The Old Boys

APRIL 2004 - Almost as soon as we crossed the little stream, the famous hill with the white mosque looming on our right side and the Mogul Gardens of Wah on our left, I was aware of a tingling sensation of excitement. The old college was not too far away. This bright sunny morning in the last week of March had brought many of the old boys back to the Cadet College Hasanabdal celebrating its well-deserved golden jubilee. We were the second entry cadets, now dinosaurs by all accounts. Though many of our vintage had often returned to the college at reunions, it was my first visit after I left its gates, almost a lifetime back. In spite of all resolutions not to read too much into this visit, I couldn’t help a feeling of elation at the prospect of seeing the old place again.

And having cleared the third security check successfully – the President was the Chief Guest that morning, I began to search for the old familiar faces, wondering how much worse were we for wear after all the years had flown by. Since the organizers had not thought of giving us large badges with our names and years mentioned clearly, it was a morning of exclamations, memory juggling and disbelief. Somehow, though quite unintentionally, our class began to converge at a point with conversations running in four different directions and a great deal of embracing, hugging and handshaking going on. It was almost as if an undetected compass was directing us to a single location. Although the function was about to start, there was no end to the excited talking and laughter that was resonating all around us. Most of us must have privately cringed at the thought of being unable to recognize one another – some of us were meeting after school, yet it was not that difficult after all. Of my batch, Abbas Khattak was easily recognizable, with his shock of unruly hair, once ‘jet’ black (he did go to the airforce!) and now snowy white. There was absolutely no other difference – advancing middles being part of the game and accepted grudgingly by all. He was as always a whirlwind of energy and the center of attraction as we all gathered into the fold. Funny that while the years had rolled by, our fundamental characters had remained more or less the same. Khurshid, now a big chief with the Railways, was quiet, cool, calm and detached, as he always was. Contentedly puffing away on his Dunhills, he was still the same good looking lad we had known from almost the first day we walked into the college. Even then, he always seemed to know who was who and who was doing what, and now a million years later, it was the same. While we faltered in our conversations, groping for some name, some fact, an idiosyncrasy, a long-forgotten nickname, Khurshid provided the answers, quietly and without too much fuss. Shamo was wild, crazy, energized – as always.

Masood Burki or Masood Mirza Burki – MM as I called him after the famous star of those years, was all there, all seven feet of him – at least I believed he was that tall. He was trim and the twinkle in the MM eye was just as bright as one remembered. Like always, he moved slowly, without too much fuss or hurry. Zahir Shah decked out in a suit with the same curly mop of hair dangling precariously on one side of his head, was hanging out, drinking it all in. Farooq Hayat had arrived, all decked out in white, with a mop of white hair to match and a prominent fixture in the middle of his forehead, which Abbas Khattak announced was an injury Farooq had sustained hitting the ground too often. More suspects were visible. A gentleman with a blondish, short beard appeared and for the life of me, I could not remember his name. As I struggled, someone took me out of my misery. ‘Her grand daddy she killed a lion,’ I was reminded – the quaint Pathan way of mixing genders – and that was enough. It was after all, Iqbal Ahmad Jan from Peshawar. Saeed Ismat and Joji Aijaz Akram, both ace flyers, rolled in – Aijaz in a smart check suit and Saeed as usual suave and dashing. Saeed runs a thriving restaurant in London and Aijaz after flying hundreds of sorties and a long stint on the Aga Khan choppers, now works with the Foundation. These were friends with whom one had spent endless days and nights, shared a hundred adventures and faced innumerable challenges. This was family. Shahid Hak materialized from nowhere and immediately the bantering went up a few notches. A shout went up that Shamshad Ahmad, ‘Shamo’, had arrived at the gates and had been refused entry. No one was surprised. Later reports suggested that he had been let in but having missed the main function, was now holed up on the edge of his beloved hockey field with a pal and enough liquid refreshments to keep a full tournament crowd merry.

We walked along the old corridors, peeped into the classrooms where we had learnt so much and where, unknown to us then, we had spent some of the happiest days of our lives. The main hall where they had served a huge tea was for many of us the scene of our trials as we sweated it out in final examinations watched by sharp-eyed teachers. And it was in these halls that Abbas Khattak had staged his magnum opus. An extract from Treasure Island when a ‘dead’ pirate refused to die and the curtains had to be hastily pulled, only to get stuck. Parents attending the event were in fits as was the cast. Many of us walked over to the hostels – Wings we called them and walked nostalgically among them. The dorms where we had spent so many years, looked spartan and basic. A cot, chair, table and a cupboard. The bathrooms were new – and Indian style now. The anteroom where the radio joined us with Lata Mangeshkar and Elvis Presley, was still the same though the radio was long gone. The carom and table tennis had survived and a large area had now been set-aside for prayers with the walls heavily laden with holy verses. Not quite what it used to be in our time when religion was still something personal and not a publicly advertised item. I didn’t have the heart to go up to ‘my room’ at the end of Liaqat Wing, where the three of us, Javed Aziz, Iqbal II and I roomed for one full, long and delirious year. Iqbal II crashed his F86 near Sargodha and Javed Aziz never surfaced from a cold and swift canal near Jhelum. Their memories were too strong and I could almost hear their running feet and their voices and all the excitement of being alive that was so firmly in our hands then. We were inseparable – the three musketeers. I muttered a silent prayer, a hello and a goodbye for them and all the friends long gone.

Late in the afternoon, we said goodbye to a tearful Syed Dilshad Hussain, the most handsome and riveting history teacher in the world and now the principal. His stirring address earlier, in a honey-gravelly voice still had the same magic when he would move us to tears recounting the fascinating sagas of history – the voyages of learning we would take with him. That afternoon, lunching with Farooq’s family we were like a family united and till way past midnight, we clung to one another, happy to be back in our childhood and so reluctant to return to the real world. Around midnight, we said a final farewell to Mr. Hugh Catchpole – or ‘Well I mean,’ as he would say, now resting in a quadrangle behind the pool near that pretty valley below the hills. Someone said that we were privileged to have been in Hasanabdal, that it was the best part of our lives. Who could disagree? Not us.