi. The river used to be in full bloom throughout the year with a pleasantly cool breeze blowing in the summer. We could hire boats for a ride in the river and then enjoy picnic in the gardens.
I had just joined college and started to build friendship with three of my cousins; the cousin mentioned above was studying at Islamia College. The second one had joined FC College, another reputable college in Lahore, while the third was still in his last year at school. We started spending most of our free time together and for the first time discovered the joys of freedom from the watchful eyes of our guardians. We started playing card games together and became hopelessly addicted to the game of Bridge, as only the newly addicted could.
One of my elder cousins was a geologist by profession. His work took him to the construction sites of big hydro-electric dams, some planned under the Indus Water Treaty. The geologists had the job of testing the terrain and soil of sites around the dams and were therefore an integral part of the construction process. In those days, he was working at the site of the Mangla Dam built on the River Jhelum about 20 km from the city of Jhelum and then the Khanpur Dam situated about 40 km from Islamabad. He used to invite us, me and my three cousins, to visit him and we stayed in the officers’ mess enjoying his hospitality.
It was an entirely different life for us altogether living among the bachelors. It was amazing to see how well trained the waiters and other staff serving them were, and everything seemed to operate like clockwork. We loved being served two half fried eggs for our breakfast every morning in addition to the bread, butter, jam, fruits, parathas and a lot of other delicacies which was the height of luxury for us. We would then go out to visit the site on jeeps and comeback tired for lunch and rest. In the evenings after dinner, we would watch them play card games including flash (a kind of poker) wagering bets for amounts which had our eyes popping out but were routine for them. Our cousin was an expert in his game usually winning, and recounted his gains to us gleefully the next morning. One of the players we noticed once looking especially haggard at the breakfast table and it turned out that having lost heavily the previous night he had shaved himself with tooth paste! After a few days, having enjoyed ourselves thoroughly, we would come back to Lahore very excited and full of stories to narrate to our families.
Our Bridge addiction was getting worse by the day. We would play not only in our homes, we would continue playing even while visiting homes of our uncles or aunts. In the beginning this was viewed as nothing more than childlike exuberance. However, it soon reached disagreeable proportions. We would reach the home of an aunt, say hello and then immediately retire to a secluded room. The hosts’ welcome comments would be greeted with some mechanical responses leaving them in no doubt that we would rather get down to business as soon as possible. After staying there a few hours and having played a couple of rubbers, we would get up, take leave from our hosts and head back home. We would have probably much to learn from the book ‘How to win friends and influence people’ by Dale Carnegie.
The disagreeable part of our childlike exuberance seemed to grow with every passing day. Once we went to visit an uncle and played cards till late in the night. While the hosts were sleeping, we raided the fridge, found some mangoes and finished them off in a few minutes. However, instead of throwing the mangoe peels in the dustbin which would have made our raid known to the hosts which we wanted to avoid for some reason, we lobbed them off to the roof of the house one by one. The peels were duly discovered sometime later and the discovery, along with many other similar pranks, did not help to endear us with our family members.
A cousin returning once from East Pakistan brought two pineapples with him which were a kind of delicacy here. These were peeled and put in the fridge to be served after lunch. We raided the fridge to have a piece or two but ended up finishing off almost a whole pineapple, rearranging the remaining pieces. As soon as the meal finished, the fruit was brought to the table and my aunt removed the cover. We observed a surprised look on her face but all she could say was, “Oh my God! I shouldn’t have put the pineapples in the fridge. They seem to have shrunk.” We kept a straight face.
We had explored and then perfected the art of getting in the cricket stadium and other sporting events without paying for the ticket because we thought that only fools did that. The trick was to join and become part of the entourage of somebody important entering the stadium, because the security staff is usually too scared to question everybody accompanying the VIP. There were three essential requirements to do this successfully: one ought to have confidence, dress should be appropriate and, most important, one must be shame-proof. We even went in the stadium with President Ayub Khan’s party once and enjoyed the match. However, at another time, though we did manage to enter and sit comfortably on our seats, some security guy spotted us and motioned us to leave. We did so immediately while everybody was staring at us pitifully but that didn’t worry us in the least; in fact that became another daring adventure to recount to our friends.
One would have thought that indulging in such activities on a regular basis meant that we were unconcerned with what other people felt about us and couldn’t care less what they thought. Strangely, the opposite was the case. We were not only concerned, after sometime we became hyper-sensitive to their feelings about us. We had invented a term called ‘value’ meaning the regard placed by the family members about us, and constantly debated within ourselves whether it had increased or decreased during the day. It would increase after some good deed and decrease when, for example, some ugly remark did not go down too well with others. We were possibly experiencing some kind of inferiority complex. The males older than us had good jobs, and though unmarried were what we used to call, ‘feeding their families’, and thus extremely popular with girls of their age and the family members generally. They were loved and respected. The boys younger than us, though not offering any competition, were also well liked. It was only us, the gang of four, we thought that was always singled out for contempt and derision.
Mind you, this was never so within our own families, possibly because they were never at the receiving end of our pranks anyway. My cousins were frequent visitors at our home where my mother would join us in our discussions. We were all reasonably attentive to our studies, did not suffer from any addiction, and did not give them any cause for concern. Even then, there was still the question of this stigma attached to our name in the family at large which bothered us greatly. Matters came to a head when one of our sisters in law, Hameeda Bhabhi, who used to live in Calcutta with her family, was visiting Lahore. When she saw us together, the first comment which came to her mind was something like, “suna hai tum log tu bahut burey nikal gai” [It seems you people have turned out to be real bad]. Though at the time, we dismissed her comment with a laugh, we were shaken. It meant that our reputation, whatever it was, had travelled globally. And it was so unfair we thought. Something snapped within us and we decided to hit back.
The hitting back took a novel form. We decided to stage a variety show, invite all family members to watch the show and then conclude the evening with light refreshments. What they didn’t know was that the skits we had prepared for the event were carefully scripted to include all kinds of insults thrown at the family members. The skits were no doubt funny and humorous but had enough barbs in them to make them feel uncomfortable. For example, most uncles and cousins were given hilarious names relative to their jobs or personality. Others were made fun of by mimicking their mannerisms or way of speaking. It was all quite mild and benign but it did its job; it created quite a bit of resentment and indignation across the board. It was talked about for days. One could say the event was 100% successful, both in attendance and in achieving its given objective.
However, it did have a positive effect on us. Having let off steam, we cooled down, became somewhat more mature and stopped being hyper-sensitive.
———
(7)
It was time for me to say farewell to the long school life and move to college, an entirely different style of life for any student. My matriculation examination results showed that, as expected, I had secured enough marks to get admission in Government College. The marks were below my expectations and somewhat disappointing but thankfully served the purpose. They had at least secured a government scholarship for me for the next two years. The top achievers as usual opted for medical and non-medical science faculties to become doctors or engineers where the cream of the country’s students always chose to go. I opted for humanities section according to plan with Mathematics, Economics and Statistics as my subjects.
Discussions about the choice of my career had been started by my parents during my senior years in school. I was naturally inclined for the science subjects, with Maths as my eternal love, but this was dismissed as of no consequence. What mattered was the material success in life. I am not sure who had suggested accounting as a possible career to my parents. It could be my father’s business contacts while my mother always believed it was the wise man of our family, Munna Bhai, but one thing led to another and it was finally decided what I would be: a Chartered Accountant. I had heard mention of this word occasionally in school as something like the ultimate in academic achievement but had no idea what it meant. However, being an obedient and dutiful son as always, I accepted the decision of my parents.
Year later, when I was studying in England, one of my colleagues, Ron Sheldon, told me once how he stumbled on to chartered accountancy. He said a career counsellor had been visiting them at their school and asked him if he had made any plans yet for his future career. “None,” replied Sheldon, at which the counsellor immediately said, “become a Chartered Accountant, then.” And that’s how, Ron had said, he had ended up there. In this country also, if you did not have sufficient marks to become a doctor or engineer, the best you could do was to obtain a degree in arts or commerce, and then try one’s luck at either civil service or accounting/business studies as an option of last resort.
Government College in those days was an institution in itself, built in neo-gothic architecture with pointed arches and ornate carvings. The entrance looked like one was going up to a castle with roads leading from two sides climbing steeply up to meet at a vast porch in front of the main building. In the center was a bell-tower with a huge watch. Between the two roads there was the Oval Ground with benches placed on the grass sloping down towards the ground. There was another beautiful garden called Loggia on one side of the building where one could sit in seclusion to study. On the other side of the building, there was a vast open-air theatre built in the Roman style. More than the concrete structures, the aura and history associated with the college made it a special place.
Surprisingly, for an institution known for its very high academic standards, the emphasis there was always on the extra-curricular activities, like drama, debating and sports. Those who excelled in these activities were put on roll of honour and, for sports, earned the college blazer. Annual sports competitions were held in the Oval ground and the annual cricket match between Government College and Islamia College had become a hotly contested tradition. Achievements in academic field largely went unnoticed as I was to find to my consternation later on.
Surprises awaited us when we started the classes. Our Economics professor was none other than Shoaib Hashmi, the famous playwright and TV actor. He had a dazzling personality, was a captivating speaker and a chain smoker. It was a small class, about a dozen students, and on the first day he offered each of us a cigarette from his pack of Three Castles – the most expensive brand in those days. More than half accepted the offer including me because we considered it improper to decline a professor’s offer though none of us had ever smoked before. His delivered his lectures peppered with his classical dry humour. He would have been an excellent teacher but unfortunately his varied interests, in particular his involvement with the Government College Dramatic Club, took him away from us after only a month and we were left without a teacher for the rest of the year. [While I was writing these lines, a news flash announced that he had passed away after a prolonged illness. May Allah grant him a place in Jannah].
Another kind of surprise awaited us in the Statistics class. After introductions, the respectable teacher advised us solemnly that if we wanted to receive a good education, Government College wasn’t the place for us; we should rather move to Islamia College or Dyal Singh College – two institutions not generally known as elite sources of learning in Lahore. Though surprised, none of us took his advice and chose to take our chances with whatever came our way; it didn’t turn out to be too bad in the end.
It was the Mathematics teachers, however, who fully justified Government College’s sterling reputation by their competence, dedication and firm grasp of the subject. Maths had always been my favourite but it reached the levels of adoration after I discovered Calculus. It became my passion, my hobby and my relaxation. I became even more convinced that my career should really commence with a doctorate in Mathematics but, as before, this was brushed away as being too dreamy and impractical. I acquiesced as before.
Our English teacher, Abdul Hameed Khayal, also taught us with due attention and care but everything changed suddenly when the English-medium students from Saint Anthony and Aitchison joined us after three months subsequent to the announcement of their exam results. Their command over English, confidence and polish overwhelmed us – the Urdu-medium students. As soon as the lecture started, they would start debating issues with Khayal Sahib in bullet speed English and most of the dialogue went over our heads. We might as well be a fly on the wall as far as the lecturer was concerned. For a few days I saw this drama going on and then finally decided to take matters in my own hands. The next day, I stood up as soon as the lecture started and started to mumble in my broken Urdu-medium English, “Sir . . . . I want to say something, Sir.” Khayal Sahib immediately turned to me, “Yes, yes . . . . please speak.” I then took the courage in my hands and continued, “I can’t understand anything you say, Sir.” By this time the English-medium boys had caught on to this exchange and started to shout derogatory comments telling me to sit down. But Khayal Sahib to his credit was now really interested in what I wanted to say and asked me again to explain myself. I said, “Sir . . . you are always talking to these people. We can’t understand a word of what you are saying because you are speaking so fast, Sir.” By now, there was a visible change in the way he looked at me, realizing for the first time that there were two types of students in his class. He promised that from now on he would talk slowly and involve us also in the discussions. This improved matters greatly. Whatever complexes we had about the Saint Anthony students were removed further when the results of the mid-term exams showed that in general there was hardly any difference in the marks secured by the two categories of students.
We had many colourful classmates also, such as Khalid Abbas Dar, the famous comedian, who was two years senior but had joined us after failing his exams twice. He was a well- known character even then and continued to amuse us with his pranks. He made us laugh uncontrollably when he pretended to talk to our Urdu professor posing as a silly, dumb character with his tongue hanging out of his mouth leaving the teacher speechless.
But the most colourful, and even legendary character of all, was our principal, the famous Professor Dr Nazir Ahmed. Books can be written about his iconic personality, and he made a very deep impression on me too. He was a person of medium height and of slight build with long black hair falling down to his shoulders. What he lacked in his body, he more than made up by his resounding voice and towering personality. He used to live in the principal’s house built next to the college and could often be seen in the evening strolling around the college with his dogs, with a pipe in his mouth.
During the day, he moved around the college talking freely to the students. His favourite expression when talking to us was ‘beta’ meaning son and he meant it. I had a first- hand experience of his power over the students a year later when they started agitating over some local issue in the college. All of us assembled in the open-air theatre, close to a thousand people sitting shoulder to shoulder. Tempers were running high and the air was resounding with loud slogans against the management. In walked the principal standing calmly at the lectern down below. The crowd hardly noticed him continuing to raise slogans. Dr Sahib looked down, raised his head and said ‘beta’ once, which went unnoticed. He said ‘beta’ again and the noise went perceptibly down. He said ‘beta’ the third time and there was a pin-drop silence around the theatre by then. He talked for about five minutes asking us to calm down and resolve the matter by discussion rather than agitation. He left after this and soon all the students dispersed as well.
I once had a personal experience of his kindness too. I had gone to the head clerk’s office, which was adjacent to the principal’s office, to ask for something. The head clerk told me that my verbal request won’t do and I would have to write an application. I then asked him for a piece of paper, to which the clerk replied in his usual imperial style that papers in his office were not meant for my personal use. While all this was going on, the principal walked in from his office next door and asked us what the fuss was about. I told him that I wanted to write an application and wanted a piece of paper to do this. Dr Sahib responded to this by picking up a thick sheaf of papers from the clerk’s desk handing them over to me, and said, “All right beta, now go and write your application.” I can never forget the bewildered expression on the clerk’s face when I was leaving the room.
He proved his popularity again in 1966 when the then governor West Pakistan, Nawab of Kalabagh, intoxicated in his power ordered his transfer to another college. This was the college’s centenary year and he was removed apparently to shift the limelight away from him during this important year. The college students revolted, marching from the college to the Governor House holding banners saying, “Don’t snatch our father.” Dr Sahib was reinstated within a few days.
After his retirement, he could be seen cycling slowly down the Mall. Some student of his would greet him; he would get down from his bicycle, say salaam, get back on it and proceed with his journey. A few hundred meters down the road, another person would greet him, he would dismount and the whole process would start again. I am a personal witness to this spectacle and have often wondered how many people in this world could possibly match his kindness, humility and decency.
———-
A few months or so into the college convinced me that I would have to do something about my English reading and writing ability. In my school, all subjects – even physics, chemistry and maths – were taught in Urdu. There was now a sudden change to English and we, the Urdu-medium students, were totally unprepared for this.
I was not unfamiliar with Urdu literature. From my childhood, I had been reading books and magazines of various types, starting from kids magazines such as Khilona, Delhi or Taleem-o-Tarbiat. Khilona was the most popular children’s magazine in those days read all over Pakistan and India containing long running popular serials like Krishan Chandra’s Ulta Darakht and comics like Mian Nastoor. Later on, I started reading literary magazines like Naqoosh Lahore subscribed by my mother. It used to be a voluminous tome containing hundreds and sometimes thousands of pages. Urdu short stories written in those days could compare honourably with any written in the west.
Around the same time, I got hooked on the ‘Ibn e Safi’ novels. These books – a blend of crime thrillers and light comedy – had achieved a massive popularity in those days among teenagers and others much like Archie comics in the West. I was visiting Izhar bhai in Mughalpura once when he casually handed me a book called ‘Qatil Sangrezay’ [Deadly Pebbles) to read which I did after coming back home, not knowing that I would end up reading more than a hundred of such books over the next couple of years. The main characters of these novels like Col Fareedi, Captain Hameed and Imran had assumed a life of their own and had become household names. In a way, this was made possible for me by Hibbi bhai starting a ‘one anna’ library at his bookshop where one could borrow books from his massive collection paying one anna per day. I was surprised to learn some years later that my sisters and brother Naveed had also followed my footsteps finishing even more Ibn e Safi books than I had.
I had been told that the best way to improve English was to start reading English novels which in the beginning appeared tough but I soon got the hang of it. The first English novel I read was Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte which of course I could not help but liking very much. It was followed by Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, another all-time classic and still one of the best stories I have read. Other favourites in those days were The Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray and Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.
Most often I buy the books that I read from shops selling old books and mainly paperbacks because it is easier to read them reclining on the bed or sofa which is my favourite pose while reading. Second hand bookshops hold a strange fascination for me, with the stale smell of old books all around you matching nothing else in this world. If I was the owner of a perfume factory, I would order a scent to be made with the fragrance of old books and wear it all the time. Bookshops selling new books can never match the breadth and variety of the titles available in second hand bookshops and the gems one could often find there, including the ones long out of print, would be unthinkable in the former. In Lahore, my favourite haunt for old books used to be New Anarkali, just outside the Bible House, where there were several vendors selling thousands of old books. It wasn’t really a bookshop, rather an extended open-air book stall. This had become an institution in itself and I had seen many known literary figures browsing through the stalls at one time or another.
It was from one of these shops that I picked up a copy of Anna Karenina. The book appeared to be daunting at first, with close to a thousand pages, but I had wanted to read one of Tolstoy’s books for a long time and decided to try my luck on this one. Anybody who has read this book would know that it is hard going at first. The very first sentence is an engaging one, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” a sweeping statement which is as true today as it was nearly one hundred and fifty years ago when it was first written. But then the pace becomes rather slow; the heroine Anna notices the hero Vronsky for the first time on page 60, they have their first, very brief, exchange nearly fifty pages later. But the remarkable thing about such novels is that by the time you get to something like 300 pages, you have become part of the novel; you eat, drink and move as one of characters in the novel and can feel their emotions as deeply as they do. After a few days, I was coasting along with Anna and Vronsky in the 1870’s Russia as happy as I could be, with no worry in the world, when suddenly, without any warning, Anna commits suicide. And this she does in a most horrible manner; by putting her neck between the front and back wheels of a moving railway carriage!
The suddenness of the event coupled with the manner of its happening, left me shattered. In the typical Tolstoy style, there is no further mention of her death until two strangers are shown having a general chit chat on a railway platform nearly a week after when one of them casually asks the other, “Do you know Count Vronsky is also going by this train?” This nonchalant attitude about such a tragic event compounded my misery further. I felt as if I had lost somebody very close feeling utterly helpless. I lost my appetite and spent the next two days without eating or even bothering to change my clothes. My mother then started getting concerned and I received some counselling. This had the effect of slowly bringing me back to reality. I still consider Anna Karenina to be the best novel I have ever read; better than ‘War and Peace’ by the same author, which I read about five years later and also one of the best ever novels in my reckoning.
Reading such books met their objective. One can always read history or biography later in life but if one wants to improve one’s English proficiency, there is no better start than an English novel.
——–
Two years in the Government College passed quickly and we took the Intermediate exam in summer. Result was announced a couple of months later but to my surprise there were some students against whose roll numbers the result showed ML meaning marks later-on, and I was unfortunately one of them. This was the time for applying to the universities and I had planned to apply to the Punjab University for a three years bachelors course in commerce. However, nothing could be done in the absence of a result and I started to get worried after weeks passed without any news. I decided to visit the Board of Secondary Education, the examining authority, to find out what the problem was.
We, me and my friend Razzaq, located the official dealing with the Intermediate results and asked him why the result was delayed and when could we expect to receive the marks. He yawned and said he didn’t know. Further dialogue went something like this:
Me: But, without the results I won’t be able to get admission in the university.
Official: I suppose you won’t be able to get admission in university.
Me: But, then I would lose a year.
Official: I suppose you would lose a year.
Me: But, this will destroy my career.
Official: I suppose it will destroy your career.
Concluding this highly encouraging and fruitful exchange of information, we begged our leave and came out of the room. As we were walking down the lane, I must be looking much distressed because a man suddenly came in front of me, mumbled something I didn’t catch, smiled and then asked if there was anything he could do to help me. He was a tallish, good looking man in his thirties but it was his dress which did not inspire much confidence in me. He was wearing a white kurta and dhoti with a white turban on his head, a typical villager’s garb. I tried to brush him aside and move forward. But he persisted and said again that something appeared to be bothering me and could he help. I looked at Razzaq, who was also nonplussed, but then blurted out that my marks were announced as later-on and I had no idea what to do.
Strangely, he told us to follow him and darted forward. We looked at each other and finding nothing better to do, decided to go after him. He moved confidently to the exam results section, called secrecy branch, which had a steel barrier guarded by a tough khan. He greeted the khan and passed through the barrier as if he knew him well, with us following him. We entered a long hall which had a dozen tables set in a U shape with big registers lying in front of the clerks sitting there. Our guide paused, asked my roll number, looked around and then headed straight to a table. Before we could say anything, he had opened the register, ran his finger down a column and told me that I had secured 344 marks. Not believing him, I pushed forward to look at the register myself and, sure enough, it showed 344 marks against my roll number. Our guide then thanked the clerk who had watched these proceedings in the manner of a detached observer, and then started to move back towards the door. Stunned beyond belief, we followed him out of the door. As we were walking towards the exit, I suddenly stopped after a few seconds and asked Razzaq who this person was and that we must at least thank him. We looked back but by that time the man had disappeared somewhere.
To this day, I am not sure what kind of a person this man really was. If you can believe that a man dressed like a character in a Punjabi film can walk through the secrecy branch gate, know which register contained my results, open it and then locate the result, all this time the clerk watching us like a zombie; was a real person, you can believe anything. Whoever or whatever he was, somehow I have always been blessed with people who have come to my help when I needed them most.
———-
(8)
There are some events about which everyone remembers exactly where one was when he or she was first told about that event, like the death of President Kennedy. For most Pakistanis sixty five years or older, the moment when one heard the news that Indian armed forced had launched an attack on Pakistan, was one such event. The day was 6 September 1965.
As a coincidence, I had stayed at the home of my mamoon located at the outer fringes of Gulberg III the previous night. Geographically, this must be the closest colony in Lahore to the border with India and, as the morning broke, we could hear the distant sound of guns firing artillery shells very clearly. We immediately put the radio on and heard the news about the Indian attack. We had known about the war going on in the disputed Kashmir region, and newspapers were announcing the rapid advances our forces were making at the front, but the news about the attack on Pakistan territory was totally unexpected.
Soon the news spread throughout the city like wild fire and people, like the true Lahori they were, became extremely excited, rather thrilled. This was evident when Indian jet fighters zoomed across our skies the next day and air raid sirens sounded. Instead of going down the trenches, the people rushed to their house tops to watch the planes. They were not disappointed as they watched the Pakistani F-86 Sabre fighter jets chasing down the Indian Hawker Hunter fighters away from our skies. In a famous dog fight on 7 September, our ace air force pilot M.M. Alam made history by shooting down five Indian planes in less than a minute.
Gradually, the reality of war started to sink in and people became more conscious of the risks involved. Our mamoon’s family moved from their Gulberg III house, which was too close to the border and could come within range of the shelling, to our home. There was a total blackout during night and we had shuttered all windows of the house. The voluntary air defence wardens would check each house to make sure that no light was visible anywhere. We heard about some people playing cards in a jeep near Jhelum in the dim light of a lighter, and though the windows were shuttered, the light was enough for a direct hit from an Indian plane destroying the jeep. Some of these stories may be true while others may have been spread around to make people aware of the need to take precautions.
During the night, when the air raid siren sounded, every member of our two families would have to get up from deep sleep and hunker down to a store room which was surrounded by other rooms and considered relatively more secure. We would remain there sitting on the floor groggy with sleep for a few minutes until the siren sounded again to announce all clear. After a few nights of this routine, I announced that I would prefer to be bombed rather than woken up from sleep and should not be disturbed, my cousin joined me in these sentiments and she and I spent the rest of the war sleeping peacefully through the sirens.
Our poets, singers and music composers rose heroically to the occasion. The poets wrote heart-warming uplifting songs, music was quickly composed, singers sang them in their melodious voices and the radio sound waves were brimming with all kind of patriotic songs within a couple of days. Songs written by Jamiluddin Aali or those sung by Noor Jehan for the 1965 war sound as fresh today as they were in those early days. Nationalistic fervor was at its peak, never seen again.
The only activity possible in the evening during the blackout was to sit in the lawn under the starlight, and listen to the radio. The nine o clock news were much awaited giving latest news about the progress on the war front. When the newscaster announced the hits made by our fighter bombers on major strategic locations in India or the places captured by our army jawans, people cheered. One newscaster in particular, Shakeel Ahmed, had become a hero in those days due to the very bold and ringing tones in which he delivered the news, especially the exploits of our airmen. Earlier at 8:00 pm we would also tune in to the BBC for their version of the news although it had lost its credibility when it announced on the very first day of the war that Lahore had been captured by the Indian forces!
The war came to an end after seventeen days when, as a result of diplomatic efforts at the United Nations Security Council, India and Pakistan agreed to cease fire on 23 September 1965. The general mood among the population was a sullen resignation because, while the Indian attack on the territory of Pakistan had been successfully repulsed, Pakistan had also not been able to capture any worthwhile targets in Kashmir. The general dissatisfaction with the outcome of the war burnt like a slow fuse until foreign minister Z.A. Bhutto was able to exploit it and turn it into a public agitation for his own political gains a few years later.
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(9)
My aggregate marks for the Intermediate exam were sufficient to get me admission to Hailey College of Commerce, Punjab University, comfortably. If fact, I had the highest marks among students getting admission that year and, as the roll numbers were assigned in the descending order of the Intermediate exam marks, I was allotted roll number 2, roll number 1 having been reserved for the sole female student in our class. I also secured the National Talent Scholarship which was awarded to the top ten students of Punjab (later split into eight divisional boards) in each of the three faculties – medical, non-medical and humanities – receiving it every month for the next two years.
Hailey College was a different experience from Government College altogether. For the first time in my life, being a nerd started to pay dividends because having the top roll number made me known to the whole class. Other students frequently consulted me for guidance in studies which I was only too happy to provide, basking in the new found glory. Only two students from Government College had joined me in Hailey College, Razzaq and Abdullah Yusuf – later Chairman, Federal Board of Revenue – who then became life-long friends. My cousin Sabihul Hasan, part of our gang of four, having done his Intermediate from FC College also joined Hailey College and became a constant companion both in college and at home. The college principal in those days was Akhtar Alam Hashmi who unfortunately passed away in March 1966 replaced by M. Murtaza Khan with Anis Ahmad Siddiqui as the Vice Principal.
The medium of instruction in the college was obviously English but some students joining the college were expected to have done their Intermediate in Urdu-medium. Our admission interviews were conducted in English but one of the professors, teaching Economics, suddenly decided that he better ask some questions in Urdu also. There is a well-known term called ‘Utility’ in Economics translated as ‘Afaada’ in Urdu. He promptly shot a question at the next candidate, “What is Afaada?”. “Sir,” back came the prompt reply, “my father is a businessman.”
One of my subjects in Part I was Commercial Geography and the textbook prescribed for the subject was written by the famous British author Dudley Stamp. Going through the book I noticed some glaring errors revealing the author’s casual attitude towards Pakistan. I checked with our professor who confirmed the mistakes but taking it casually remarked that these kind of things were quite common in foreign books. I, on the other hand, could not share his views as I considered it an insult to our country when its biggest and most important city was shown in a map as part of another country. I decided to write a letter to Sir Dudley pointing out at least four mistakes that I was able to detect giving chapter and page references.
Firstly, in describing the countries affected by tropical monsoon climate, he omitted Pakistan from that list; secondly, Lahore was mentioned as representing Punjab “which is North West India”; thirdly, India was supposed to be exporting wheat ‘through Karachi”; and fourthly, rice was mentioned as being the staple food grain of many Asian countries, again omitting East Pakistan from that list. Having typed it myself, I posted it to him at his publisher’s address though with little hope of ever hearing from him. Reading my four page letter to him again, I cringe at my verbosity and overplay of patriotism.
I was pleasantly surprised when a foreign looking aerogram soon landed in my mailbox. The letter should better be quoted in full to enjoy its flavor (punctuation as in original).
“From Sir Dudley Stamp, C.B.E., Ebbingford Manor, Bude, Cornwall,
March 16th 1965
Dear Mr. Haider,
Thank you very much for your long and helpful letter. I am always very grateful to the users of my books who take the trouble, as you have done, to draw my attention to points which require correction. This book, of course, was first published in 1928 and there had been ten additions before the partition of 1947. Although the book was then re-written in order to separate quite clearly India and Pakistan, it does happen that words and phrases from the old edition get left in and in several of the instances you have noticed this is, of course, the case. Now thanks to your co-operation I shall certainly make the necessary corrections in the next printing and I shall always be glad to hear from you any further points which you notice.
Yours sincerely
(signed Dudley Stamp)”
I was over the moon and showed the letter to my professors and the principal who were all somewhat surprized but happy to see it and congratulated me on my initiative.
This is the thing about British culture I discovered later; they always respond to the letters sent to them even if it is only an acknowledgement or regret. They regard it as the minimum level of courtesy and never deviate from it. When I was in England later and posted close to 175 applications for interview, only about fifteen responded positively but each one of them responded to me even if it was only to convey a regret. Even the government departments, like the Passports & Immigration, never fail to send a response though it may not be always to your liking.
I was able to maintain my top position in Part I and again in Part II when my marks turned out to be the highest ever in the college’s history, breaking the record set some 28 years ago by a Hindu student. About ten years later, I was attending a seminar arranged by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Lahore when a young looking man approached me asking me if my name was Saeed Haider. When, I replied in the affirmative, he asked me if I had established a record of highest marks in B.Com Part II. Surprised by this question, I said yes, I suppose I had. He then told me shyly that he had managed to break my record only two years later. I told him jokingly that I wanted to break his leg but then congratulated him saying that I felt happy for him. This man was Ishaq Dar, later the Finance Minister of Pakistan.
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A large part of the credit for my results of Part I and II belonged to Razzaq and Sabihul Hasan. As soon as the Part I session had started, Razzaq had proposed that we start studying together and make notes from our study books. I had never done this before but liked this idea as it helped to reduce the monotony and maintain a steady pace. My cousin Sabihul joined us soon and all three of us would study together on most week days for an hour or so.
Sabihul had of course been a permanent presence in my life in the last two years as well, going through all the joys and pains together. He had been at FC College in those days and because of his sincerity, pleasant nature and sense of humour, was the kind of person who could make instant friendships. He became quite close to the famous writer and critic Dr Agha Sohail, his Urdu professor, and was a frequent visitor to his house located within the college compound. The son of famous music director Rasheed Attre, Wajahat Attre, who later became a music director himself, was also his college friend.
Sabihul could enliven any gathering instantly. He had a vast repertoire of jokes and anecdotes that he could fetch from memory and recount when required. At the same time he was very serious about his studies because being the eldest son of the family he understood his responsibilities well. We used to make plans for the future and then dismiss them as being too farfetched.
In the summer months we would often go down to the Lahore canal which was not far from his house to beat the heat and have a swim in its remarkably cool waters. The water used to be about waist high flowing calmly and, though none of us could swim, it was quite safe to go there in the company of hundreds of other people also bathing there. We made a plan to go their one evening as it was quite hot and sticky outside and the cool waters of the canal appeared tempting. There were four of us, three cousins plus a neighbour of Sabihul, an old friend, slightly lame but an expert swimmer. The canal was unusually full on that day but feeling assured by the neighbour’s presence among us we slowly climbed down into the water. As was our usual practice, we remained close to the bank, floating in the water and enjoying its coolness.
After about half an hour like this, the neighbour felt a burst of energy wanting to have some fun and leapt towards me to grab me and take me down to deeper waters. He had done this many times before when he would jokingly try to push our heads down the water to choke us. I immediately sensed his intention and hurriedly moving towards the ground, took hold of some weeds for support and climbed up. The neighbour looked around for the next prey, saw Sabihul, grabbed him by the neck and started to push him towards deeper water. Sabihul started to resist but being in the water could not do much. The neighbour took Sabihul a few feet inside but then pushed by the rapid flow of water, quickly lost his balance and started to gulp water. This seemed to unnerve him totally and, fearing for his life, he left Sabihul and started to swim back towards the shore. The current in the meantime took Sabihul almost to the middle of the canal. We saw him bobbing up and down a few times and then disappear in the water.
It was turning dark by this time. I and my cousin started calling Sabihul at the top of our voices running alongside the canal. The neighbour having taken a lot of water inside him was lying flat on the ground breathing heavily and of no use to us. Some passers-by stopped to enquire what had happened but couldn’t offer any help. After about half an hour like this, we cycled back to Sabihul’s home and broke the news to his family. Sabihul’s body was found on the third day only about half a mile away from where he had drowned.
I felt three kinds of emotions in those days, quickly following one after another; The first was shock, my senses refusing to believe what had happened. All of us kept hoping that somehow or the other Sabihul would have been able to save himself and could be alive, until the body was found dashing all such hopes. The shock then slowly gave way to grief – but this was short-lived. Slowly, another emotion started to creep up on the second one, it moved like a silent mist around it, and then totally engulfed it. This was guilt. From that day onward, I have hardly ever felt grief, only guilt.
It started with me asking myself the usual questions, why did I do this or why didn’t I do that. That was the easier part of it. I then started to look at Sabihul’s mother, his father, his sisters, his little brothers. The guilt started to grow as I could not reconcile myself with the enormity of the tragedy that had hit them. And then the reality started to sink in, we were responsible not only for what had happened but also that it had been done purposefully. I could very well understand such emotions which were natural in the circumstances. My parents were also aware of such talk but had taken it coolly as well.
The more difficult part of it was to face the accusing eyes present everywhere, the silent stares, the unspoken words. It would have been so much better, I thought, if I had been taken to the town square as in the old days and given a hundred lashes. All settled and done, one could re-join the society having paid his debts. But that would have been too easy. The modern world was much more demanding; it preferred the Chinese punishment of death by a thousand cuts.
________
The senior year of B.Com proved very hectic from social and political point of view. Abdullah Yusuf decided to contest the elections of Hailey College Students Union for the post of General Secretary. The Union used to be very active in those days holding debating contests, musical evenings and sports functions every year. Shaikh Ilyas, my Central Model School colleague was contesting election for the post of President. His chief supporter was a student called Jehangir Bader, who achieved fame in later years as President, Law College Union and then as a leader of the Pakistan Peoples’ Party and senator. We decided to form a joint panel after tough negotiations for allocation of Union posts. Eventually our panel won the elections by a wide margin and I was appointed as head of the editorial panel of the College Gazette. I had already written articles and short stories regularly for the College magazine and was not unfamiliar with this kind of work. This was a job close to my heart, I enjoyed reporting and editing, and it kept me busy for most of the year.
“From sport to sport they hurry me,
to banish my regret.
And when they win a smile from me,
they think that I forget.”
Mr marks in Part III fell much short of expectations, one of the lowest ever. But fortunately combined with the marks of the first two parts, I managed to maintain my top position in aggregate – by a slim margin. My friend Abdullah Yusuf attained the second position. I was awarded the roll of honour and received two merit gold medals – Sir Ganga Ram Gold Medal and Sohan Lal Gold Medal.
Some years later when we were in England, our circle of friends included Iftikhar Husain, a calm and soft-spoken fellow, who had been our class fellow in B.Com. I and Razzaq had arranged a small lunch party at our flat for our friends including him and Abdullah and were having some chit-chat when he casually mentioned that it was he who had checked and marked our Part III Auditing and Income Tax Law papers. We were flabbergasted, and incensed. We knew that he had been close to our B.Com professor for these two subjects, who by the way later wrote many books and became head of another faculty in Punjab University, but could not imagine in a million years that this relationship would extend to paper checking, especially because Iftikhar had always been quite a mediocre student.
.
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(10)
I was looking forward to enjoying summer vacations after a very busy academic year but this was not to be as we were required to do a four-months internship for the bachelor’s degree. I decided to do this at A.F. Ferguson & Co., Chartered Accountants, as this was the usual route for applying to the same firm later for articles of apprenticeship to qualify as a chartered accountant. Fergusons, part of Price Waterhouse group, was the oldest and most reputable firm of chartered accountants in Pakistan. Three of my class fellows also joined the firm at the same time, including Abdullah and Razzaq and we had good company there. Their offices were situated in those days on the top floor of an old building on the Mall near Beadon Road intersection.
Life at Fergusons was as different from the college as anything could be. It was a strictly regimented life and as an internee I had joined right at the bottom of the ladder. The unqualified staff was classified into juniors who had just started their training period, semi-seniors and seniors. Qualified chartered accountants were called managers and, at the top of the pile, was the partner in charge of Lahore office, Mr Hassan Shoaib, who ruled the office with an iron hand. Managers had to wear suits all the year round and, if working in shirtsleeves, had to hastily put their jackets on when summoned by him even in summer. There were three managers when I joined the office, Jafri, Safdar and Khalid Hussain, later joined by Mohammad Arif, who happened to be Razzaq’s distant relative. With the exception of Khalid Hussain all were foreign qualified.
This was the era before calculators and the junior’s job was confined mainly to casting, that is, to check the additions of the amounts listed in big accounting ledgers. This could go on for days. The other job was calling-over, meaning reading out a draft to another person holding the typed letter to check its accuracy; any error left undetected could mean hell for you. After about a year or so of this drudgery, one could hope to progress to becoming a semi-senior when you became the proud owner of a stamp bearing your initials to put on the receipts and vouchers being checked, and then a senior after some more time.
All the staff held Mr. Shoaib in great awe and talked about him in hushed tones. He always used green ink in his pens and during calling-over we could see draft letters written by managers heavily and rudely edited by Mr. Shoaib in his trade mark green ink. We were told that Mr. Shoaib went every weekend to Karachi by plane to spend time at the race club there which was his hobby. This bit of information served to enhance his status further in our eyes and I started to think that perhaps my parents’ decision to make me a chartered accountant was correct after all.
I was sent to the offices of Associated Cement Limited situated at bank square. It was a Karachi office audit and the senior, Mr Roshan, had arrived from Karachi to supervise the assignment. He happened, I found, to be a strict disciplinarian firmly believing in the sanctity of hierarchy. As soon as I arrived, I was told to cast a huge ledger which was so big I had to move it down towards me sinking deep in my chair. Mr Roshan finding me in this pose became angry, shouting, “Where do you think you are sitting, your drawing room? Sit straight.” I immediately said, “yes sir” and sat up. At another time, I had to ask him something about the work assigned to me but instead was severely reprimanded. “Never speak to me directly,” he ordered. “Always speak to me through a semi-senior,” meaning that I should always put my questions to a semi-senior who would, if considered appropriate, ask the senior. Mind you, he was only a senior, not a manager, but still commanded full authority. Later on, however, he became much more friendly and I used to take him sometimes to visit his relations in Chauburji sitting on my bicycle. This audit would always remind me of a tragedy; its partner in charge was flying to Rawalpindi when his plane met with an accident and he died along with other passengers. Who said that an accountant’s life was risk-free?
The auditors’ respect and awe in those days was at another level altogether. We had gone for the Glaxo company’s audit once and, coming back in the evening, joined a long queue for boarding the company bus. The conductor saw us standing in the queue and shouted – “auditors”. The queue parted instantly and we marched proudly to the bus, after which the queue formed again.
My internship was coming to an end and I was becoming anxious to negotiate a three years training contract – articles of apprenticeship – with them. I decided to see our manager Khalid Hussain because I found him to be a cultured and humane person. I started by telling him that I knew that potential candidates would pull all kind of strings to get a place in a reputable firm like Fergusons. I, on the other hand, I told him unfortunately did not have any such contacts and was on my own, asking if I stood any chance. He looked at me and I still remember the exact words of what he said, “You don’t have to worry, Saeed. As long as I am a manager here, I guarantee that you would get articles with Fergusons.” He kept his word and I received a letter on 13 November 1967 signed by Mr Shoaib confirming the offer of articles. I often wonder why he had said this and why did he use the word ‘guarantee’. He could have said something banal like I would get the job if I deserved, etc. but he didn’t. I would remember his kindness and compassion as long as I live.
During winter, I spent most of my time at Packages, an elite company owned by the Babar Ali group manufacturing various kinds of packaging materials. Its modern offices fronted a big garden famous for its annual rose festival held in spring. Due to the tight audit deadline, we had to sit late in the evenings and the dinner was provided by the company served in its vast dining room. It was a luxurious affair; a whole chicken roast per person served with kebabs, vegetables and salads. The company transport used to drop me off at Mozang Chungi every night around ten from where I had to march down to my home about four km away. It used to be bitterly cold in those days and with my hands deep in the pockets of my overcoat I could feel warmth seeping into my veins only after twenty minutes brisk walk. It did my health a lot of good.
We also used to audit the Lahore offices of American film studios, nearly all of whom had their branches here due to the very large number of Hollywood films being exhibited in Pakistan in those days. I remember visiting the offices of Twentieth Century Fox and Universal Studios looking at the prints of many old films stored there. This had reminded me of the film Cleopatra produced by Twentieth Century Fox starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Rex Harrison. We had watched this film at the huge Todd AO equipped screen of the then newly inaugurated Bambino Cinema in Karachi a few years ago. I had immediately fallen in love with the mesmerizing beauty of violet-eyed Elizabeth Taylor and had sent her a poem written by me which ran something like this:
O my dear Elizabeth Taylor
I love you like the sea is loved by a sailor
You are the queen of my heart
Your love has made me weaker and paler.
Among your slaves there are men of all sorts
You are the beloved of so many hearts
That I feel myself very lonely
When I think you are not for me only.
Unlike Sir Dudley Stamp, Elizabeth for some reason did not care to respond to me.
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(11)
The September 1965 Indo-Pakistan war fought for the beautiful valley of Kashmir had actually started five months before and a thousand miles away in a barren desert area called Rann of Kutch.
Rann is a large area of salt marshes in Kutch district of Sindh that spans the border between India and Pakistan. Its ownership had been disputed between the two countries since British days but was currently under a standstill agreement. India had received a serious drubbing from China during the 1962 war and its government was under some pressure to rehabilitate the morale of the army and restore its prestige. It was decided that a small scale conflict with Pakistan in a remote and desolate area might do the trick.
Indian forces started to edge forward in March 1965 and occupied some Pakistani territory despite our protests. Counter attack was launched on 26 April and the captured area was recovered. However, our forces were then ordered by the high command not to capture a causeway which allowed the Indian forces to make a safe retreat through this only exit. According to General Gul Hassan Khan in his memoirs, “Thus a godsend opportunity to humiliate India was lost which may have contributed to them opposing us confidently in Kashmir later. As a saying goes: in a serious struggle there is no worse cruelty than to be magnanimous at an inopportune time.”
The Kutch skirmish had the effect of prompting Pakistan to begin actions to defreeze the long stalemate in Kashmir because seventeen years of diplomatic efforts both at United Nations and with other countries had failed to produce any results. This thinking was further influenced by the belief firmly held by the foreign minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, and consequently by President Ayub Khan and the political leadership – fortunately not shared by the military – that regardless of the hostilities in Kashmir, India would never breech the sanctity of international borders. The strategy involved as a first step launching guerrillas in the disputed area of Indian-held Kashmir to disrupt conditions and to help locals to rise against the Indian Army of occupation. It was named Gibraltar. Another operation complimenting it was called Grandslam, its aim being the capture of Akhnur in Occupied Kashmir severing the only road link between India and Kashmir. Though it was a well-planned strategy, later events proved that intoxicated by the victory in Kutch, the army rushed into Gibraltar and Grandslam before time and without enough preparations. Pyrrhus, the King of Epirus, after defeating the Romans in the battle of Asculum in 279 BC had said, “Another such victory and we are lost.” His words proved prophetic for us.
Guerrilla operations by their nature depend upon help from locals for logistics, communications and intelligence and this requires setting up a web of close contacts with them well before start of operations. This was not done: leaders in Azad Kashmir had been kept totally in the dark supposedly for reasons of security while it had simply been hoped that political leaders in the occupied zone would rise to the occasion when the time came. Despite their goodwill towards Pakistan, this lack of coordination cost our forces heavily. Similarly, Grandslam was launched without ensuring reinforcements which created a huge imbalance compared to the Indian forces present there.
Launch of Gibraltar in August caught India totally by surprise. However, they recovered after some initial setbacks and began attacks all along the cease-fire line with the aim of sealing off the bases of guerrillas in Azad Kashmir. They intended to capture Muzaffarabad, its capital, and link Uri with Poonch. This had been foreseen and operation Grandslam had been planned for this very purpose. However, instead of starting this part of campaign automatically according to plan, the high command procrastinated for a week and it was not launched until the night of 31 August. And then the bombshell dropped the next day. The operation commander, Lt. General Akhtar Hussain Malik was replaced by Lt. General Yahya Khan just a day after the start of operation. The purpose behind this change has never been fully explained. The combined effect of these two decisions was the failure of our advance on Akhnur when, in the meantime, India decided to attack across the international border.
Reports of Indian troops advancing towards our border had started arriving on 4 September, opposite Lahore, Sialkot and Kasur sectors. It was obvious that Indians were reacting to our offensive towards Akhnur. A signal was sent to all formations the same evening warning troops to exercise greater vigilance and move into defensive positions on the night of 5 and 6 September. The only formation which failed to comply with this directive was the 10 Division at Lahore; first reports of Indian attack at the Lahore front on 6 September were sent by observers of Pakistan Air Force, who thankfully had their eyes watching the ground as well as the skies.
It was the same Division that was the first to feel the full brunt of the Indian attack. The enemy forces crossed the border and began marching towards Lahore. Our advanced positions ahead of the BRB canal fought valiantly, gaining valuable time for the rest of the Division to retreat and occupy the defences along the BRB canal. It remained there for the rest of the war repulsing all attempts by the Indians to cross the canal. The BRB canal proved to be as potent a barrier for Indians as the English Channel had been for the Germans in the 2nd World War.
The second front opened by India was Sialkot attacking Jassar bridge, defended by our 15 Division. Pakistan happened to have a small enclave on the Indian side of the River Ravi whereas they had one on our bank. On the night of 6/7 September, both sides attacked each other’s enclaves and occupied them. Here was staged a classic battle of the tanks over the next few days with the Indian First Armoured Division facing our 6 Armoured Division. Indian armour was treading with caution as it hesitated to bypass Chawinda which they attacked ceaselessly. Had this town fallen, the enemy would have had the means to reach the main Lahore-Rawalpindi Road presenting horrendous consequences. The courage, resolve and bravery shown by the Chawinda defenders on these days will always be remembered with golden letters.
The third front was Kasur, defended by 11 Division which was already occupying defensive positions when Indians attacked it on 6 September. The attack was halted and then on 8 September, advancing in enemy territory, our forces captured Khem Karan.
Further down south, Sulaimanki head-works were being defended by 105 Brigade. It took the offensive, attacking enemy positions opposite the head-works and forced it to retreat, securing the head-works. In Lower Sindh, 51 Brigade repulsed an Indian attack, took the war into enemy territory, and captured Monabao railway station.
In terms of aerial warfare, the Pakistan Air Force managed an upper hand over the combat zones despite being numerically inferior. Indian forces attacking Sialkot had done so under cover of a heavy contingent of their planes which could have proved fatal were it not for the PAF planes clearing them off quickly. PAF lost some 20 aircraft in the war while the Indians lost 60–75. When hostilities broke out, the Pakistan Air Force with around 100 F-86s faced an enemy with five times as many combat aircraft; the Indians were also equipped with comparatively modern aircraft inventory. Despite this, the PAF had the advantage of pilots with long flight hours experience and did much better in the conflict. The Pakistan Navy too, though ill equipped, took the Indian port of Dwarka and gave a good account of itself overall.
Counter-offensives launched by both combatants met with resistance; the war was soon heading for a stalemate with both countries holding territory of the other. After a hectic diplomatic activity at the United Nations Security Council, a cease fire was agreed by both countries on 23 September 1965. According to Kazimi, “1965 war is one of the most curious wars in history. Initially, both sides claimed victory, subsequently both sides admitted defeat.” Gul Hassan summed it up: “Pakistan had taken the initiative in Kashmir but failed to exploit it; India had a huge superiority in manpower and equipment but was unable to use it to its advantage.”
India and Pakistan were both invited for talks by USSR which were held in the city of Tashkent in Uzbekistan on 4-10 January 1966. Pakistani delegation was led by President Ayub Khan, Indian delegation by prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and USSR delegation by prime minister Alexei Kosygin. The agreement signed on 10 January provided for withdrawal of all forces to their pre-5 August 1965 positions and a promise to settle disputes by peaceful means.
Pakistani public generally reacted unfavourably to the settlement. Foreign minister Z.A. Bhutto exploited the sentiments to gradually turn it into a widespread movement and his arrest on 13 November 1968 did not help matters. On top of this, the government’s ill-advised decision to celebrate the ‘Decade of Development’ with overblown fanfare and indecent publicity infuriated the masses further and turned even neutral people against the President. Frustrated by the political storm blowing all around him, and failing to appease the growing demands of political leaders – who had now combined to form Democratic Action Front – President Ayub Khan resigned on 25 March 1969, handing over power to the Commander-in-Chief Army, Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan.
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The ten years rule of President Ayub Khan can be termed as one of the best in the country’s history from the points of view of political stability, economic prosperity and religious tolerance.
The Economist/banker Ishrat Husain in his book ‘Governing the Ungovernable’ informs us that, “There is a virtual consensus among the analysts and economic historians that Pakistan had three episodes of rapid growth: 1960 to 1969, 1979 to 1988 and 2003 to 2007.” Pakistan grew faster in South Asia by an average of 2 percent through most of the 1960’s and according to the World Bank (2002), Pakistan exported more manufactured goods than Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Turkey combined in 1965. Industrial sector grew by an average of 9.1 percent per annum during period 1958-70.
Analysing the causes of such stellar performance during the Ayub era, Hussain believes that, “Continuity and consistency of policies, combined with incentives to the private sector, a strong planning commission setting a clear direction, and the green revolution in agriculture, all made significant contributions. . . . . The green revolution, brought about by high yielding varieties of wheat and rice, along with large scale public investment in storage dams and irrigation, made Pakistan self-sufficient in food production. The construction of the Indus Basin Works increased the availability of irrigation water by 40% over the 1960’s.”
Land reforms prohibited farms smaller than 12.5 acres and larger than 1000 acres. Larger farms encouraged mechanization producing higher output while distribution of surplus land to tenants also raised productivity. The effect of these policies was a sharp rise in economic growth. The growth rate in the 1960’s hovered around 6 percent annually, notwithstanding the shock of war with India in 1965.
However, there was a flip side to all this. This period also experienced sharp income inequalities, both individually and regionally. Living standards of most of the people improved only marginally – index of real wages improved by only 2 percent during the 1960’s. Public expenditure on education and health remained dismal. The Chief Economist, Mahbub ul Haq, revealed in 1968 the startling statistic that 22 industrial family groups dominated the economic and financial life-cycle of Pakistan, controlling about two-thirds of industrial assets and 80% of banking and insurance assets. It did not go unnoticed in East Pakistan that almost all these families belonged to West Pakistan.
Resentment was already growing among Bengalis who accused Ayub’s government of reducing the East to an internal colony. It was said that the majority of development projects were being set up in West Pakistan (WP), civil and military services were mainly staffed with West Pakistanis, and that WP had fattened itself on the foreign currency earned by the export of jute grown in Bengal. These beliefs were partly true but ignored the fact that common people in WP had also not benefited from such development. Awami League president, Mujibur Rahman had in 1966 come up with a Six-Point formula for provincial autonomy under which all powers would rest with the provinces with the exception of foreign affairs, defence and currency. Initially treated as unrealistic and even fantastical, agitation for this demand gradually grew in East Pakistan during the next three years and was the leading cause of success of the political movement against President Ayub Khan.
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And with this we close the third chapter, which covered the second decade reflecting some very crucial years of our lives. I was then hoping to turn from a boy into a man. Who was it that said once, “A boy plays at being a man. A man steps up and acts like one.” The third decade was going to unfold a script for us, both I and my country, dramatically different from the one we had experienced so far, so decisive and pivotal in fact, that our lives had changed forever by the time it came to an end.
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