Fond memories
Kamran Shafi
The author is a retired army officer and a freelance columnist
June 30, 2001
Reading Mr Khalid Hasan (always Mr to me, for he was my English master at school) in Dawn the other day - "Since everyone (including Charlie's aunt and my dear friend Mickey in Wah) are giving Gen Pervez Musharraf advice on what he should do in India..." - immediately brought to mind fond memories of my school days. It was 1959 or 1960, I think, when I was a Secondary School student at Cadet College, Hasanabdal, that Mr Hasan taught us.
From what I remember of him then he was quite a disciplinarian, but fair and friendly, and an absolutely first-class teacher. We didn't run scared of him like we did, say, of our very nattily dressed history teacher, the extremely handsome and very competent Mr Dilshad Hussain. It is a measure of our fondness for him that many of us kept up with Mr Khalid Hasan in later life, in my case becoming life-long friends with him. But, as schoolboys are wont to be, we used to get up his nose now and again, and one day rather overdid it. He thrashed us all that day, he did. With a cane. All twenty-five or however many of us there were!
This is how it happened: Every Sunday the local news-vendor used to visit the college, cloth sacks full of the latest Hollywood film magazines and comic books hanging on his bicycle handlebars. He was most popular with the boys who would wait around for him to arrive, pockets "full" of the four-rupee weekly pocket money (a glass of mango squash at the college canteen was 4 annas so we always had money!) that was doled out by the house-masters every Saturday afternoon. We would dive straight into the centre-page pin-up section of the movie magazines, invariably a picture of some actress or other, and, if it was of our favourite star (to speak the truth, All of them were veritable goddesses to us, pubescent young boys that we were), snap it up. Well, one of the older boys - if memory serves, either the very naughty Pervez Maqbool of whom one hasn't heard anything these many years, or the equally mischievous Pingoo (later Brigadier Pervez Asghar) - found out from the news vendor chap that Mr Khalid Hasan was rather a fan of Ava Gardner, in my own opinion one of the most beautiful women that ever lived. Remember, please, that our teacher was himself a mere boy in those days - probably twenty-two or thereabouts, not much older.
Anyhow, he was soon nicknamed "Ava", and, the horrid rotters that we were, we made his life quite difficult. We (not I, as I was too scared to do any such thing) used to write "Ava" on the blackboard just before his class, mail him pictures of the lady, even shout "Ava" at him from behind the tall hedges and then race off and hide. All in all we were a rather obnoxious lot. On with our story: one day we got hold of a revealing pin-up of Ava Gardner, put it in the centre of the teacher's table, and framed it in a heart of marigolds, pierced with an arrow of yet more flowers plucked from the college garden. We then sat down and waited (with bated breath, I can tell you) for Mr Khalid Hasan to arrive. We heard the door, which was at the back of the classroom, open. The teacher went to his table, took one look at the work of art on it, and walked out of the classroom. Not more than fifteen seconds later, we heard the door open and then shut. I will never forget the sound of the bolt, as the door was locked from the inside. We were shivering with trepidation by then. What next?
We didn't have long to wait. A swish, a dull crack, a moan, and the curse. And then again, and again. There was Mr Khalid Hasan, cane in hand (he had obviously gone to the Adjutant's office barely twenty feet away, and equipped himself with one of the four or five canes that were always there oiled and ready, resting against the back wall of Captain Rashid's office), walking up the aisle hitting the boys on the back as he proceeded. At the top of the first aisle he turned into the second and went down it, using the cane, left and right, left and right. By this time of course, we had taken defensive positions with our hands covering whatever we could of our backs. The thing to note is that whilst those of us who were sitting along the wall on one side of the classroom, and the windows on the other got hit only once, the ones who sat at desks with aisles on either side got thrashed twice(!)- self included, please mark.
After the punishment was over, Mr Khalid Hasan silently left the classroom, returned the cane to its resting-place, and came back to take his class. I do not think anyone called him "Ava" after that. Incidentally, he did what every government of Pakistan should do - apply the 'danda', judiciously and hard. I must add that we were none the worst for being thrashed the way we were - for Khalid Hasan was, and is, a decent man - and I do not think he wanted to hurt any of us badly despite the fact that we had been quite awful to him.
And now for some "advice" to General Musharraf on what he should do during his visit to India, the very first time that I am giving it, please note everyone and Charlie's aunt (you too, Mr Khalid Hasan): Please, General, let us now do what the worthless Nawaz Sharif and his quite worthless government should have done immediately after the Indians tested their bombs and before we foolishly did likewise.
Along with trying to find a solution to Kashmir, let us say to the Indians that let alone the CTBT, we are quite willing to rid ourselves of our nuclear weapons, under a properly verifiable regime, should they do so too. And let them laugh in our faces and say they certainly will not, that they are a budding super-power, soon to be not less than any other, that they have the right to possess nuclear weapons like any other great power. Let them choke on their own arguments. Surely the world at large is no fool. What a sea change this would bring in how it views us - suddenly transforming us from a near rogue (remember Armitage in Delhi some weeks ago?) State to one that is moderate, and grown up, and sagacious.
And, General, let me add my voice to Mr Khalid Hasan's: Please sir, free Vikas Singh (and his bicycle) from the Peshawar Jail where he is serving a three year sentence for entering Pakistan without a visa which was not issued to him when he applied for it at our Embassy in Kabul. If Rafiq Tarar could free the crooked and worthless Nawaz Sharif, you can certainly free poor Vikas Singh, an unwitting victim of circumstance. And sir, underline the fact that you have a large heart (as a great PR exercise too, as Anwar Mahmood will tell you) by taking Vikas Singh and his bicycle with you on PAK 1, your Presidential Flight into Indira Gandhi airport, New Delhi, on July 14th. And see him off on the final leg of his travels back to Lucknow, his hometown.
A bit about politics: The ARD (minus the ANP, which showed a flash of its pre-Nawaz Sharif self - an intelligent, thinking party) has gone and done it. It has refused to meet Musharraf in consultative meetings that he wisely called prior to his visit to India. The ANP quite rightly refused to go along with this foolish stand of the Nawabzada's conglomerate and has met with the President showing up the ARD as a motley crew of political bosses intently working only on their own narrow personal/political agendas. Quite frankly I was taken aback at the ARD's stand, for despite the PPP's Federal Council's recommendation, I myself thought Ms Bhutto would have the savvy to ignore that advice and signal that the Nawabzada and Amin Faheem attend the meeting. Just goes to show that politicians too can lose complete touch with reality. For who doesn't know that the vast majority of the people of the country desperately want a judicious solution to the Kashmir tragedy which will not only lift the immediate threat of a devastating nuclear conflict, it will, over time, lessen our huge defence burden too.
Incidentally, whilst it was unwise of the government not to specifically invite the PML(N)--Ilahi Bux Soomro and Wasim Sajjad being neither here nor there - it is puerile of that party to say that the ARD's absence from the meeting is a "referendum" against Musharraf, who should now leave the presidency. Where do these people live? Cloud cuckooland? Do they really think anyone puts any store by their ranting when their chief, according to themselves the "most heavily mandated, most powerful Prime Minister in the Universe", begged to be flung out of the country because he did not have the spleen to face adversity albeit of 3-star variety? Does Javed Hashmi really think a military ruler will "leave the presidency" just because he says he should?