Memories of yore

Part of this is going to be a personal column recalling days gone by, gentle days when this country was so very different from the angry place we see today. When clean buses and trains ran on time; when it was safe for women to travel on their own: when, indeed, young girls cycled to college in Lahore and other big cities without being leered at and teased as if those that were behaving like Yahoos were not born of women.

But also of those sad days when we lost half our country after bloody strife in which tens of thousands of Pakistanis died and which is well documented in many books and journals of the time. The atrocities committed by both sides, even before the actual hostilities began, must be accepted and atoned for. I agree with Professor Bangash who wrote in this space just yesterday that especially after the brouhaha in Pakistan after Quader Molla’s execution, there is a great need for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission if we are to move ahead. Where we will find our version of Bishop Tutu I do not know, however.

I will start with my school, Cadet College, Hasan Abdal, which has been discussed in several articles over the past two weeks, bringing to my memory long-lost friends that one made there and at college (Forman Christian, Lahore); our days at the PMA and in the army. Indeed of those who went into civilian life. Many remain friends to this day and one is grateful to the Almighty that He has made it so.

The handsome and kind-hearted Naeem Akhtar, my Wing Commander in Aurangzeb Wing who gave me three rounds of the Oval on my first night at school because he heard me singing in bed when on his rounds, as we slept outside under mosquito netting. Naeem won the Sword of Honour and died a young death, aged 21, on the Haji Pir Pass, one more brilliant young Pakistani sacrificed for little reason.

Munir Akhtar, his younger brother who was my classmate and their eldest brother Naseer Akhtar, who I first met on one of his trips from PMA, where he was a first-termer, to see his brothers. Naseer rose to be Lieutenant-General and was always a kind, affectionate and caring senior. Munir last heard of was in Chicago working as a civil servant.

Tahir Ali Qureshi, my classmate, but like Salim Beg and Sher Afgan in the ‘A’ Section, boring, serious fellows, while us ‘B’ wallahs were considered the more outgoing and social and flamboyant! Tahir who became a lieutenant general and retired some years ago and now is to be found on ‘shikar’ most winters was always a good man; his rank never got to his head. What my pal Colonel Farhatullah Khan, now sadly passed on (RIP), used to call a ‘Khanedani Aadmi’.

Sher Afgan joined the foreign service and was our ambassador to several countries, including Thailand and Turkey and retired as special secretary in the ministry: a better human being would be hard to find. Salim Beg is an investment adviser based in Lahore, a generous friend and well known for his deep insight into the world of stocks and shares of which I know neither head nor tail. (E.g. in early 1970, I bought shares worth Rs4,000 in the National Shipping Co., thinking we would soon win the war in then East Pakistan!). Four years later, an old friend Haroon Kayani, the great jurist MR Kayani’s son, who was working in the ICP, helped me unload them after paying a penalty of Rs12,000! Er, in 1974, you could buy a plot in F-6, Islamabad, for the amount, which would today be worth 16 crore!

Special mention to Iftikhar Ali Khan, later lieutenant general and secretary of defence, again a caring and gentle person who always met one affectionately, now sadly passed on. A great sportsman was ‘Ifti’ as even the juniors called him: ‘Ifti sir’; son of the respected Brigadier Fateh Khan of Chakri and elder brother of Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. What a treat it was to see Ifti bowl at cricket.

Enough of the personal stuff for now, more remembrances next week, about Rashid and Hafeez Ali Malik, the Pervez cousins, Arif Chaudhry and all, for a most important matter must be mentioned: and that is the knee-jerk Pakistani reaction to Abdul Quader Molla’s hanging by Bangladesh. As if we were not in enough hot water, here we go again.

While the FO gave out a sober and intelligent statement, it is most disappointing to see some of our politicians go overboard: Makhdoom Javed Hashmi anointing the man with the honourific ‘Shaheed-e-Pakistan’ for instance. Does no one realise that Pakistan has very few friends as it is, and here we are, wantonly antagonising a fellow member of Saarc?

I’ll tell you what: since Makhdoom Sahib is so incensed over what happened to Molla and he is also president of the PTI, why does the government of K-P not invite the ‘Pakistanis’ — Biharis who are living miserable lives in refugee camps in Bangladesh to come settle in K-P?

Vast areas of the province are barren and without any population, so why not open them up to the Biharis just like Sindh was opened up to refugees from India after Partition?

In the end, my deep concern at threats to Imran Khan’s life for his pro-polio vaccination stance. Let all Pakistanis condemn this threat vociferously and loudly and let the National Assembly pass a resolution condemning it unequivocally. We cannot let the brutes get away with this arrogant and dangerous intimidation.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 20^th, 2013.

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