(Sabeen Mahmud's Poem)

i am tired.

tired of running

tired of the struggle

tired of arguing

tired of explaining

tired of the machinations of the rich

tired of the mumbo jumbo

tired of the greedy

tired of the bored

tired of the dumb

tired of the petty

tired of waiting for another day

tired of being polite

tired of corporate crime

tired of generals

tired of taxes

tired of banks

tired of coping

tired of the silence

tired of the battles

tired of the smug

tired of the manipulators

tired of being tired

tired of life

stop the world. i want to get off.

•

Here is my poem on her

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Transliterations by Saif Mahmood

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English Version by Sophia Pandeya

Sabeen: A Letter and a Tribute

An old letter from Sabeen on one of her birthdays

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Click on the letters to see them in readable size

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'You refused to cower in silence': A letter to fallen Pakistani comrade Sabeen Mahmud

Beena Sarwar  · Yesterday · 08:15 am

Dear Sabeen,

Photo: Zaheer A. Kidvai

Old friend, comrade, upholder of all kinds of freedoms, lover of tehzeeb, Faiz, Eqbal Ahmad, qawwali and stray animals…

Must we write about you in the past tense?

I'm trying to remember when we first met: Karachi, in the late 1980s after I returned from college. Ammi’s friend Zaheer Kidvai who I had a rapport with introduced us. He refused to be called “uncle”. He was always just Zaheer (later Zak) – not just for me, but also for you, ten years my junior.

Zak, the maverick former merchant navy techie brought new ideas about education and technology to Karachi. He introduced Apple computers to Pakistan and took you under his wing. He saw your potential and roped you in to his zany, maverick world. You and Zak: my two die-hard coffee-loving Mac junkie friends – Zak is Zakintosh in some social media accounts.

On Saturday, his own frail health notwithstanding, he attended your funeral, the funeral of his adopted daughter. Zak’s wife Nuzhat, a fiery activist herself, has been solidly by your mother’s side in hospital as they operate to get the bullets out. A single mother with an only child. It was too late before they even got you to the hospital.

The funeral, appropriately enough, left not from your house but the place you made a home for yourself and so many others: The Second Floor, community space, coffee shop, bookstore and art gallery.

How many initiatives have we been together in since the 1990: Peace Action Karachi, People’s Resistance, Citizens for Democracy, Citizens for Free and Responsible Media, to name some. You were on the board of Madanjeet Singh’s South Asia Foundation, and among the Young Leaders network of Asia Society. I remember our excitement when South Asia Foundation invited us to Srinagar – and then the letdown when we didn’t get the visas in time.

I had fun filming my Kashmir documentary Milne Do at T2F’s old premises, with Asim’s mural on the wall: you, Basharat Peer, Saad Haroon.

There was that amazing Social Media Summit you organised in Karachi a couple of years ago, for which you flew in Indian participants. Uncomfortable with being in the limelight, you pushed me into introducing the first session and the last-minute concluding press conference with interior minister Rehman Malik. How it amused you were when people assumed I had organised it. You never wanted the limelight or to take credit – a rare quality especially in an age where everyone wants to be a star.

A numbing shock

News about Sabeen Mahmud being shot dead hit like a bolt from the blue on Friday. Friends around the world, particularly in our home city Karachi, are shell-shocked.

“How many will they kill?” asks one person after another. Many cry uncontrollably.

I call Jibran Nasir, the lawyer-activist who is in the US addressing campuses and communities around the country. Sabeen was his mentor and friend, and one of the founders of Pakistan For All with him. They had formed human chains around churches after the bomb blast at a church in Peshawar in 2012 and were fighting for an inclusive, democratic Pakistan.

Jibran was in the middle of a presentation at Columbia University in New York when texts started coming in about Sabeen. Although shocked and grief-struck, he is resolute about taking forward Sabeen’s legacy of speaking out. He plans to start all his upcoming talks with Sabeen so “Pakistanis in America can see what a gem we lost”.

Some hours later, I speak to Zak – by then it’s early morning in Pakistan. He’s just come home from the morgue and the hospital. “I haven’t cried yet,” he says. Or slept, obviously. He's been dealing with all the formalities, including police reports.

According to some reports, the police are trying to pass the attack off as a robbery attempt. No one’s buying that. Five bullets – in the chest, neck and face – the last one going through and hitting Sabeen’s mother Mahenaz, who was hit with other bullets too.

She’s numb too, says Zak. She’s been operated upon, and all but one bullet removed which they couldn’t find. She knew that Sabeen was no more when she called out to Sabeen and took her hand after the bullets hit.

They were in their car at a signal from where Zak and his wife Nuzhat had just turned left, going ahead for dinner somewhere. “We’d barely reached the next signal when Mahenaz called saying, ‘Come back, we’ve been shot,’” says Zak.

Two clean-shaven young men on a motorbike had pulled up and fired at Sabeen, who was driving, her mother next to her, the driver at the back.

Driver at the back? Why?

“Sabeen se koi kaun poochta kyun,” says Zaheer. I can hear the smile in his voice. “She did what she wanted.”

Mercifully, Sabeen died instantly. As she slumped over, they fired another shot into her back. Then they took off.

Passers-by helped get Sabeen into the back seat. The driver took them to the nearest hospital. Zak and Nuzhat reached a minute later. Nuzhat took Mahenaz to the Agha Khan hospital across town. Zak stayed with Sabeen, pronounced dead on arrival.

Engage, always engage

They had been on their way back from a well-attended event on Balochistan at the arts-café-community centre The Second Floor – a project of Sabeen’s non-profit Peaceniche started in partnership with Zak. The idea was “to promote democratic discourse and conflict resolution through intellectual and cultural engagement”.

T2F has over the years become a hub for the arts, “a community space for open dialogue” with a coffeehouse, bookshop, an exhibition gallery and a staff that adored Sabeen. It didn’t matter what religion they were or how young or old. Though straight-talking and direct, refusing to suffer fools, she treated everyone with the respect and courtesy, especially those at a social or economic disadvantage.

How many writers have had their first readings or launched books at T2F, filmmakers premiered their films, artists displayed their works, singers, musicians and playwrights shared their talents.

And political discussions. T2F was a hub for discussions about the political dissent that grew around General Musharraf’s Emergency imposed in 2007. When Sabeen learnt that a young, unknown lawyer named M. Jibran Nasir was running as an independent in the 2013 elections, with just Rs 50,000, she got in touch, heard him out, then put her full faith in him. For the next five weeks, he could use T2F for her corner meetings and campaigning – at no charge.

Most importantly she gave him a voice. Just as she gave a voice to anyone who needed it – Ahmadis, Shias, and Baloch – to anyone who felt oppressed or needed to vent and “to let out their anger”, as Jibran puts it.

For him, “Sabeen was a guide, mentor, teacher, facilitator, enabler, catalyst."

As he reminded me when I called him, “Sabeen’s legacy was to speak out. Her legacy was not to cower in silence.”

That is why she agreed to host an event at T2F on Balochistan, featuring activists like Mama Qadeer, Farzana Baloch, and Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur. They’re among those who have been highlighting the case of the missing persons of Pakistan’s least-developed province, but richest in mineral resources. A province wracked by a separatist uprising stemming from a demand for equitable treatment and a share of their own resources; resources that Pakistan has recently signed an agreement with China to develop. (Besides the $485 billion, a bonus is that “China knows how to curb insurgents”, as a brigadier told a friend recently).

Holding open discussions on Balochistan is pretty much a no-go area in Pakistan. Geo TV’s Hamid Mir was shot at last April after he had been speaking out about exactly this. The fallout from the episode led to Pakistan’s largest media group being brought to its knees.

Just a month ago, one of the country’s premier educational institutes, the Lahore University of Management Sciences cancelled a seminar titled “Unsilencing Balochistan”, featuring the same speakers who attended and addressed the T2F event, citing pressure from the government.

And yet when the young organisers approached Sabeen to hold the event there, she agreed despite the risks, the threats, the misgivings, all of which she was very aware of. She knew the risks she ran:

Another discussion on Balochistan is scheduled on May 6 at Karachi University. Will it take place now, is the question.

Already the disinformation campaign and character assassination has begun from those I call the Dirty Tricks Brigade (#DTBPk), just as it did after the attack on Hamid Mir and the cancellation of the LUMS seminar.

After Sabeen’s murder, “those who feel scared and cowed, and feel they should not speak out because it’s too dangerous, there would be no greater insult to Sabeen’s legacy if you do that”, says Jibran. “If you loved her, loved her work, loved the issues she loved, keep speaking out and raising your voice. We must do this to fulfil the dream of the Pakistan that Sabeen dreamed of, a country where there’s no discrimination in the name of religion, language, ethnicity or any pretext.”

The bullets pumped into Sabeen may have silenced her physically, but her legacy lives on. Her many admirers, friends and fellow-travellers will not let it die. For a start, here’s the link to the Tumblr site created as a tribute to Sabeen by friend and fellow techie Sabahat Ashraf that friends and followers can contribute to.

Photo by Rez

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Four Years …

and not a day passes without your thoughts!

There is a reason to support T2F …

Sabeen Mahmud, born 20th June, 1974, was assassinated on 24th April, 2015 by those that hated Pakistan.

She was marvellous in every way. I knew her for 26 amazing years as a Student, as an amazing Colleague, as a Friend, as a member of my Extended Family, as a Mentee, and as a Mentor!

I was in the car behind her a few seconds later, after the event at T2F, and had just turned left when she was shot. I was at the hospital when she was pronounced dead.

Sabeen started T2F (The Second Floor - since it was on that floor where she opened it).. There were 6 other founding members and I was one of them*.

The concept behind T2F - a not-for-profit NGO, was to have a place to sit and chat and discuss things with others that one rarely, if ever, met otherwise. 

One object was supposed to ensure that guns and violence would end. People would listen to others. Discuss and talk about their views. Learn from each other. At least be willing to understand that in a free country there were going to be 'other' views, too … and, if not agreeing with them, one could allow them to exist. Or change them through discussions.

In most cases ARGUMENTS meant FIGHTS; T2F felt that DISCUSSIONS promoted UNDERSTANDINGS.

The exhibition space of T2F was meant for Large Discussions, Qavvaalis, Music, Book Launches, Science ka Adda, Urdu Preservation Project, Arts, Performances, Photography Shows, Plays. Even courses or small discussions helped many people to share their ideas. People from around the world have spoken or performed at T2F. 

There have been many other things that T2F has done: Creative Karachi Festival at Alliance Francaise (another one coming up shortly!), T2F supporting SOT recently at Beach Luxury, and many more.

Internationally it held Dil Phaink in London - a large exhibition of taking Karachi to London! It won an Award from Prince Claus Funds in Nederlands.

When Sabeen was assassinated, major newspapers and events around the world - from Universities to the main road events - mentioned her, wrote articles about her, featured her in books, and even composed music about her.

All this has survived, often with great difficulty, for 11 years now. Most of it through support by its fans. 

You must understand and believe that supporting T2F is a tribute to the greatest public place in Pakistan. Drop a tip when you attend an event. Whether it is a rupee or thousands, in cash or by bank account. It needs your support to go on.

If you are into Qavvaalis, do go to the Arts Council T2F Fundraiser with Fareed and Abu. Tickets are Rs 2000 each and the evening will be truly great.

*

I left T2F after Sabeen's death …

for working without her seemed impossible.

I rejoined as Director when Khalid Mahmood took the place over from Sabeen's mother, who found it difficult to carry on working there through this terrible tragedy. KM and others wanted a person there who had been part of the original team.

Having left the Directorship on the 1st August 2017, I stayed on as Executive Director until we found Arieb Azhar who joined us and then I left the place, finally.

But only 'officially'.

T2F is part of my life and will always be

the centre outside my own house.

Fidel Castro: Dead at 90

Fidel Forever — 25.11.2016

Today I have seen many programs on TV, posts on the Net, emails, and a lot more on Facebook and Twitter, telling us how good Castro was, as well as how bad he was. We have seen Cuba mourning and eyes loaded with tears … and the Cubans in USA jumping with joy that he is dead.

Should my opinion of him and his one-time partner, Ché Guvera (who's picture people from Communists and Revolutionaries and Liberals and others post everywhere … and wear his T-Shirt Image in colleges and on the streets) change?

Ché Guevara

NO!!!

My encounter with Cuba has several things that I can recall.

Each one has been better than the other.

•••••

My first encounter was when I went to Cuba on my ship as a Merchant Navy Captain. We walked off the ship to get into the main city, but all we had were US$. We thought anybody would change them. But there was no shop around. The three of got on to a bus and offered the money to the driver who said he couldn't take US money. We said we had no other money and wanted to get to a bank to change this. He asked us to sit down.

Then, he put his hand in his pocket, brought out some small change, counted it, and put it in the ticket money box!!! His own money! He said we were guests and didn't have the money. He had the money and was paying it for us, since he can't take us free.

Wow!

•••••

My second encounter was going out into the city (after we had changed our money) and walk around the place, watching people eating ice-cream, smoking cigars, singing group songs on the road, dancing everywhere. They lived quite happily, it seemed to me, despite the fact that they had problems buying most things that we take for granted in our lives.

•••••

My third encounter was to go to the University with the ship's agents. He knew Che's daughter, Aleida Guevara.

Aleida with Fidel and Ché

She was wonderful and I remembered her telling us about her father who left them to go to Bolivia when she was 4 and was killed when she was only 7. Like her father, she is a strong Marxist. A Physician, she has been part of Cuba's growing interest in Education and Medical facilities, which I will talk a little about later.

(Aleida Guevara refused to go to a mass Pope Francis would lead during his historic Cuban trip, saying it would be “hypocritical” of her to be present.)

•••••

Many years later, my daughter was at Hampshire College and had the option of going abroad to Paris or to a place in Cuba for a year's studies. When she wrote to me, I suggested that she go to Cuba. After all, I said to her, that Paris would probably be Paris when she comes out of College and she could visit it anytime. But if Castro died, Cuba wouldn't be worth visiting, somehow. So that's where she went for a year's studies.

•••••

Meanwhile, in Pakistan we had the worst Earthquake in history. More than thousands died. Thousands lost their homes. 

(I was in New Delhi, having breakfast at Tarun Tejpal's house He had gone to the bathroom. I felt a small jolt. He came out, wrapped in his towel, and asked f there was an earthquake. We got out of the house and many people were coming out and looking everywhere. New channels told us that there areas had been hit in Kashmir. No news of Pakistan, of course. I phoned BITS - Sabeen's and my software company - and found out that life has been much worse in Azad Kashmir.

Not just worse, much much worse, as I discovered three days later. A member of our team, Ziad Asim, had lost several members of his family and was now working at BITS on a software to bring people together in case they wanted to contribute goods to the earthquake victims. I asked him why he hadn't gone home. He said there is no place to go to. Everyone is dead. Sabeen was organising for places collecting the goods to be put on our website, so that people could deliver their goods there.)

Cuba sent us Doctors and Medical Aid facilities and Equipment that flew in every few days and added more and more. We were filled with their people here. They even sent out Pakistanis that they couldn't treat, locally, right into their own hospitals in Cuba. Even our daughter was called to translate some of the patient's broken-Urdu into English for the medical program workers there.

Had this earthquake happened in Cuba, would Pakistanis have said anything other than a few minor 'sorries' in the press. After all, our 'bosses' in the USA would hardly have been happy even with that!

•••••

Later on, when I was in Pakistan, Dr. Ghazala Aziz - a friend and a Doctor - was working with the people supporting the earthquake victims. She decided to hold a concert of Indian Classical Music stars, Shubha Mudgal and her husband Aneesh Pradhan, in Karachi to get money for these victims. 

Aneesh& Shubha

Shubha and Aneesh arrived here with their team and we had a concert that was lovely. The next day we took them out to the French Beach, with Farid Ayaz and Abu Mohammad's group so they could hear a live qavvaali at a hut that had been arranged.

I decided to call my daughter in Cuba so that she could listen to Shubha on my iPhone. She was a great fan of Shubha and Aneesh. A voice answered. I couldn't recognise it. So I called again. The same voice said, with some difficulty, "Abi. It's me. I have fallen down. Hurt my back. Badly. I will be tested again, tomorrow. Please call again." - Stumped, I called Dr, Hasan Aziz (Ghazal's husband) out from the crowd. He spoke to her and then told me that I should try and get to Cuba.

Ghazala gave me a number of a Doctor from Cuba, who was now in Pakistan. I called him and he said, "Don't worry about the Visa. I'll get it for you. Just get me to talk to the Doctor in Cuba and if he says you are needed, we will fly you out, asap, in one of our planes." Imagine — a Doctor willing to help me out, in the middle of his own work at the earthquake site. 

•••••

The next day I got a call from Cuba. my daughter spoke for a while and then the Doctor spoke to me and said that she'd hurt her back but was out of danger. She'd have to stay at home for 5 weeks and would not be able to return to her work at the University. He'd visit every week and I could call his home number and ask about her. There was no need for me to come there.

I was glad that she was out of danger, though worried about her back. It later turned out that she'd hurt her vertebra in three places.

I was happy that she was being looked after by these people.

•••••

Four days later I got another phone call.

This was from her professor.

(I am quoting from memory and through what were, then, really happy tears. The words may not be quite right, but the gist is.)

"Dear Mr. Kidvai, your daughter is a wonderful student but can't attend her classes any more because of her hurt. I wanted your permission to visit her every two days and teach her what she has missed in class … so that when she finishes her course, I can give her the same test. I am sure she will pass. But I need your permission to do so and would like you to speak to her house people that it is OK by you."

•••••

I come from an area that, many realise, is known for its friendship and the way we treat our new and old friends. But this, I was never prepared for. I cannot say "Thank you" often enough to the Cuban people. May you live in Peace.

A memory of the Vietnam War …

Fifty-one years ago this happened.

Read more »

Etymology - 1 (Kind of …)

OED 2 Volumes with Magnifying Glass
Contains the full OED Compacted.

Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time … and I am in love with it. If I ever had the chance to choose a career for life, Etymologist would be it.

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Of course, I never did choose a career for life.

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I started wanteing to be a doctor, like my father (Abi) - but not because of his real influence. Born in 1940 to a doctor - who had been recruited in late 1943 to the British Military Service in WW2 - I travelled to several cities (in and outside India, and to parts that later became Pakistan) with him until the war ended. 

There were no children in camps but Abi insisted that Ummi (my mother) and I had to go along … and was granted permission to do so by the Army. So I was the only child around. The first trip I went to was when I was 4 years old.

With Abi I went fairly often to Hospitals where he treated several soldiers who were injured, some almost beyond belief. I saw nearly dead soldiers and even saw a soldier die before my eyes. I never seemed to fear death. In fact the oldest memory I have was that my Nani (maternal grandmother) died when I was 3 … and I remember that event so clearly. When she was gone, I was told that the angels had taken her to a place to cure her. That was what 'dead' meant to me for years.

In the middle of the war we went to Calcutta for a few days holiday with my Khala (Vaseem). It was there that sirens announced planes coming down (Japanese, I was told) to bomb us. We hid under tables. I was told not to pick up sweets that they may drop, because eating them would cause us to die. Don't know if that was to scare me or it was real.

There were two things I did remember from the camps: One was the day we were celebrating Victory. A young soldier climbed up a long set of stairs and jumped into a pool of water underneath. He missed. Fell flat a couple of feet away. And was dead. On the spot!

Before that death, I remember my father and his colleague discussing a man whose head been pierced by some bullet marks. His colleague, perhaps his senior, had said that they couldn't treat him as it was too close to the brain and there was no way that he would survive the surgery. I often thought of that. I even asked my father, who drew weird pictures on a piece of paper to show what a brain was. But I couldn't really understand.

Later on, just before the 1947 Partition, I was in Budge Budge where my Khalu (famous Indian hockey-player, Asad Ali) had been posted by the Customs.  I saw a few dead people floating down the river because of Hindu-Muslim riots. The river was just across the street. My childhood friend, Sattar, a servant 3 years older than me, was playing football with me and he kicked it so hard that it went across the street, right into a winding part of the Hooghly River. He rushed and bent down the floating bushes to pick up the ball and threw it right back after showing it to me. It was the head of a dead child he had picked up by mistake.

So I wanted to be a doctor as I grew up. A brain surgeon was what I wanted to be. Life at colleges were tough. I got thrown out of one; I walked off the exams in the second one. That'll be in another blogpost that I write. 

Abi was getting severe heart attacks during those days and I couldn't have lived off his money for long. Another year at college. Five years at Medical School. Two years of Internships. Several years of setting myself up as a Surgeon. No way!

I told Abi the only one of two lies I remember telling him: I had done well at my exams and was going to get a First Division. (The second lie I won't get into.) I then said I was going to sail away on a friend's father's ship to Chittagong and meet my cousin there … and come back. I wrote to him from Chittagong that I had actually joined a ship and was in the Merchant Navy now. He was most upset. Again, that'll be in another blogpost, too.

Abi died in 1963. Didn't even live to see me pass my exams and get a reward for having topped the International Navigation marks. Then they suddenly decided to stop giving the official awards, so my Merchant Navy College Head, Captain Safdar, gave me a TimePiece-cum-StopWatch as my gift.

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Many of my loves and passions come to me from Abi: Classical Music, Eastern and Western; becoming a voracious reader in English and Urdu; love of and the writing of Urdu Poetry; watching Cricket & Tennis; being totally in love of Science; a passion for correct languages; fighting for Human Rights; loving the truth; even crying in movies :(

We were poor, too. My father had left the Army after Partition, had serious medical problems himself, had a few odd jobs but coudn't continue at his clinic so there was really no money in the house. Ummi was amazing at how she managed to make the loveliest dishes with what little we had - and kept not us but every visitor asking for more. She knew how to make the food we loved out of everything she could get. I used to always tease her about how she managed to put water into everything and make it expand into a lovely, large, edible dish.

Abi's love of books never died. On days when he did go to the clinic and made some money, he'd give most of it to Ummi … but he always bought another book. For himself; for Ummi; and for my birthday gifts. He said to me that if I were really hungry I could tighten my belt and survive another day when food would somehow arrive. But a book was a book. "It gives you pleasure whether your stomach is full or empty …".

•

One of his loves was Dictionaries. We had many of them. Farsi, Arabic, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish. Old and new. He loved words. … and that, too, came to me.

Which is why I really should have been an Etymologist. 

•

From the Merchant Navy, after 25 years of service, I came back to Karachi (Ummi's illness and the birth of my daughter after 14 years of marriage) and set-up an educational computing company, Interface, the first of its kind in Pakistan. This arrangement, bad as it was, moved me (with a lot of difficulty) into opening Solutions Unlimited - a consultancy that now runs with my wife heading it. I founded Enabling Technologies, which produced the best Multimedia Software including CD-ROMs in Pakistan. As an Apple-only company we even produced our first CD-ROM for IBM! (That's going to be one of my blogpost, I promise.)

In the meanwhile I also joined Hamdard University and taught for three years until the first Masters came out. Jehan Ara and Sabeen assisted me at some lectures, too. My best student was Syed Ali Hasan, who is now one of our great animators and now also runs a 3D Printing company.

While this was on, I began drawing cartoons for The Friday Times. You can see them here. Do see the first few, anyway. I'll add more as soon as they become available.

My companies — when they started — had my wife Nuzhat, Sabeen, Jehan Ara, and myself … and none of us had taken Computer Studies in our lives, except Sabeen at school. And she had come to my company for further studies. Her KGS Computer Teacher hated her. From Sabeen's exam papers some pages removed when they were sent to UK … so she failed the subject. Efforts by her father, Tallat, proved that this had happened. An act on his part (probably bashing up the Principal!) was probably stopped by Sabeen's mother, Mahenaz, who was teaching at KGS Kindergarten.

The remaining three of us learnt computers on our own, using a BBC computer and then moving on to a 9" Mac. Nothing comes even close to these two systems.

Later on, Sabeen — who'd joined us when she was 14+ as a student and stayed on until she formed PeaceNiche-T2F — and I decided to open Beyond Information Technology Solutions (BITS), partly in association with the Kasuris. They soon left, dedicated as they were to Education, and I owned the company.

Jehan Ara - who had joined us when she had come back from Hong Kong - said she'd rather not be part of this. So we split half of the company: She continued Enabling Technologies and is now the head of Nest I/O and P@SHA.

Sabeen soon became a Director at BITS (as a gift for her years of service with me) and continued with me as a Consultant to some ventures that we occasionally took online (including our work at Tehelka/India and a leading paper in Afghanistan), despite running her new organisation extremely well. In fact T2F is now considered a standard here and elsewhere.

•

This ended with Sabeen's assassination on 24th April 2015.

Like me, Sabeen was never afraid of death.

Listen to a TV Program about her.

•

I am sorry I have bored you with this rather long drawn-out preamble. I promise I will move on to Etymology - 2 as soon as I have the time. If you like what I write, you'll find it enjoyable.

My Poem, Saif's Transliteration, Sophia's Translation

Here is my Original

Here is Saif Mahmood's "Roman" Transliteration

Here is poet Sophia Pandeya's Translation

I am so thankful for her to have done this herself

… out of her love for Sabeen.

Konfused

اك شعر جو دماغ میں مستقل آ رہا ہے

آپ كی یاد آتی رہی رات بھر 

مخدوم محی الدّین

چاندنی دل دكھاتی رہی رات بھر

فیض احمد فیض

When our beloved people die …

These are my views. You may agree or not.

Yesterday we had a ruling about Mumtaz Qadri, the murderer of Salman Taseer. It was supported by most people in the media. This included many (including me) who oppose the death penalty and want him to get an un-parolable life sentence. Think of it: killing is an act of just a few minutes. And then he's dead. It shows human emotions that makes the Government murder a person — which is not really different from what the criminal did.

A long life sentence is something that is going to teach the murderer (all the time) about not just another man's life and the tragedy he caused the man's wife, children, friends, and followers … it will also make him think of his own wife and children. They, in fact, did nothing wrong and maybe someone needs to give them some help in ways to live.

Add to this, if you are pro-death, to the difficulties and the problems we have in our laws and how we frame and get people, often for the wrong reasons, denounced as criminals. Happens frequently. Just think of Aasiya Bibi, right now! I think the courts should move ahead and pardon her. To hang an innocent person is far worse …

But I also thought of ways beyond this murder.

What does the State (or the Government of that time that we have 'contracted' to run the State until the next elections) do when a person dies or is killed or gives up his/her life in a battle or war? How does it make sure that these people are honoured for a long time and our children and their children read about them or talk about them?

Nothing, really!

Let me tell you what we do: In the military circles many roads are named after such heroes … which is right. After all it was one of them who gave up his life fighting hard for the lives of the rest of us. His colleagues and his juniors honour him. He joined the forces, knowing that this was a risk he was taking. I feel sorry for his family, too. And their amazing courage.

Often, though, many main roads in the cities are named after them. I move around Karachi a lot …and go to Lahore, often. I can't recognise more than a couple of names and what they did. I ask young people in Lahore and they say so-and-so is a 'Shaheed', but they don't know which war with India he fought. I was also told that one person died in our 'war with Russia', when I knew that was not true.  Incidentally, how many main roads are named after war heroes? Take a look at this page, for example, and see. And you can find many others, too.

There's also a lot more that we miss out on.

Take the murders of Salman Taseer, Shahbaz Bhatti, Sabeen Mahmud, and may more. If the Government wants us to remember them, how about naming the places where they were murdered linked to their names. A Memorial Square, maybe? Perhaps with a link to their websites written on a stone under it … for the young go their often. Let them see what honest people, doing honest and respectable things, were killed for. By whom, too, if we really know.

A Salman Taseer Roundabout or a Shahbaz Bhatti Avenue shouldn't be too difficult. The Sabeen Mahmud Square - at the place where she was shot - should be no problem, at all. In fact the latter would be put up by DHA/CBC and show that they care, too, about the things these people did for this country: their country and our country.

How about Postage Stamps? They go on our mails abroad and within Pakistan. Let's have their images on them. That should be an ideal follow-up to the series of those who helped make Pakistan and have images on stamps already. After all, these people were the ones who tried to keep Pakistan safe and better for many of us. In fact people around the world held services for them.

I'd love to see small paragraphs in our Pakistan Studies books? Books that children get bored of reading fairly soon may become more exciting when we have newer paragraphs on people they have seen. And one can keep changing these every few years to keep them updated.

Do you think we can do this?

Its all going to be online now …

Starting with my very first cartoons (and I mean my very first, coz I had never drawn one before) that started being published in The Friday Times, I did a few other things: A few cartoons for The News; A few Photos or Book Covers or Contents, suitably altered; a few Fake-Ads. And maybe a few more items.

Sadly, my dear friend, my adopted daughter, my mentee … and then my mentor, Sabeen Mahmud (Sab), is not here any more. And I can't even try to tell you how many of us feel about this. There are nothing but tears that flow out. Every few hours. Every day. And there are many silent sobs in between.

Sab had asked me to print quite a few of the cartoons and put them up at T2F for 3 days, beginning with my birthday. (I'll be 75 on the 2nd October this year). The cartoons & similar stuff is now being put up on Tooniyaat. If you go there, start with the oldest post (Howdy) and then move up. This way you'll get the chronological order in which they were published.

There was her idea of having me appear on a program at T2F, on the 2nd & 3rd October, where I'd be asked questions by her about my crazy life and crazier ideas. She mailed me a long list of questions that she'd ask. Yes, Sab. I will answer them, too, in Koee Mayday Dil Say Poochhay, a recent blog that I have started. The posts on these may be written, pod-casted, or video-casted.

Among things that Sab thought T2F would print some day would be my poetry book, and a collection of my father's stories, essays, and poems. My poems are now put up every Sunday, (though not in any chronological order). You can see them on Alam Zadah.

My father, Abi (or Azhar Kidvai), has a website now - and it is being added to every few days. It will have his entire collection, including all his verses in his own handwriting. There are some memories and some pictures, too.

Bye.

Abi: 11.04.1900 - 19.09.1963

Azhar Kidvai was born in Rampur (India) on 11th April, 1900

My father, Abi is what I called him, was named Azhar Ali Kidvai by his father (Safdar Ali). Abi was also named Khaaqaan Alam (many people had two names in the olden days), but he rarely used this name after he grew up … and he gave up his middle name.. In Urdu his name (ازہر قدوائ) had a ز and not ظ. Why? Think of Jaamaé Al Azhar. It means another thing when you write it with ظ. In English it was spelt with a K instead of Q. Why? Because the name is Turkish. Kidvais are descendants of Kazi Kidva who was a Turkish Judge under King Baber's rule. There is no Q for ق. There's just a K. Think of Koran. Also, و is written as V in Turkish, not W. Here is an image of their full alphabet.

The W for و was added when Hindustani Transliteration took place … earlier than Turkish Transliteration. This changed و into a W, despite the fact that the pronunciation is that of V.

A picture from a London Collection of Family Logos.

I have this in my house now in wood and brass.

The Latin translated to English means "I shall not altogether die'.

This blogpost, 52 years after his death, is to tell you of a new website that I have started putting up.It will get ready in a week or two but there are enough things there for you to see.

He went to MAO (Aligarh School and College) and did a BA in English Literature. Was arrested for his political views by the Brits ruling India. Later, he became a Doctor, was a Major in the British Forces during the Second World War. He was also a poet, a writer of stories and essays, and a great lover of classical music (Indian and Western). He sang fairly well, but only among friends. He used to do a wonderful Scottish accent, after having passed his Medicine from Edinburgh. He lived and practiced in Monifieth, a small town in Scotland.

His father, Safdar Ali, did send him there but then refused to send him money, though he had a lot of it. Abi's life there was odd, because of a lack of funds. He eventually was put into hospital where one of his kidneys had to be removed. I heard this from his friends, while he was alive. I asked him and he said he would never have told me this, because it was "between me and my father". (His father died in Dacca several years after Abi's death.)

Abi was an Atheist in his early life, but eventually became a rather strong Muslim. In his last few years one could always see him with a tasbeeeh, reciting his words of faith. He said eight prayers every day: the five Farz many do, plus Tahajjüd, Chaasht, and Ishraq. The last time he prayed was only a few minutes before his death.

Despite being a strong Muslim and reading several religious books, he also read extensively in English and Urdu — Fiction and Non-Fiction. He introduced the writers to me, just as he gave me my love of music.

A strong Congress-person, he decided that we'd stay in Delhi … but our house and his clinic were burnt down so he migrated to Pakistan on a temporary basis (in 1947). Dr. Syed Mahmud (my wife Nuzhat's naana) and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru said to him that the troubles in Pakistan would end in 5-6 months and we'd be 'good neighbours later'. These things never happened and showed how little the Congress knew what lay ahead.

Abi died at the age of 63, after several repeated heart attacks over the years, heavy diabetes, a constant ringing in his ears, occasional faintings, and - finally - a brain haemorrhage at Anklesaria Clinic, Karachi. He seemed well as I saw him, arriving in Karachi the day before from my trip. Sadly I was on duty on the ship that night/morning and did not see him pass away.

•••••

1. Yaad Daasht

2. Links: A collection of my previous blogposts about him.

3. Stories that were written from 1928 onwards and were published as Nai Paod (نئ پود) in 1939, two years after he wrote his last playlet. The original cover and the inside page (Printed 1000 copies : Price Re 1), are also scanned and shown here.

These are followed by scans from his own handwriting.

(In some places it has not been possible to remove the paper lines.)

4. Ghazals, that were kept in a ruled booklet and named Parvaaz. 

5. Rübaais, Qit'aas, Nazms - which were filed under a small folder, called Parvaaz 2.

6. Humorous verses which Abi wrote under the takhallüs 'Shaikh Ji'. He put them in a separate collection, called Laghv Goi.

7. Tasveerayñ — a collection of some images. More will be added as I find them.

•••••

Sabeen Mahmud loved his stories that I read out to her. I also recited a few of his verses. She had one piece on her softboard in her office. She wanted me to publish his works, specially in his own writings, under T2F's planned idea of opening up a publishing unit. That never happened.

The collection is now on the Internet

where many will be able to read it.