PART TWO

Personalities

A Good Man Fondly Remembered

IT was on December 20, that Mohammad Idrees left us. Me more than the others. But others remember him too, and when one meets friends in the evening, it is but natural that they should talk of Idrees. It will be like this for many days, many years.

          The other evening, Naeem Bokhari, the young lawyer, called me over to his office for tea, and a most generous measure of sympathy. And we had to talk of Idrees.

          "When did you first meet him?" I asked Bokhari.

"Oh, it was years before he became Mehbub Sadr. Sadr because he was the President of the PPL Workers Union, and Mehbub because he was the darling of his electorate. I knew him well before the little tremor appeared in his right hand, much before he began to go grey at the temples."

          "Come on, be little more precise," I told him.

"Well, it was in 1964, and like many at the Government College who refused to take their studies seriously, I spent most of the time with spirited and dispirited Ravians at the Tuck Shop, secure in the belief of imbibing knowledge with every glass of orange juice obtained on credit, usually on a payable when able basis," Bokhari reminisced.

          In those days, recalled Bokhari, Idrees cut a dashing figures in his blazer or tweeds, and that eternal cigarette between his fingers. He spoke excellent English, in a clipped accent that reminded him

          Aslam Azhar whose voice was then, as it is now, more sonorous.

          "Idrees would drive up in his dodge Dart and mix with us rascals from the word go. Everything about him spelled but one word class. And so full of life he was. Never a dull moment with him. Always full of anecdotes, usually of a variety of delightfully smutty," Bokhari said.

          Idrees was a great debater in his day, and won every medal there was to win. Bokhari said that debating was taken seriously "even in my days at the G.C." He had pretension of being an orator most of which have since been cured by strong doses of reality. Anyhow, Bokhari won some distinction as a debater, and Aftab Gul, the former test cricketer wasn't far behind either.

          "Fortunately for me, nobody found out that with a few exceptions. Idrees dictated them all to me. I would turn up at The Pakistan  Times  and Idrees would give me of his time and attention in ample measure," Bokhari admitted, years after having cheated his rivals.

          Idrees was, Bokhari said, a night bird. Could not go to sleep till well after midnight. The later, the better. Perhaps, he was an insomniac. And night after night, he was a generous host to at least a dozen people and everything was on the house always.

          He was at home in a variety of mediums. "Print, Radio, or Television, he was at home in all three." Bokhari said, and I agreed with him. He remembers having taken part in a show hosted by Idrees way back in 1967, where he fared terribly.

          "Somehow, we lost track of each other between 1967 and 1979. There were the chance meetings on The Mall, at the Maula Bux  paanwallah's or at the Anwar Paan Shop. Come, 1979 and I was in Murree. A dishevelled individual, with a rangy moustache, as unshaved chin and a balding pate, stopped my car on a side-road that leads to the Cecil's," Naeem Bokhari continued.

          This, if you please, yours truly, Lahori by name and a more accurate description was never made. But to continue with the Bokhari reminiscences.

          "The evening had set in and you were frantically waving at me to stop. There was an element of urgency in your manner. I stopped.

          There was Idrees by your side and we spend the evening together to everyone's satisfaction. I picked up the threads of my friendship with Idrees once again. It was as if the intervening years had not existed."

          The two met regularly in Lahore. He recalls having spent many glorious evenings with Idrees. Munnoo Bhai, Saleem Baig, Syed Iqtidar Husain Shah, Khalid Iqbal, and Bashir, the peon par excellence, an equal member at Bokhari's happy law office. And of course, I would be there, too.

          Munnoo Bhai, Idrees and Naeem Bokhari have (I won't say had) one great ability: the ability to make people happy. And to influence people and to make friends.

          A little transgression is required here. Idrees would have made a truly great ambassador. He knew how to conduct himself and to bring people to his way of thinking, and to Pakistan 's way of thinking on any given issue on any given forum.

          And the same is true of Naeem Bokhari. This young man belongs to the post-partition generation, and possesses great ability of quick understanding. He has already made a name for himself at law. Perhaps he is one of the well-read lawyers in the town, who has a deep and penetrative knowledge of international affairs. He is, in short, cut out for an ambassadorial job.

          And what about Imran Khan? Wouldn't he shine in any diplomatic corp. in any capital city? Just imagine Imran Khan presenting these credentials at St. James.

          In his time, the young Prime Minister gave the country some young ambassadors, people who talk her language, people who are her genre, her age, and have her ability to respond to the stresses of high office.

          As for myself, I have not been able to convince my wife of the inadmissibility of having, purely on reasons of health, aloo- shorba every night. So how can I recommend myself for a job at the United Nations? I'II never make an ambassador, but Naeem Bokhari and Imran Khan can. So why not ask them and see whether they are willing?

          But to return to Naeem Bokhari's memories of Idrees, "How could we work when the three of you arrived? Occasionally, there would be half-hearted apologies for the intrusion, but I knew they weren't meant. The anecdotes are endless, the stories unlimited, and the jokes unquotable," Bokhari remembers.

          Idrees, who was a great reciter of poetry knew Faiz backwards. He was not like Zia Mohyuddin, but he was a performer in his own right.

          The other things Bokhari said about Idrees should really now be paraphrased.

          He was both a sahib  and a trade union leader. A contradiction in terms, but there you are.

          Bokhari was opposed to his trade unionism because this, he felt, had retarded his professional growth. A stock answer to this by Idrees was: "Why relinquish political power in a vain hope of being given executive authority? And anyhow, who will look after these boys, Pir Ji ?"

          He was a man of courage. He had tons of it. Example: His speech in a function at a Lahore hotel, with Gen. Zia attending. That was like committing political hara kiri . But the man didn't care.

          "Sum up the man for me," I asked Bokhari. "An immensely popular man with a great deal of substance who did not realise his full potential in life. A good man fondly remembered."

          And Bokhari didn't cry when he said this.

December 24, 1984