Windmills of My Mind: Azhar Kidvai (6)

1948 - Karachi

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I sent this letter to my daughter, in 2008

45 years after Abi's death.

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My dearest Ragni

It was on the 18th of September 1963 when my ship docked in Karachi just before 9AM. I was the 2nd Officer and - although it was usual for the 3rd Officer to stay on duty for the first night - I was asked to go home immediately and be back at 4PM for the night shift because our 3rd Officer was unwell and wanted to go home and rest. Though not upset at this switch, my mind was a mix of feelings, mainly fear, as the ropes were cast out to the quay and sailors exchanged greetings with those who had gathered to receive them. Why fear? Let me backtrack.

It was a small, slow ship (9.5 knots - that's 9.5 nautical miles per hour - was what it clocked at best!). We had left the last port almost 2 weeks ago. That was the port where, in the days before electronic communications and instant phone calls, we had received our last packages of mail - a full 3 weeks after the bunch before that which had almost driven me mad, as there had been none in that mailbag for me. That was really unusual.

In my last port I now excitedly opened my rubber-banded packet and was surprised to find only two letters from Abi among the 20+ that had arrived. My father usually wrote me twice a week (!) so I was used to getting bunches of 6-8 each time the mail bundles were distributed. Tearing the envelopes apart I was horrified to find that he'd had two heart attacks over the past month and been in hospital for weeks. A letter from a friend that I opened next was, chronologically, the latest. It said - and I recall the sentence even today - "Uncle keeps saying he wishes you'd be back in time!"

In time? For what!??? - Of course I understood as I fought back tears. I ran up and pleaded with the Captain to let me go ashore and make a phone call home and get an update. It took the Chief Engineer's pressure and support of my plea to get the Captain to agree. I was taken to the Port Phone Office and 'booked' a call to Karachi and was told that the 'waiting time to Pakistan was 4-5 hours." - The ship was in the harbor for a little over 6 hours and, although I waited and waited until I just had to return, I did not get through.

From the time I left that little crowded room, leaving many others waiting just as anxiously, I was trembling. I had no idea if my father was ill or well, even alive or dead. Of course, I feared the worst. All through the the two week trip, in both my 'watches' - particularly the one that was from Midnight to 4 AM each day - almost alone on the ship's bridge, in the pitch dark, on an empty sea for as far as one could look,I drank coffee, smoked my pipe, fought crazy scenarios that fear produced, and tried to stay sane. I even prayed in my mind.

As an only child who had run away from home to sea, I had missed out a lot of the companionship of a father who doted upon me and, for whom, my being away long periods was a source of great pain. We had been separated when I was between 5 and 7, when the aftermath of WW2 had kept him away. And then I had been away again, for the period I was in Lahore. And, finally, I had left home at 18 .... 5 years before the time I am now writing about. So. he and i had really spent only 9 years of our lives together (not counting the vacations from the ship every year). That seems so strange - even to me - given the influence he had in shaping many of my thoughts, given all that he taught me, all that he did for me. But I digress.

So ... it was the fear of not knowing if I'd find my father alive or not that made me tremble as I informed the Chief Officer as soon as we were berthed in Karachi that I was rushing off and would be back for my duty at 4PM. The 20-minute taxi ride home was a clichéd eternity. I ran up the stairs, rang the bell and banged at the door. A smiling Abi opened it. We hugged. We kissed. I could not believe it. He told me that he'd recovered entirely just a week or so earlier and was now resting at home. He was going to start returning to his work bit by bit, starting the next week. Except for the first signs of gray hair - his beard had grayed earlier but his hair was glistening jet-black and no one believed he didn't dye it - he looked just as I'd left him a few months ago. I was crazy with happiness. We talked. I promised that the next evening, my evening off, we'd listen to the new records I'd bought. I showed him a card trick I'd learnt. He recited a ghazal he'd written while in hospital. Ummi and I hugged, laughed, thrilled to see Abi being his normal self again.

Around 8PM I was told that the night cargo shift had been cancelled and there'd be no work. I dozed off ... relaxed after days of tension. At 10PM I got up again and walked down the quay to phone home. No answer. Several rings. Nothing. Karachi's phones are bad even now but were infinitely worse then. I decided - late though it was - to call the people who lived in the flat next door. The gentleman asked me when I had returned, how the trip was, and a host of other things. I answered all that and said I was not being able to get through to my house. He said, casually, "Oh they must be at the hospital."

I learnt that two hours after I left home Abi had had another heart attack. I was dumbfounded. Why had no one from among my cousins or other relatives sent me word? I went hurrying back to the captain. He was adamant: Work or no work, I could not leave the ship. I went down again and phoned up the 3rd Officer who, despite his high fever, promised to come back and let me go. In less than 30 minutes, his dad had driven him to the ship and offered to take me to the hospital. We spoke to the captain who said that he would allow no such thing because we had taken the liberty of this decision without first asking him. The 3rd Officer's father said that it was, after all, his son's duty evening and I had done a favour. Now, the situation had changed and his son was willing to stay on board. No go. Captain Wallace - how can I ever forget that man? I had served as a cadet under him during his Chief Officer days; He'd known me for 3 years! He'd been treated by my father when he had had a bout of food poisoning - was absolutely unbudgeable. In fact he now forbade me to leave the ship to even go down and phone and ordered the 3rd officer's dad off the ship.

I went back to my cabin, heartbroken at not being at Abi's side - and specially Ummi's, during another trying moment for her. Just before 7 AM, Pudlo (Kamal Abbasi) arrived to say that Abi was in a critical condition and I should go with him. He said he had already spoken with the captain who was fine with the idea. Guess he had to be. Pudlo's father, Izhar Bhai, was the Chairman of the Karachi Port Trust and had called up the ship-owner who had already sent the captain instructions at 6AM, I learnt later!

Off we went. When on Bunder Road, instead of turning left for the hospital, Pudlo continued driving I said "You've missed the turn..." and he said, "Sorry, I forgot the hospital road" ... it seemed a genuine mistake. When we reached the hospital I found my old khaloo sitting on the footsteps outside and rushed past him asking "which room?' and he said "Azhar's gone home", I was overjoyed. Just a passing bad heart attack again. He'd be back on his feet soon. The uncle got into the car and I kept screaming (I must admit that I realize I was rude when I re-enact the scene in my mind, as I often do). Why had no one called me? Everyone else who couldn't have mattered as much as I had been there at night, I learnt, as I was being told about the details of what had happened. Nuzhat's family, Farrukh Chacha's family, Nihal Bhai, even two neighbours! Everyone but me. Still, I swore I'd look after him today onwards. I prepared in my mind the draft of the letter I would send to the bloody S V Wallace, resigning from that ship and company and giving both a piece of my mind

The car swerved and parked at my house. Nihal Bhai was in the balcony , shouting "Zaheer - Jaldee oopar aao. Chachchee kay paas." ... I jumped out of the car and bounded up the stairs, taking two steps at a time and, suddenly, stopped midway. My mind was just beginning to make sense of the fleeting image I had seen with my peripheral vision on my dash up to the house and stairs from the car. I reeled, turned, and staggered down and walked slowly towards my father's body as it lay on a bed outside the empty apartment below while the room was being prepared to move it in and give him his last bath.

He'd passed away early morning, on the 19th of the month that he always laughed and called Sitamgar - instead of September. He'd had a stroke at 7PM the night before and a brain hemorrhage at 3 AM that left him partially paralyzed and incoherent. At the time of his death he'd just asked Ummi to make him his morning tea and folded his hands to pray while lying down - once an atheist, he was now meticulous about all his prayers and recited them 8 times a day: the 5 obligatory ones, plus Tahajjüd, Chaasht, and Ishraaq. An end to a life that - despite the tragic and difficult last decade and a half - he lived with humour and honesty (the first needed, perhaps, to deal with the repercussions of the second!)

As I write this for, you, Ragni, it's 40 years ago almost to the hour that I bathed my father and planted the last kiss on his forehead. And I'd give anything - ANYTHING - to be able to hold him again.

Much love

Abi

13:45 / 19.09.2008