Sami Shah
(December 2011)

Goodbye Not Farewell

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Sami Shah once said to me, ‘how many people do you know who have a four word name where each word begins with the same letter?’ I tried but could not do better than Javed Jabbar. ‘Ha,’ said Shah. ‘Just as I thought! Syed Saeed Sami Shah. The one and only.’ ‘Game, set and match to you Shah Sahib,’ I replied. ‘Was there ever a doubt?’ said Shah Sahib and that was that. As another of our close friends said to Shah Sahib. ‘Sami Shah, damn. You are a small whatyoumaycallit, but you are still an intellectual giant.’ Sami Shah indeed was very bright but then he was most casual about it too. He had that uncanny gift of being quietly cynical about things. Burying him two days back in Islamabad after he lost a fiercely fought battle with cancer, is heartbreaking and very hard to accept. Although we had not been in frequent touch since he moved to Islamabad a few years ago, it would take just one word or one line and we would connect. That’s the way it is with close friends you have known over many years.

I think I first met Sami when he was still studying engineering at Peshawar. I do recall receiving a desperate call from Sami and my friend Shamail –both ostensibly studying engineering, pleading that I ‘put in a word,’ with my brother in law who was the External Examiner in their last year examination. I did. When these two sauntered in, he asked them a few regular questions and got vague replies. He tried more with the same result. Finally he asked them, ‘what questions would you gentlemen prefer me to ask you?’ ‘Questions?’ they asked. ‘Alright,’ he said. ‘Question.’ Much happier with that, they chose the one question they wanted. Because they had done well in their written tests, they passed.

Later, the escapades grew by leaps and bounds. Shah was always up to something, some crazy harebrained scheme probably inherited from his irrepressible elder brother Anis Haider Shah who was all set to mining plutonium or some such exotic concoction from the mountains of the north. Shah Sahib claimed there was gold, diamonds galore and (I think) Titanium plus a dozen other minerals all waiting to be mined. That nothing was ever found is another matter and not important at all. He and Major Amanullah (Colt) were at it till they both got bored and Shah Sahib felt the urge to produce high grade Vodka in his front lawn, a proposal that found solid support from his perpetually thirsty friends. Some liquid was produced but such was its foul stench that no one could get near it. Whatever Shah Sahib had created remained buried there mercifully. I wouldn’t be surprised one day to see a movie called Vodzilla. Shah Sahib was a mad hatter in the most loving fashion and Sami Shah naturally had the genes firmly in place.

The four brothers sans Iqbal Mehdi Shah whom I never knew, Anis, Doc Aftab Shah and Sami were the children of the legendary Col. A.S. B Shah once our ambassador to Kabul. Their mother was Aunty Munno who had an endless and sparkling wit and all the boys inherited their love for the sharp phrase and the ultimate one liner from her. She was, in her youth, a striking beauty. My father who was a doctor in Srinagar used to say that when she would arrive for her summer break – this is in the1940s, the valley would buzz with the news. She could turn heads and even in later years, with silver hair meticulously coiled, she could stop you dead in your tracks. Much to Doc Aftab’s perennial embarrassment, long after he was a grown man, Aunty Munno insisted on buying his ‘katchaas’ (underwear) from Anarkali. I guess she was not too sure Doc could manage this task on his own. Anis, who was in constant trouble but also the one she could never resist, often got away with murder, but that is another story. Once staying at Sami’s parents’ lovely and classy home at 1 Younis Road in Peshawar, Aunty Munno roped me in to clean the hall’s main chandelier – an extremely unique and expensive piece. So gingerly I went up a shaky ladder with a feather duster and other tools to start the job. The problem was that one slight touch and the whole chandelier would swing from end to end. Aunty Munno watched steely-eyed from far below. I was spared possible strangulation by her later with Sami Shah’s timely arrival. One look and he knew that I had been conned to carry out this foolhardy mission. Yelling at me to immediately descend he told his mother that his friends were not to be exploited like that ever again! I was taken to task later by Sami Shah and told what he thought of my brains. It really was a narrow escape and it can’t have got narrower than that!

However our swan song came one summer when Aunty Munno had to traipse off to Peshawar and Sami Shah and I were left at the family home at 56 Main Gulberg Lahore to look after Granddad, who was none other than the great jurist, Sir Abdur Rashid, Pakistan’s first Chief Justice who is the one you see administering the oath to Mr. Jinnah. The justice was a man who lived by the book. Thus lunch was always chicken broth and boiled chicken or some ghastly dish followed by a light ‘pateen’ or a sweet dish to the uninitiated. Dinner was more or less the same – I don’t remember. In between Sami and I partnered at the 5pm bridge sessions where Justice Rashid and his brother Bashir cheated without shame or remorse and naturally won. ‘We are programmed to lose,’ Sami explained to me. For Granddad’s food, a royal sum of Rs.300 was left with Master Sami to ensure that he was served his meals faithfully every day. Hardly had Aunty Munno left the municipal precincts of Lahore town and we had blown the money – all of it on crates of beer which Sami Shah said we’d need to bide over the approaching difficult month. How we were going to obtain the infernal chickens we had no clue then. However demolishing the crates with helpful friends was but a trifling matter. Thereafter reality sank in. Those were very desperate times. Shah Sahib at one time contemplated selling our bodies, but the project was abandoned. We begged, stole and picked wallets to buy the infernal chickens daily. The broth was often very thin but his Lordship survived. We were however in bad shape. No wonder when Aunty Munno returned she remarked how thin we were looking!

It was in those days that Syed Saeed Sami Shah fell in love, hopelessly I might add, with Nikki Hyat – we drooled over her for years and cursed Shah Sahib for having netted her. An elopement was hastily organized to foil plots hatched by ‘the walls of society.’ Young Nikki caught a morning flight and a ceremony was hastily organized – where else but at 56 Main. We needed a father so Maj. Amanullah was roped in and he ‘gave away’ his daughter most tearfully. The young-bride-to-be was in jeans and had no dupatta so I had to rush to my sister and procure the most glitzy one she had. The young Maulana conducting the ‘Nikah’ was getting increasingly suspicious especially when we told him to keep his voice down – his Lordship was getting suspicious in the next room and do away with the usual mumbo jumbo. This inspired him to first deliver a sermon on love in a hoarse whisper and later to raise his fees exorbitantly.

There are hundreds of stories but not enough space. Of the beautiful Nasrene Shah, Anis’s wife, with whom all of Sami’s friends were hopelessly in love, Maj. Colt and the Mighty Masher Anis never caught, Maskers the long suffering household head at 56 Main, Ch. Zaheer lunatic and ready for a prank, Patty who was once greeted - (‘Hi you must be Patty. I am Cake!), Shamail first crazily plunging into everything and then ending in a wheelchair, Samina, Rakshi, the girls Maheen, Mahrene, Mariam, Nadia, cousins like Haroun, Zarene, Micky, Tania, Laila and Saadia – derelicts like Smudge, Doc Zafar, and other unique larger than life characters. So many stories, so many memories! For what is life other than stories pieced together?

When we gathered at 56 Main for Aunty Munno’s funeral, all we could remember were funny stories and it was a solemn occasion! But the stories flowed on endlessly. It was a great way to remember her. I hope we can do the same for Syed Sami Saeed Shah or SSSS as he would have put it with that impish smile spreading from one ear to another!