Love Pakistan tour: Chacha Pakistani reaches Sukkur, but no one welcomes him

The tour, from Karachi to Lahore, aims to promote love for Pakistan.

SUKKUR:

Jawed Akhtar alias Chacha Pakistani was unhappy with the Sukkur administration, because nobody was there to welcome him when he reached the city, on his motorcycle late Wednesday night.

Chacha Pakistani departed from Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s Mausoleum in Karachi on August 1, he visited Hyderabad and other cities and then decided on a two-day stop in Sukkur. He will leave for Rahim Yar Khan on Friday morning and will pass through many big and small cities. Chacha Pakistani’s final destination is the mausoleum of Allama Mohammad Iqbal; he hopes to arrive there on August 14.

Chacha Pakistani told The Express Tribune that he has been taking this tour for the last nine years, on his own expense. He works as a driver in a private firm and lives in a rented house in Korangi. “The objective of my motorcycle tour is to preach peace and love for Pakistan, because nowadays people have lost their love for our homeland,” he explained.

Chacha Pakistani used to live in Hyderabad where he observed that cinema houses would play the national anthem before starting any movie and the entire audience, irrespective of their religion and language, would stand up in respect. “Nine years later, my wife and I went to watch a movie in Hyderabad’s New Majestic cinema. The cinema administration played the national anthem,” he recalled. “But nobody stood up.”

The patriotic Chacha said that he was unable to sleep that night, and the very next morning he decided to undertake a tour from Karachi to Lahore on his motorcycle to promote love for Pakistan among the younger generation.

His trusty steed is tastefully decorated with Pakistani flags of different sizes, pictures national leaders and martyrs of the Pakistan Army. Chacha Pakistani added that even though the annual trip costs him a fortune, he will continue it because it is his passion.

Chacha Pakistani was at one point so heavily in debt that he had to sell his house in Hyderabad to pay his loans and continue his mission. Chacha Pakistani has two sons, four daughters and a wife who is very unhappy with his yearly tour. “She often fights with me about my mission, and asks me to quit because it is disturbing our domestic budget,” he said. But he explained that he is addicted to his love for Pakistan and if his finances are limited then he will sell his belongings to end his craving, the way heroin addicts sell everything they own.

Chacha Pakistani lamented that if he were Shahid Afridi or Chacha Cricket then all the big companies and the government would have supported him. “I am Chacha Pakistani and nobody cares about me.”

Published in The Express Tribune, August 5^th, 2011.