A man for all seasons

In 1962-63, I was a first-year fool in Government College (GC), Lahore. Coming from an ordinary Urdu medium school, the all-English environment overawed me. In the economics class, Professor Fiza-ur-Rehman warned those feeling uncomfortable with English to consider changing the subject. But I persisted and survived until 1972 including a teaching stint. Shoaib Hashmi, who left us mourning, had a hand in it. When I entered his economics class a little bit late, I was greeted with a cheerful grin by a handsome person dressed impeccably and puffing a lot of smoke. He waited until all of us were there, greeting all, as if taking a silent roll call. Speaking a mix of English and Urdu with Punjabi fun words thrown in between, he quoted Carlyle to say that economics was a dismal science. It was not hard to learn, though. This was a surprising statement from a fresh MSc from London School of Economics teaching the then most abstained choices — mathematical economics and econometrics. He was funny, at times to the extent of appearing non-serious. Some colleagues of his actually dubbed him so. However, after attending his classes for some time, one felt that fun came to him naturally; he used it to keep the attention of the class before making a rigorous statement. Keynes’ famous anti-depression prescription of digging holes was explained thus: “Agar tum principal office ke samne khadda khodo aur government pay kare tau ye anti-depression policy ho gi.”

All his comedy serials on PTV were educative and informative. If he had his way, he would want the entire Lahore to come out to celebrate Mela Chirgaan and other festivals like any great funfair in the world. Being son-in-law of Faiz Ahmad Faiz had not ideologised him. He admired his poetry, even translated some verses, but remained a liberal who also had a sense of humour. His apolitical nature and balanced proclivities did not prevent banning of a serial and time behind bars. Students these days do not look beyond their subjects and departments, one explanation for narrow perspectives. In those days, teachers like Shoaib Hashmi walked us through the world beyond economics. We would follow him in the Government College Dramatic Club, in the English Literary Circle and Sondhi Translation Society. We would cross the road into the Psychology Department to attend Dr Ajmal’s lecture and have gup shup with his brother Humair, besides Parvez, Seema and Khalid Saeed alias Young One. My first ever visit to Radio Pakistan, Lahore, was also due to Shoaib Hashmi’s ‘Chalo chalo’ refrain. While I was walking down the slope one evening, his Volkswagen stopped by me. “Chalo chalo jaldi karo, betho.” Within a few minutes, we were in the National College of Arts. We were already four and two more forced in. One was, of course, Salima Hashmi and the other a very young Nayyara Noor, off to sing her first song.

In this very month in 1972, the rupee was massively devalued from Rs4.76 to Rs11.00 per US$. The Masters students organised a debate between Shoaib Hashmi and myself to discuss its impact. Shoaib wondered how could ‘chotta’ Hashmi stand up to him on such a serious matter, a reference to my last name that was also Hashmi. Later on, I dropped the suffix. Was I angry or felt belittled I do not know. But I do remember him having the last laugh by convincing the house that devaluation was a bad idea.

Up above in the world so high, he must be making every one laugh!

Published in The Express Tribune, May 19^th, 2023.

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