The legend lives on

The first voice that went on air on behalf of Pakistan Television — on Thursday, November 26, 1964 — has gone mute for good. Tariq Aziz is no more. A man of many talents, he was a broadcaster, an actor, poet, politician, philanthropist, and what not. But to describe him in one single word best suited to his personality, Tariq Aziz was a patriot — a through and through Pakistani. Whatever he did during his life, of 84 years, carried a strong imprint of a soldier-like patriotism. Pakistan Zindabad! — his famous, boisterous chant that would herald the end his iconic weekly quiz show Neelam Ghar — that ran for a record four decades on PTV — speaks of his sheer nationalism. It was his strong attachment to a Pakistani product, the PTV, that never let him join any private production house even though lots and lots of money was up for grabs.

Tariq Aziz was a self-made person who thrived purely on talent. From Radio Pakistan to Pakistan Television and films, it was solely his talent that carved out a way forward for him. Though most of his contribution relates to the world of entertainment and infotainment due to which he was widely acknowledged as the most popular PTV personality, he was a true Man of Letters, having penned books on poetry and literature — Hamzad Da Dukh and Iqbal Shanasi — that earned him critical acclaim. In the words of Dr Mehdi Hassan, a renowned academic and one of his friends since his days of struggle, Tariq Aziz had been far ahead of a lot of poets and authors had he concentrated a little bit more on this side. Tariq Aziz also joined politics, and was even elected to the National Assembly in 1996, but like his literary talent, his politics was also overtaken by his TV career.

A Pride of Performance he was awarded with, in 1992, is no match to the contribution and services of a true legend that was Tariq Aziz. Here he says his last salaam to all dekhti aankon aur sunte kaano.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 18^th, 2020.

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