THIS IS MY STORY—31
MY JOURNEY THROUGH THE ERA OF AYUB KHAN TO THE TIMES OF IMRAN KHAN.
GHULAM AKBAR
The beginning of my Oddessey in Journalism
The other book was Alexander Dumas’ novel The Count Of Monte Cristo which too was lent to me by Mamoon Jaan. It too was spread over 1800 pages. The story of Edmined Dantes who had been betrayed by his childhood sweetheart and had been sent to prison on a mid-sea island on a false charge was so absorbing that I read the novel virtually non-stop for two days and nights. From the escape of Edmund Dantes from the jail in possession of a map that led to a fabulous buried treasure, to his emergence in Paris as Count of Monte Cristo, Dumas had put his heart and soul in his novel.
In my opinion it is the greatest story ever written about the power of the human will, and of the indomitable passion that the spirit of revenge creates in man.
The third book was the Rise & Fall of the Third Reich, by Shirer.
Though the book was a savage denunciation of the character of Hitler, it had quite the opposite impact on me. I interpreted the Founder of the Nazi Party and the Builder of the Third Reich in a different way. Without any doubt Hitler was the greatest ever common man of the West who rose from virtually the ashes to transform a fallen and defeated Nation into a Force about which Churchill was to write: “For each German Soldier that we killed, they killed five allied soldiers.”
As the examinations came closer in 1961, I grew aware of a strange desire of one of my class fellows— Habib ur Rahman. He was a very good student, and I liked him a lot. I came to know from a common friend that he had vowed to beat me in the exams and secure the top position. Precisely why he was burning the midnight oil with incredible passion.
I told our common friend:
“He can take it easy. I have no desire to excel in the exams. Infact I will not come back to get my degree after the exams are over.”
So it was to be.
I remember spending just one hour in the examination hall for my last paper. It was on Additional English. Meaning thereby that I had attempted only half the paper, leaving the rest unanswered so that my friend could fulfill his dream.
It was not to be. He still fell short by 9 marks to beat me. And this was despite the fact that Professor Jalil had virtually massacred me in the Poetry paper.
On July 27 1961, my 22nd birth day anniversary. I entered the premises of Daily Kohistan to report on duty to the late Mr Aali Rizvi. Enayatullah Sahib was in England at that time controlling the launch of Weekly Akhbar-e-Watan from London.
My first assignment in journalism was that of a proof reader. Aali Rizvi the Editor made me his assistant on the Editorial page. For a whole month I read the proofs of the contents of that page. Then one morning I learnt that Enayatullah Sahib had arrived from London the previous night.
At about 11 o’clock that morning I was summoned by Enayatuallah Sahib to his room.
My Oddessey in Journalism was to begin the same day.
