THIS IS MY STORY—25
MY JOURNEY THROUGH THE ERA OF AYUB KHAN TO THE TIMES OF IMRAN KHAN.
GHULAM AKBAR
Romance with Literature
“I want everyone to have look at you Mr Akbar. But you are too young to be the Society’s President. You will be the Editor of Skylark.”
I was a very unconventional student. Throughout my academic career I had a feeling that I was going through the motions of being one.
I read books of all kinds. Literature. History. Fiction. Even poetry which was not one of my strong areas.
Apart from Allama Iqbal, I could hardly recite a couplet from my memory. But gradually I developed some liking for Shakespeare’s brilliance, Shelley’s romantic imagination and Keats’ love of beauty.
I read almost all of Hardy. Though none of his novels was less than a classic it was “Far From The Madding Crowd” that captivated me the most. The character of Bathsheba Everdene was Hardy’s master stroke as was Gabriel Oak the uncorrupted country boy.
It was however the Bronte name that became an inspiration for me. Charlotte’s Jane Eyre was a great novel. But Emily’s Wuthering Heights was simply majestic. In my reckoning it is the greatest love story of all times. The two Catherines, mother and daughter, were studies in contrast And Heathcliff’s journey of revenge was so absorbing it got ingrained in my psyche.
I also read Zola, Maupassant, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostovesky, and Balzac—the French and Russian masters.
Ibsen’s Master Builders was my favourite drama, as was Spanish masterpiece Cyrano de Borgrac.
It was in those years that I cultivated friendship with Mohammad Ali the actor —-who used to live opposite to the Firdous Cinema that was owned by Qazi family. One of the sons of Qazi Akbar, Qazi Jameel had become a friend.
As the said cinema was situated close to the Sindh University Campus (the old one) its cafeteria used to be our favourite meeting place. Mohammad Ali used to come there occasionally and we used to make fun of him because of his long hair and lean tall bony frame.
“Bharat Bhooshan—Bharat Bhooshan”, was the chant with which we used to greet him. We here means me and my friends Tariq Khan, Roshan Zamir Rizvi, Zafar Masood and Dadan Khan Jatoi. The last named was younger son of the famous Hari leader Haider Bux Jatoi.
We had no idea at that time that the tall bony young man, we used to make fun of, would in the years to come become Pakistan Film Industry’s star personality.
Let me state here that alongwith my other friends I was an avid cinema-goer. And that was the era of Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, William Holden, Humphrey Bogart, Spencer Tracy, Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, Tyrone Power, Stuart Granger, Cary Grant, Gregory Peck, Montgomery Clift, Susan Hayward, Ava Gardner, Lana Turner, Andrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and many others who lifted some memorable Holly wood movies with their stunning performances.
The movies that I remember with special fondness are Vera Cruz, Roman Holiday, Ben Hur, Bridge on the River Kwai, Blood And Sand, Duel In The Sun, Gone With The Wind, and Love Is Many A Splendoured Thing.
After the arrival of General Ayub Khan who was soon to become Field Marshal, it became virtually a passion for the young ones of that era to opt for the Civil Services.
