Ardeshir Cowasjee
(December 2012)

Ahoy there Admiral

Columnists are, I am happy to say, the only commodity that is getting cheaper by the day and some, dare I say, by the night. Given the hubris that comes so easily to most, seeing their name in print has just about the same effect on men were Catherina Zeta-Jones to appear in her birthday suit and for the women, George Clooney in the buff. Columnists who should never be taken seriously demand that you do just that since they believe they are speaking as oracles to the lower mammals below. Anyone who has strung two badly constructed sentences thinks that the last word has been finally recorded. It reminds me of a two bit poet who had a motley collection of poems published (at his expense I might add) and gave me an autographed copy that simply said: ‘Today Ghalib is dead.’ He was right I suppose. Seeing what was passed off as poetry would have killed Ghalib anyway.

Whatever they may be and on whatever tree they grow, they are the ones on whom this government, the ones before it and the ones after it, will bestow all the honors. The ones who really matter – and these are but a handful are simply omitted by the High Command. I suppose in a way it is more honor not to be on the list than on it.

Thus Ardeshir Cowasjee who passed through the Pearly Gates, immaculately dressed in his cream linen suit, the flamboyant handkerchief and the hat in full glory and the classy walking stick –elegance incarnate, will not feature on that hallowed list of mediocrity. Neither will they think of naming a road after him, a park or a stretch of the Karachi beach because he loved Karachi with all his heart as he loved Pakistan. Just as well were Ardeshir to hear of such moves. ‘Sala choar kahin ka. Muj ko nahin chiaay sala award vegara.’ (Rascals –thieves; I don’t need such awards). There have been wonderful editorials about him and while I was planning this one, I read Ayaz Amir’s Friday Islamabad Diary and an absolutely brilliant account about the life and times of Ardeshir. I was planning to write something but ended up calling Ayaz and said that I was abandoning it and he insisted I should not. ‘Not after your brilliant piece,’ I argued and he pooh-phooed the suggestion because Ayaz regards his literary brilliance with just the right amount of disdain. Isphandyar Bhandara the dynamic head of Murree Brewery wrote a very nice letter the other day and when we talked, he said I should do a piece on Ardeshir. ‘I am just a businessman,’ he added. ‘You write.’

Actually Ardeshir was not really my friend but my brother Khalid Hasan’s. I think it was Khalid who called him ‘Admiral,’ a name that stayed alive in all their correspondence and meetings. Ardeshir and I were writing for The Nation at the same time and one day, literally out of the blue, he called. As always he began with the prefix – ‘Abay sala’ and then asked me outright. ‘Sala yeh Nizami loag tum ko kitna paisa daita hai?’ (How much do the Nizamis pay you?). I said, ‘Seth it nay rupay,’ (Seth so much) and named the sum. ‘Abay sala, tum un ko kaho kay tum uss third class sala Cowasjee ko mujj say zayada paisa kuon daita hai? Mujj ko be dou.’ (Oye listen. You tell them if you are paying that third class columnist so much money, give me the same).I followed his advice! Last year I was visiting him and as we sat in the verandah there was an almighty roar of sirens and screaming shouts from the main road. I half got up thinking some terrible catastrophe had hit Karachi when Ardeshir said, ‘Abay sala baith jao. Sala Corps Commander ka sawari jaa raha hai.’ (Oye sit down. It’s that rascal Corps Commander’s motorcade). The stories are endless and we all have our stock of them. Were they to be put altogether, it might give readers a better idea of what kind of man The Admiral was. I think half a dozen Cowasjee’s would have transformed Pakistan from the mess that it is but then such is not life.

The editorials have been uplifting and have placed in the right perspective the kind of unique man Ardeshir was. I would say ‘Is,’ because people like him come rarely and stay far beyond their limited earth years. So jaded have we become with huge armies of corrupt and mentally disabled people looting and plundering this country with gay abandon that people like Ardeshir look as if they belong to another planet. That is what makes his loss irreparable. How often would I pick up the paper and turn to his column and see Jinnah’s address to the Constituent Assembly – and sometimes I would groan. ‘There goes The Admiral again,’ I would say to myself, but he remained steadfast to what he believed was the core concept of this country. He never gave up trying. But then how many of our leaders listen to people like Ardeshir?

The Parsis have suffered here badly as have the Christians. Of the Hindus little is known but surely they are not in clover. As we have sunk more and more into our petty world of intolerance and hatred, our minority friends have had to duck for cover. Someone once said that it was symbolic that the ‘white,’ in the flag was indicative of the minorities and someone else said, ‘that is why there is a shaft going through it.’ Most of what we write is not even good enough to pack fish in but a column I wrote on the plight of the minorities and the heartless way we treated these most loyal, God fearing and generous people appeared somewhere in June last year and the emails continue to come. There are at least seven hundred of them and the heartbreaking thing is what these emails say uniformly. Here are people forced to leave Pakistan and India to find new homes – much against their wishes and fifty years later they still long for their countries. Some in their 80s talk of Lahore and Karachi and those wonderful happy days. Now they are scattered by the four winds to all parts of the vast planet and all they remember is their Lahore, their Karachi and their beloved Pakistan. It is an astounding testimony to enduring love and loyalty, both no longer available in Pakistan.

Therein lies our tragedy – we are killing Shias like flies and the Ahmedis scurry about in terror. There is no tolerance, no room for disagreement. Those who preach are the killers and they are men without mercy or compassion. Clearly God’s light of love has not found its way into their black hearts. In a short note to Ava Cowasjee, Ardeshir’s daughter, I shared something I read in K. H. Khurshid - my late brother-in-law’s copy of The Bible. Written on the first page are the lines: ‘I have finished the race. I have kept the faith.’ The place is Lincoln’s Inn, London. The year is 1953.