The quiet diplomat

Above everything else, above love for books, for paintings, good food… is Marker's love for Western classical music.

A few retired people caught in the scrap heap of life still remember him fondly even if they don’t meet him often, now that he has been confined to a wheel chair.  Some still remember him as a cricket commentator on the radio. As he spoke in English, he didn’t fall into the trap that an Urdu commentator did years later when he unwittingly described Kapil Dev as the greatest stud in the game for balling all day. He was an outstanding citizen and one of the few Pakistanis to have gotten into the Guinness Book of Records after having earned the distinction of being the world’s longest serving ambassador and for being an ambassador to more countries than any other person. He was totally devoid of the ethnic whimsy of some of his colleagues, especially those whose self-image parted company with its reality a long time ago. He is a linguist who speaks English, Urdu, Gujrati, French, German and Russian. He is also an author of three books, one of which, Quiet Diplomacy, chronicled his life in the Foreign Service. But those who are close to him, and I happen to be a member of the small tribe that is fast becoming extinct, will say that above everything else, above his love for books, for paintings and for good food… is his love for Western classical music of every vintage.



In case you haven’t guessed the identity of the person I am writing about, it is Jamsheed KA Marker, ambassador extraordinaire, a gentleman of the old school with impeccable manners, a kind, helpful and generous person respected by those who tried to follow in his footsteps, a man who never lost his sense of humility or fair play. The fact that he had been sent by his parents to Doon School in Dehra Dun probably had a great deal to do with developing his taste for the finer things in life; for one of the things that Indian boarding schools excelled in was turning students into responsible human beings. I first met Jamshed as he came to be known, in the prehistoric days when cigars could still be imported from East Pakistan and nobody knew we had an ozone layer until something pointed out that there was a hole in it. Jamshed frequently held an open house and anybody who had a taste for Western classical music, irrespective of whether he was a Bolshie or an Existentialist or somebody who could extol the virtues of the Browning Version for hours, could drop in for a sandwich and a lager and listen to recordings of a Beethoven symphony or Sonata. The musical soirees have continued. But they have become less frequent. The one that took place at his residence last Wednesday certainly bears mention.  It was a truly unique experience.

Two DVDs were screened. The second was Beethoven’s Symphony No.9. But it was the first film which was sensational. We were transported to a small skiing holiday resort tucked away in the Alps in the canton of Valais in southwest Switzerland. In this beautiful location, the Verbier Festival and the academy was celebrating its 10th anniversary Piano Extravaganza. The programme was simply dripping with jewels. But what made the concert special and distinctive was that eight world famous concert pianists were on hand… and there were also eight Steinway grand pianos. While four hands tackled the Mozart Sonata on one piano, 16 hands interpreted Gioachino Rossini’s Semiramide overture and Richard Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries on eight pianos… all played at the same time. They certainly carried the dead heroes to Walhalla.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 20^th, 2014.

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