Yaadish Bakhair: Abdul Baqi Asadi

Abdul Baqi Asadi of Nauabad Quetta and Mashhad, Iran

Yaadish Bakhair: Abdul Baqi Asadi

“One should, each day, try to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it is possible, speak a few reasonable words.” 

                                                                                                 Goethe

“Kun taki”. “Kun taki fried chicken”, to be exact. “Kun” in some dialects of Persian means one’s bottom (buttocks, arse, ass, bum) and “taki” means a repair patch, an adhesive bandage or plaster usually placed on cuts, blisters or wounds. So what is this “kun taki” fried chicken? Can you guess?

Here’s the answer: It is how I first pronounced the greasy but delicious fried chicken I ate in Mashhad, Iran. Long before this brand of fried chicken-----Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC)---- was sold in Pakistan, it was a household brand name in Iran, mostly due to the accelerated modernization and/or Westernization of the country by the late Shah of Iran during the decades following WW II. The Shah, Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, was deposed in 1979 by the Islamic and cultural revolutionaries. A year later, he died in exile in Egypt. I, along with my elder sister, was visiting Iran and was with my late uncle Abdul Baqi Asadi when I had my first gustatory encounter with the popular Kuntaki Fried Chicken (KFC) in Mashhad e Muqaddas, the city of the eighth Shia Imam Ali Reza (AS). The year was 1982. It was the year Iran Khodro (National Motors of Iran) launched the new Peykan 1982 car (local version of Hillman Hunter/Rootes Arrow) which featured wide square head beams and lots of red and orange glossy plastic for tail lights, perhaps in an attempt to rival the beautiful Toyota Corolla 1982 which was selling like hot cakes back in Pakistan then. My cousins Zia and Siraj were going crazy about that new Peykan. Although lacking the elegant finish of a Japanese Corolla, it was a tough car, nevertheless. (Yes, cars! Sorry folks, just can’t help it!) 

The KunTaki Fried Chicken (KFC)

Abdul Baqi Asadi was the eldest among his brothers and sisters. He lived the latter half of his life in Mashhad, Iran with his wife and children. The main reason for his move from Quetta to Mashhad was his marriage to an Iranian relative, a wonderful woman with a heart of gold. It was also because of better employment opportunities, I guess. Iran was a very different place when he moved there, unlike the country of today. He was an ambitious man, the sort that loved challenges above all the other things that the adjective “ambitious” connotes. Like his other brothers, he was also a committed and resourceful professional in whatever he did----and he did a lot of different things in his life, was a versatile man and a deft multitasker long before that word became popular. In his numerous professions he was, nevertheless, a very different person from others in the family, in the sense that he not only viewed and studied or analyzed, but also dealt with situations, especially the intractable ones, differently. Difficulties made him more focused: he was a “can do” man. In that, which basically meant temperamentally, he resembled his younger brother Abdul Rahim, and to some extent, Abdul Mehdi, too. 

Kolpur Train Station

Before he moved to Iran he worked for Pakistan Railways. I vaguely remember his postings as Station Master at such remote or out-of-the-way train stations as Spizand, Aab e Gum, Kolpur and Nushki in Balochistan. We would visit him in these godforsaken ghost towns and their equally spooky, dusty train stations that always reminded me of the scary tales that I used to read in the popular Suspense, Jasoosi and Ibn e Safi digests my father used to buy from the book vendors at Mizan Chowk. 

Spizand Junction, Bolan 

 At these train stations that looked and felt like abandoned colonial-era structures right out of a horror and mystery tale, the things that I most enjoyed were the beautifully lacquered and regularly waxed solid wooden boards on the walls of the Station Master’s office. These wooden panels listed the names of all the previous luminaries that the stations hosted, the deceased, retired and transferred Station Masters. I would try to read the names aloud and sit there for long, looking excitedly at the exquisite quality of the solid, shiny wood that made a strange backdrop for everything else in the office which was old, broken and dusty. 

Aab e Gum Station

After his move to Iran, Abdul Baqi soon found his niche, or rather, he created one for himself. No, not in the Iranian Railways----the unfortunate Iranians in that department of public transportation and rail logistics, wittingly or otherwise, deprived themselves of a qualified man!----but, first at the Pakistan Consulate in Mashhad as an interpreter and liaison officer, a job which continued for some years, and then in a private firm that had nothing to do with the overseeing of day-to-day operations of sooty, coal and diesel driven locomotives. It was some kind of trading house, dealing in import and export of a whole range of products. I clearly remember meeting the president and owner of the firm, one Mr. Sakhawati, or Agha e Sakhawati as they say in Iran. A remarkable man was he, this boss of Abdul Baqi, so much so, that he could easily be introduced to English speaking non-Iranians as “Mr. Generous” or “Mr. Generosity”, which was the literal translation into English of his typical Persian name. My uncle Abdul Baqi, whom I have already introduced as an apt multitasker and a polyglot, had the complete trust of his boss and to say that he was his right-hand man would be an under-estimation: he was running a sort of one-man-show at Mr. Sakhawati’s trading firm. There, he was the manager, the translator and interpreter, the accountant-cum-auditor, the dispatcher, the sales and legal representative of the firm, event organizer and so on.

A Bansuri

Abdul Baqi was a man of many tastes and hobbies. He was an expert flute or bansuri player, for example. On his old bansuri, he could play most of the old Bollywood hits, especially the ones sung by crooners like Talat Mehmood, Manaday, Mukesh and the great Muhammad Rafi. Not to say anything about the hit songs of Lataji. Often, he would also sing the songs for his audience. He was a champion carrom player, too. Once it was his turn, our eyes would get tired following the big, round striker hole or “pocket” one carrom men (carrom piece) after another (the small black and white plastic discs). He would use all the tools in his arsenal of carrom skills: direct hit, rebound, angle shot, double touch and so on. And when we would start protesting, he would relent but only after positioning his pieces in such a way that would obstruct the opponent’s angle of hit! Think of Jimmy White and the game of snooker and you will get the idea of what I am talking about. But above all else, it was his wit, his sophisticated command of at least three languages, his refined sense of humor and his constant cheerful and positive disposition that most make up my memories of my uncle Baqi. In a place like Iran where people take pride in their language, the old Farsi language, and never let an opportunity go by without pulling some kind of a linguistic trick or without using wit and sarcasm, often in the form of poetic verses and proverbs, either to entertain friends or to upset opponents, Abdul Baqi Asadi was always the undefeated contestant. He would tell us original and quality jokes that would make us roar with laughter, to the point that we would start getting cramps in the stomach. Whether at home with children and relatives, outside with friends, or at work with colleagues, he was excellent company. He was a sweet man, Abdul Baqi Asadi, our Mama e Nuqul.

Yaadish Bakhair

Abdul Baqi Asadi with his parents

Please visit:          Dervaish's Quetta Channel (on Youtube)

Yaadish Bakhair: Sikander Ali

Sikander Ali of Hussainabad, Quetta

Yaadish Bakhair: Sikander Ali

My younger daughter comes and observes me as I wash and wax the car. She watches me quietly but keenly, disappears for a while and then returns. She performs this ritual many times and finally, when I am almost done spraying the rims and the tires, she asks me: “How do you do that? How can you make an old car look as if it was just bought from a new car dealer? ” I tell her that I like washing cars and that I learned how to do it long time ago, when I was a teenager. She continues with her query, “But where did you learn it, and who taught you to clean cars like that? ” And then I tell her that I learned it from one of my uncles who loved cars and who knew how to wash and wax cars. I tell her about my uncle Sikander Ali, who never tired of washing and waxing his cars-----he enjoyed it, even elevated it to an art form----- and who taught me that art, too.

Toyota Mark II, 1974

I have mentioned this uncle of mine before, in the context of cars when I wrote a blogpost on the cars of Quetta in the 1970s and 1980s. Sikander Ali was the youngest of the five brothers, younger than Sadiq Ali. He was a tall, handsome man with slightly curly hair and a temperament that was a carbon copy of, or matched that of his father (my grandfather), Haji Qasim Ali. Of the five brothers, he was most like his father in that department, unlike my uncle Samad Ali, who was the least like his father when it came to temperament. Sikander Ali, just like his brother Sadiq, was also a man of many friends, a popular personality with many tastes, including cars, music and movies. And most of what I remember about Kaka (uncle) Sikander are about these things.

Sikander Ali (third from left) with friends

I don’t remember if he ever finished his college education. For many years he was away from Quetta, travelling and working---more the former than the latter----in Europe. I vaguely remember my grandfather always asking my grandmother to ask Sikander to return to Pakistan so he could get married and join the family business, and to stop wasting his time in Europe. And return he finally did, by road, in his car: he drove his beloved sapphire blue Toyota Mark II all the way from Germany to Quetta! It was that Mark II, and the one that followed it-----a maroon beauty with plush leather seats and wood-paneled dash----that became, for me, the training laboratory, the main object of experimentation (under Kaka’s watchful eyes and supervision, of course) on my quest to learn and master the exquisite art of car licking! I started as his chotoo (assistant/sidekick) at first----doing the wheels and dusting the floor mats----but soon graduated, first to doing the glass parts and then to applying the thick coat of silica compound to the bonnet (hood) and dickie (boot) and finally spreading and buffing with carefully moistened fine cotton and silk-like flannel cloth. Those two surface areas of a car with the most paint, the bonnet and the dickie, were considered the most important and nobody was allowed to touch them without proper prior training. In the vernacular, they were called the “show” of a car or a truck. So, when I say it is an “art”, I am not kidding. Even my little daughter now realizes that. 

Sikander Ali (second from right) with friends

Talking of cars, one of my most vivid memories of Kaka Sikander is about these little crimes that he would get us, my elder sister and I, to commit for him. It was during the years when he was in in his early 20s, or maybe still a teenager. During summertime, when my father would sometimes come home early to take a nap, Kaka Sikander would ask us to steal my father’s car keys for him so that he could go for a drive to Hanna Lake, Urak Valley or Spin Karez with his friends. I clearly remember my father used to drive a mint green Opel then which he used to park in that Hussainabad street next to the rectangular electric pole. There were times when he, my uncle Sikander, would get into trouble. My father would suddenly remember some business to take care of in the city and would start looking for his car keys. But he would never say anything harsh to the uncle in the way of rebuke, apart from the cold silent look, probably because he remembered well his own little felonious escapades in my grandfather’s cars when he was my uncle Sikander’s age. 

The King of Reggae, Bob Marley: The Uprising

When Sikander Ali returned from Germany, he was a head-to-toe flower-power hippie: long hair, the bell-bottoms, the colorful psychedelic shirts with foot long collars and the Ray Bans with the elephant ear lenses. But above all, it was the music that he brought with him on the black-and-orange 90-min and 120-min BASF and Scotch cassette tapes and the 12-inches 33 rpm vinyls or LPs that most betrayed his equally colorful and psychedelic years abroad. For many years, even after we moved to our new house in Hajiabad, off Toghi Road, I was still listening to those tapes and LPs loaded with the hit songs of such 70s soft rock and disco luminaries: Bee Gees, Boney M, John Travolta, Earth Wind and Fire, Oliva Newton John(Grease), Eagles, Smokie, Super Tramp, Roger Whittaker and, yes, the great Bob Marley (his Uprising album with The Wailers). These were all Kaka Sikander’s music from Germany and Denmark. They were his favorite singers, especially Bob Marley, that undisputed king of reggae. But the name of one singer of the golden age of soft and middle-of-the-road rock that was the 1970s, Al Stewart----in particular his two mega hit singles “Year of the Cat” and “On the Border,”----has become forever etched in my mind as the quintessential Kaka Sikander reminder. I have often wondered how intriguingly strange it is that many of us recall the past, both people and events, through songs and movies. For me, Al Stewart and his “The year of the Cat”, an excellent song with the typical 70s combination of rock guitar and rhythmic drum intro that melodiously glides into the equally fluid voice of Al Stewart singing his poetry, forever means Sikander Ali, my late uncle. Period.  

                               

Al Stewart's:       Year of the Cat

Al Stewart's:       On the Border

For many years Kaka Sikander was our school pick-and-drop man. He would pick us up from school late afternoons and drive us home, sometimes obviously not happy with that chore that his brother, my father, had assigned him. It was understandable: any wild young man obsessed with fancy cars, wild rock music and possibly girls, would not be happy doing such a routine, boring job. I have already hinted at his temperament, which, like his father’s, was a bit on the volatile side. But that was also what made this lively and spirited man unique among his brothers, so different in many ways, but still similar in many others. Sikander Ali was not the man that you would want to mess with.

(Kaka) Sikander Ali

Sikander Ali died in January 2018. I met him during my short visit to Quetta in December 2017. We had coffee together two days before he suffered a terrible, fatal stroke. While sipping coffee, I recalled Al Stewart and the Toyota Mark II and he was completely surprised to hear that, to the extent that he went completely silent for what seemed like hours only to return from that stupefied state with a sad, broad smile, saying only this: “those were the days, they were real times. Weren’t they?” 

My daughter has invited some of her friends over and they are playing with their toys in the room next to my study. They are just doing kid talk when suddenly I hear a friend of her say “cars…gas station…car wash…”. She is telling the others about how funny it is to sit in the car while the car gets shampooed, wiped and dried by mechanical tentacles in the coin-operated car wash at the gas station. And then I hear my daughter’s voice, telling them: “You know, we have never been to an automatic car wash. In fact, my father has never taken his car to a gas station car wash all his life.” The friend who was talking earlier says, “Really? Then how come his car is always shiny and looks like a brand new car”? “He washes and waxes it himself, with his own hands. He had an uncle who taught him how to do it long long time ago” replies my daughter.


Yaadish Bakhair.
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Note: The people that I write about in this Yaadish Bakhair series were all too human, just like the rest of us: frail, fallible, imperfect. The attempt here is not to paint them as super-humans, or to elevate them to the angelic realm of perfection, but to shine a light on one, two or some aspects of their multi-dimensional personalities. These are mere fragments, or fragmentary sketches, about the subject personalities the way I saw and knew them, and the way I now remember and write about them. These are not whole biographies. How could they be? Yes, there is choice involved since we cannot do without that when we engage in any discourse, of this type or any other variety: a story told is always another one ignored. Others may see things differently and may wish to draw their own conclusions and sketches.

For more:  Hussainabad: The Place, the people and their values

Please visit:                 Dervaish's Quetta Channel (Youtube)

Yaadish Bakhair: Abdul Hadi

Abdul Hadi of Nauabad, Quetta

"Observe what he does, look into his motives, find out in what he is at peace. Can a man hide himself? Can a man hide himself?" 
                                                                                            Confucius
Abdul Hadi (Mama Hadi)

“Oh, so you are Hadi sahib’s nephew. Why didn’t you say so earlier? No problem, just give me a minute and I’ll get your file in. Please have a seat here. What would you like to have? Green tea or tea with milk?” I have no count of how many times I have heard that in the numerous government offices of Quetta, from superintendents, section officers, office clerks and peons. Hundreds of times, I am sure, if not a thousand. Anybody who has lived in Pakistan, or knows a thing or two about how Pakistani government offices work can easily understand what that sort of thing means and can easily relate to it. There, in Pakistani offices, especially government offices, unless you hear something like that from the demigods who populate those offices---all the way from the G-21 secretary to the peon, or the chaprasi--- you are sure to spend days, weeks and months, if not years, without getting the smallest of things done----your very legitimate official things, that is, as were my cases. Unfortunate as it is in a way, through the years that I lived in Pakistan, I got things done that way, by mentioning the magic word: Abdul Hadi. 

                                   

My uncle Abdul Hadi, the elder brother of Nasim Ahmed about whom I wrote earlier on this blog site, was a workaholic. A government servant all his life, he was a dedicated professional. I have used that adjective "professional" before. What I primarily mean by it is someone who does his or her best in the most difficult and trying of situations. It has, of course, other denotations and connotations as well, but that is the meaning that I often have in mind when I use it. Abdul Hadi became a public servant soon after graduation, moved through the different tiers of the provincial bureaucracy by dint of hard work and finally retired as an Assistant Commissioner for Quetta District. Just like in private life, he was old school in public life, too. What that means is that he had an old-fashioned work ethic which required a sincere commitment,  a principled dedication to his work. Ever ready to deal with all sorts of emergencies that his tough job demanded, he was often on duty round the clock, all day and all night, and would return home at dawn only to leave again for work a couple of hours later. 

In office with local elders

Widely known, especially in the official circles of the city, he was loved and respected not just for his professionalism but more than that, for the kind of person he was: generous, self-effacing and at home with all, irrespective of social class, age, caste, tribe or ethnicity etc. He was more Hadi Sahib than Abdul Hadi Hazara or any other ethno-religious appellation attached to his name that would make him tribal, parochial or sectarian, or so perceived, if I may put it that way. For sure, he had his own distinct identity---ethnic, linguistic, cultural-religious, like we all do----but he was there for all, an awami figure universally approachable, as a true public servant should be in an ethnically and linguistically diverse, multi-cultural society. And that is also because he was old school through and through. Like his good friends and colleagues from almost all the ethnic and linguistic groups of Quetta City, he was an authentic Quetta Waal. He belonged to that breed and generation of people who are now fast becoming extinct as its last remaining members who embody the old values (iqdaar) of Quetta Waali retire and pass away. Indeed, the city will be impoverished in a very profound sense when the last of these noble souls vacate the social, cultural, political and religious landscape of Quetta City.

Pishin posting (in white shalwar kameez and coat)

Abdul Hadi was a man of community. The community that he was born into and where he lived all his life is called Nauabad, meaning “new neighborhood’ or “new community” although it is anything but. There is a story about this old Alamdar Road mohalla of equally old Hazaras that it was established at the start of the last century by his father Mullah Ghulam Ali and with that it came to be known as “Nauabad”. I cannot attest to the authenticity of that, though. My uncle Hadi was a regular and constant presence in his community. Exhibit: on any given evening, especially after he retired, he could be seen cleaning not just the patch of asphalt in front of his house, but the entire street. Water hose in one hand and a sturdy long broom in the other, he would wash and sweep the narrow street with a small army of boys and girls, all mohalla kids, running about him and helping as he instructed each one of them their assigned chores. One of these kids would pick the pile of collected garbage, another would bag it, a third would run it to the collection spot for final removal and a fourth would assist with the long hose to make sure it did not get bent or stuck somewhere and so on. And then there were times when he would use his position to make sure the mohalla had its electricity, water and gas running, not in a way that would be considered unfair or illegitimate use of power, or abuse of authority, but doing all of it within the bounds of propriety and general human decency. Those who obliged, who carried out his orders or requests, did so more because of his accommodating character and genial personality than because of his official authority or position in the government, anyway. In him and in what he used to do in and for his community, one could discern the ethos that are the very foundations of any tightly-knit traditional community where people are like one big family, like a single organic unit, where they are equal partners in everything small and big, in all that makes the community smile and cry, in happiness and in tragedy, or in life and in death. Old school, again. 

Nauabad

Nauabad

                                                                                            

There was something about Abdul Hadi of Nauabad, something that one could not quite point out clearly or put in precise words, yet one knew it and felt it because of his downright, unostentatious presence. There was humility and a dignified demeanor, for sure. There was the generosity of spirit and self-effacement that I have already mentioned. These were qualities that attracted both the young and the old equally. But there was something more: a certain calmness, a quiet repose that was a kind of carelessness about, or a disregard for the mundane and the petty. This carelessness was invariably accompanied by an attentiveness to things usually ignored by the many, a subtle attentiveness to the invisible, little things: an attitude that can be called sophisticated simplicity (exemplified in the way he dressed and spoke) and that befits a dervish. Perhaps it was that. This quiet calmness could be seen not only when he was doing his community chores with his team of mohalla kids---which he obviously enjoyed---- but also when he was in the midst of his often nerve-wrecking, round-the-clock assignments as the Assistant Commissioner of Quetta district. After all, he was, yes----old school.

With friend Flt. Lt. Samad Ali Shaheed

Yaadish Bakhair.


Note: The people that I write about in this Yaadish Bakhair series were all too human, just like the rest of us: frail, fallible, imperfect. The attempt here is not to paint them as super-humans, or to elevate them to the angelic realm of perfection, but to shine a light on one, two or some aspects of their multi-dimensional personalities. These are mere fragments, or fragmentary sketches, about the subject personalities the way I saw and knew them, and the way I now remember and write about them. These are not whole biographies. How could they be? Yes, there is choice involved since we cannot do without that when we engage in any discourse, of this type or any other variety: a story told is always another one ignored. Others may see things differently and may wish to draw their own conclusions and sketches.

For more, click:Hussainabad:The place, the people and their values

Visit (click):          Dervaish's Quetta Channel (Youtube)

TGB: The noble, the holy, the sage and the primordial

TGB: The noble, the holy, the sage and the primordial (Hanif)

"Let the beauty we love be what we do."                                   Rumi

" The noble man is one who dominates himself.

The noble man is one who masters himself and loves to master himself; the base man is one who does not master himself and shrinks in horror from mastering himself.

The noble man always maintains himself at the centre; he never loses sight of the symbol, the spiritual gift of things, the sign of God, a gratitude that is both ascending and radiating.

The noble man is naturally detached from mean things, sometimes against his own interests; and he is naturally generous through greatness of soul.

The noble man is one who dominates himself; the holy man is one who transcends himself. Nobility and holiness are the imperatives of the human state.

The knowledge which man does or can enjoy is at the same time animal, human and Divine. It is animal in so far as man knows through the senses; it is human when he knows by reason; and it is Divine in the contemplative activity of the intellect.

For the sage, every star, every flower, is metaphysically a proof of the Infinite.

Primordial man knew by himself that God is; fallen man does not know it; he must learn it.

Primordial man was always aware of God; fallen man, while having learned that God is, must force himself to be aware of it always.

Primordial man loved God more than the world; fallen man loves the world more than God, he must therefore practice renunciation.

Primordial man saw God everywhere, he had the sense of archetypes and of essences and was not enclosed in the alternative "flesh or spirit"; fallen man sees God nowhere, he sees only the world as such, not as the manifestation of God."

                                                       Isa Nur Al Din (Frithjof Schuon)

Haqq.      Khair.     Jamal.

For more, click: Bandagi

Yaadish Bakhair: Sadiq Ali

Sadiq Ali of Hussainabad, Quetta

Sadiq Ali (Kaka Sadiq)

"The best things in life are not things."                           Ann Landes

It is early morning in mid-summer in Baleli, some 30 kms out of Quetta City in the direction of Kuchlak, Pishin district. It’s a Sunday and we are all in the middle of the lush orchards in the heart of this Pushtun farming region outside Quetta City. There are more than a dozen of us from Hussainabad, mostly young Hazara men in their early 20s. I am the only one who is not in the same age group. 

The reason why we are here is swimming, to be done in the “pool” which is actually a brick and mortar reservoir that the local farmers use for storing water for agricultural use, a talaab as they call it in the vernacular tongue. It is commonly known as “Panj Foota” by the patrons who have gathered here today. Translated into English, that means a 5 feet deep pool. Brimming with clear, blue (tube)-well water, it is smaller than a standard 25 ft pool but is large enough to function like one. Two have already dived in as the others get ready to jump in. Suddenly there is loud noise, at first not clear but which soon becomes clear as a litany of expletives shouted out by one of the two swimmers inside the pool. He has just resurfaced right in the middle of the pool and is screaming, “It’s shit! It’s real, stinking shit, a big, long lump of turd! ^%#)*&^%#...It’s shit! Yuck, it smells bad! #&^%$#F&…it’s sticking to my ear…!” As he says those words, he disappears underwater and resurfaces again next to us, near the edge of the pool. We all freeze for a few seconds, not sure how to respond to what has just happened. The shouting swimmer springs out of the pool and starts running wild in the orchards, constantly slapping his right ear with his right hand. Suddenly everybody bursts into loud laughter and the guy starts screaming his profanities at us. Upon close observation by the others, it is discovered that somebody had used that pool----the popular Panj Foota talaab----as his private toilet the night before and, given the size, shape and hardness of that lump of fecal waste, he had been constipating for quite some time! Precious Sunday spoiled, all return to the city, dry and without a good day’s swim. On the way, some of them tease the poor guy who had the honor of discovering the smelly brown lump floating on the surface of the water in the middle of the pool. If I am not mixing this particularly memorable day with another Sunday visit to Panj Foota, I was with my uncle Sadiq Ali, my Kaka Sadiq.

Hanna Lake, Quetta

My uncle Sadiq Ali was the second youngest among his brothers, my father being the eldest of the five brothers. Swimming was one of his passions and it was he who taught me how to swim. Apart from the Panj Foota Sundays, he would also take me to Hanna Lake which was the other popular place for Hussainabadi swimmers. He would pull me behind him or swim me on his back to the deeper sections of the lake and then leave me there all by myself to swim back to the shore. That is how many of us boys learned to swim then. In Quetta of those days it was rare, a matter of shame actually, for a Hazara boy not to know how to swim. Swimming and Hazaras were things synonymous.

Sadiq Ali (wearing yellow cap) with friends

But it’s not just swimming that I remember when I think of Kaka Sadiq. First of all, he was a man of many friends, and all very good friends. He always had ample company, be it the swimming excursions, the movies, the picnics in Pir Ghaib or Ziarat, or any other social occasion in the community. Talking of movies, he was also the uncle who often used to take me along with him to watch Hollywood westerns at the iconic Regal Cinema of Quetta. All the well-known westerns and war movies I watched at that cinema with him and his friends: McKenna’s Gold, Shane, High Noon, Dirty Dozen, The Great Escape, The Magnificent Seven, Death Wish, The Poseidon Adventure, to name just a few. 

Kaka Sadiq loved movies, not just Hollywood movies but also Bollywood productions. And what an age it was, the 1970s and early 1980s when Bollywood churned out some of its greatest movies starring superstars like Rajesh Khanna, Amitabh Bachan, Jeetandra, Sanjev Kumar, Dharmendra, Shatrugan Sinha, Pran, Shashi and Rishi Kapoor, Vinod Khanna, Sunil Dutt, Danny, Amjad Khan, Rakhi, Zeenat Aman, Parveen Bobby, Neethu Singh, Poonam Dhillon, Hema Malini, Mumtaz, Shabana Azmi, Sharmila Tagore et.al. When the age of VCR dawned in Quetta, Kaka would have these great movie watching gatherings in the evenings, with half the mohalla (neighbors) seated on the rooftop and in the open backyard of his house on Samad Ali Shaheed Street. The old top-loading, bulky Phillips VCRs that ate the brick sized tapes bootlegged from Germany, Denmark and the U.K. by returning Hussainabadis, needed constant cooling with two pedestal fans running at full speed to keep them functional in the sweltering Quetta summers then. The movies were blockbusters of the day: Sholay, Don, Qurbani, Yarana, Dostana, Lawaaris, Amar-Akbar-Anthony, Qarz, Muqaddar ka Sikander, Anand, Deewar, Zanjeer, Gol Maal, Pakeeza, Amar Prem, Kati Patang and yes, Kabhi Kabhi and Bobby. Those last two movies in the list above were Kaka’s favorites and it was the songs of these movies that were always playing in his Mazda Luce. Songs like “Hum tum ek kamray mein band hon…aur chabi kho jaaye….’ And then there was the Kishore song from the 1975 movie Julie that he used to hum all the time: “Bhool gaya sub kuch, Yaad nahi abb kuch oh ho, hmm hmm, ek yahi baat na bhooli, Julie I love you…” He just loved that song, so much so that he even nick-named his eldest daughter Julie. What a time it was!

                                                     

Oh Yes, the Mazda. First, it was the Mazda Luce 1500cc, and then the navy blue 1800cc one. Those were beautiful cars about which I have written previously on this blog. Although he changed cars later on in his life, he loved those Mazda models the best and would never stop talking about them. My love of cars comes mainly from my uncles Sadiq Ali and Sikander Ali.

Sadiq Ali, his friends and the Mazda Luce

But it was something else----more than the movies, the cars, the Panj Foota and Hanna Lake swimming excursions-----that make up my most vivid and enjoyable memories of my years with Kaka Sadiq: kites, or patang/guddi baazi. Kaka Sadiq was a great kite flyer, a connoisseur when it came to guddi baazi. During the freezing months of late fall and early to mid-winter, I would be on the roof with Kaka, I holding the charkhali loaded with the finest and the most expensive manja of the season and he flying the kites, doing pechaow battles with the master kite flyers---the khaar baaz kite flyers, or the cool dudes----of Lodi Maidan and Tel Gudaam, an old neighborhood off the main Toghi Road. And how exciting all of it was for me. Lips dry and chapped, all the extremities of my body like ear and nose tips red because of the extreme cold weather, fingers with cut marks filled with half-dried, jelly-like blood clots because of the excessive use of razor sharp manja, but none of that mattered as long as the wind was good and the sky full of kites. Kaka had an expert’s eye when it came to manja and kite and his favorite kite was the graceful Paan Chobi, a special type of kite that was made with a seamless, single sheet of kite paper, no stripes, designs or patch work of any kind. The paan chobi had match stick sized, finely cut wooden strips glued to the paan, the bottom part of the kite. This special paper and stick combination in the paan gave the kite stability and strength in strong winds and it was one of the best attack kites in a pechaow, save the split-framed curvy patang.

The Paan Chobi kites

 And then Kaka suffered a terrible stroke. That ended many things for us, including kite flying. The left side of his body became almost completely paralyzed and he had extreme difficulty remembering and doing things. It was devastating for the family, for all of us. Our time together took a new turn: regular visits to Dr. Manaf Tareen’s clinic, the only properly qualified heart specialist and surgeon in Quetta then. I would take him to Dr. Manaf’s clinic twice, and sometimes, three times a week. Kaka’s children, my cousins, were still very young, all of them of school going age. Sadiq Ali also had a unique sense of humor, his satirical remarks were sometimes acerbic and his wit, darkish. At times he would say things that one was not sure what to do in the way of response. One day, on one of our regular visits to the cardiologist Manaf’s clinic, while sitting in the waiting room for his turn, he whispered in my ear: “Is this man really a doctor or is he pretending to be one? I think he is a pretender.” He then turned his face away and himself started pretending, as if he had said nothing and I had heard nothing. He sat there for a few seconds like that, keeping me confused, and then suddenly looked my way and smiled and while he was doing that the buzzer rang: it was his turn. “Lexotonil”, he murmured as we got up to move from the waiting room to the doctor’s room. Lexotonil was the drug (some kind of anti-depressant I think) that the doctor prescribed to him every time we visited his clinic.

Click:  Julie Song Link: Bhool Gaya subh kuch, yaad nahi abb kuch...

Sadiq Ali and friends

I listen to the great Mukesh song Kabhi Kabhi now and then, and often to songs by Kishore Kumar, my favorite singer, and when it is either Mukesh’s “Kahi door jab din dhal jaaye…” (another of Kaka’s favorite from the movie Anand) or Kishore’s “Bhool gaya sub kuch, yaad nai abb kuch…” I cannot but think of Kaka Sadiq. As the great Kishore sings this beautiful song, all the bits and pieces of the images and events of the past flash inside my head, some of which fragments I have tried to put together as sketches here: Panj Foota, Hanna Lake, the VCR Bollywood movies with house-full rooftop, the Hollywood movies at Regal Cinema, the drive in Kaka’s beautiful Mazda Luce with his good friends and then the visits and the long, long waits at Dr. Manaf “the pretender’s” cardio clinic, only to get more of the same drug: Lexotonil. Perhaps Sadiq Ali, my uncle, knew better, after all.

Yaadish Bakhair.

Note: Manja = glass coated kite string, also called dore or taar.

Charkhali = wooden spool with extended support sticks on both sides used for winding kite flying string, called manja or dore

For more, please click:  Cars of Quetta in the 70s and 80s: 
And here: Regal Cinema Quetta: The Old Turkey Buzzard
Please visit: Dervaish's Quetta Channel (Youtube)

Yaadish Bakhair: Nasim Ahmed Asadi

Nasim Ahmed Asadi of Nauabad, Quetta.

"Where you were born is less important than how you live."
                                                                                  Turkish proverb
Nasim Ahmed (Mama Nasim)

“Alao, goda pakoda! Tum kaisa hai? ", he would greet me every time I visited him in Nauabad, an old Hazara neighborhood off Alamdar Road in Quetta City. And he would almost always be in the middle of carrying out some chore, making or fixing something. Long before he bought his car, he had a 1973-74 Honda 110cc motorcycle commonly known as Benly. It was a red machine which he maintained meticulously, paint bright and shiny under a thick coat of the finest wax and chrome----with which that particular Honda model was loaded-----glittering in the sun. Nobody ever saw that motorbike dirty. Yes, meticulous is one of the better adjectives to describe him. Just like his bike, then his Vespa Scooter and finally his car, he himself was also well-maintained: always dressed in clean, starched and well ironed shirts and trousers and wore polished shoes that would make the best TV commercial for Kiwi Shoe Polish. He was a relatively tall man with long flowing hair like that of the young Robert Redford in his 1960s movies. In the latter years of his life, he had grown a salt and pepper beard which added the layer of age and the grace that comes with it to his already attractive personality. That welcoming smile never left his face: even when he was in a bad mood and angry, the smile would soon return and it would be all good again. This was Nasim Ahmed Asadi, my maternal uncle, or our Mama Nasim. 

Honda 110 Benly

The “goda” in his greeting meant a horse, a pony, and the “pakoda” just an added term to rhyme with the first. “Pony” he also used to call his eldest son and my cousin Haider. Also, there hung a painting of a pony on one of the walls of the verandah in his house, done by the famous Hazara artist Ramzan Shaad. So, there was obviously something about the animal that he loved. 

National Bank of Pakistan, Quetta

Nasim Ahmed was the second youngest among his siblings. By profession he was a banker. At the end of his illustrious career at one of the country’s oldest financial institutions, the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP), he retired as a vice president. Even in retirement his former colleagues, friends and juniors would consult him on the finer and more complex matters of banking law and bookkeeping etc. That is how good he was at his job, just like his other brothers, all of whom were model government servants: Station Master Abdul Baqi of Pakistan Railways, Abdul Hadi who retired as Assistant Commissioner Quetta, Abdul Mehdi of Pakistan Telecommunications (T & T) and Insp. Abdul Rahim of the Police Department of Balochistan. Professionalism of the highest caliber was a family thing for the brothers.

It was this uncle who taught me how to ride a bicycle, my first bicycle, a red 18” Sohrab, and then a motorcycle, my Yamaha YB 100. The love of motorcycles was something we shared. We would go for rides together. I would follow him to Hanna Lake and Urak Valley, he on his spanking clean Benly and I on my Yamaha. Often, my cousin Misbah would also join us on his Kawasaki. He also taught me the finer points of bike maintenance. He was a handy man, very good at making and fixing things. An amateur carpenter, he had many other skills as well such as electrical and mechanical, not to say anything about masonry and gardening. When he was not doing banking stuff----he always brought work home, his room had piles and piles of files and ledgers from his office---- he was either making or repairing something or reading religious books, which filled the shelves of his bookshelf. He just did not like sitting idle and doing nothing. 

A religious seminary

Religion was very important for him and nothing animated him more than a mention of certain religious personalities, ideas or issues that he held very dear and in high esteem. For example, he often got very excited and emotional during religious discussions. His attachment to certain pious figures of Shia Islam, both classical and contemporary, was absolute and he would often brook no difference of opinion about, and certainly no criticism of, certain revered figures of the faith and of potentially controversial issues, including the politics of religion. It was not a heartless and irrational (sectarian) extremism that has come to define the landscape of Quetta, and of Pakistan in general, in recent decades. But rather, it was the love of faith in a sincerely devoted man who, despite all the displays of emotionalism and even righteous anger at times, never failed to see and understand faith in its entirety, with both eyes so to speak: the eye of mercy as well as the eye of justice, with the eye of jamal (beauty) as well as with the eye of jalal (majesty), immanence as well as transcendence. His Thursday nights and Fridays (Sundays) were often spent in the nearby religious seminary called Jamia e Imam Sadiq (AS) on the main Alamdar Road where he would engage in long religious discourses with the resident religious teachers and senior students. All the local mullahs and zakireen knew him well because of his regular attendance at the Imam Bargahs and the seminaries. The month of Muharram had a special place in his heart and he often went on pilgrimage to Iran. Such was this man, our Mama Nasim. The son of a well-known and respected religious scholar, Mullah Ghulam Ali (my maternal grandfather), he was the most dedicated to religious causes among the brothers.

The "goda" on the wall

Professional banker, skilled handy man, kind to both the elderly and especially to children, and always curious about gadgets, itching to do something useful with his time and skills, Mama Nasim left this world in 2009. Among us siblings, my elder sister was his favorite. She also had a special affection for this uncle of ours. He was a frequent visitor to our house and often brought us things that we loved--- mostly our favorite toffees and biscuits. The red Benly and that painting of the pony on the wall are etched in my mind forever, just like Mama Nasim’s warm and welcoming smile.

Yaadish Bakhair

For more please check out: The Bikes of Quetta in the 1980s

Please visit:                    Dervaish's Quetta Channel (Youtube)