When a friend is murdered in Pakistan
Hearing about the death of someone you know in real life through the virtual world can be quite unsettling. And while one can't really get used to hearing about the loss of life, this relatively new phenomenon of getting bad news makes coming to terms with death far stranger. A few days before the gruesome murder of free speech activist Sabeen Mahmud there was another political killing that took place in Pakistan and the victim was the marketing director of Pakistan’s most read English daily The Dawn.
The death of Masood Hamid came as a shock to me and while I didn’t know Hamid as well as many others who shared the grief, a brief interaction with him was enough to know that the man didn’t deserve the end fate laid out for him. But more importantly it was an eye-opener about the perils that ails freethinking men and women of Pakistan and the constant danger they exist in.
Growing up in Asian cultures, especially in the subcontinent, one learns to accept death at a young age. Witnessing death within the family - immediate or extended - or the cosmos that surrounds us, we tend to take it as a part of our existence but in spite of this understanding the end of a life you know still comes as a shock. I had met Masood Hamid briefly in New Delhi a few months ago when he was in India to promote a book that he helped get published.
Quite a regular visitor to India, Hamid was attending "Aalishaan Pakistan", a four-day lifestyle exposition at Pragati Maidan that had more than 300 exhibitors from across the border. While most visitors were making a beeline for fashion and lifestyle products, the book promoted by Hamid, Historic Temples in Pakistan: A Call to Conscience, attracted enough attention. Curious bystanders browsed through pages of author Reema Abbasi’s words that made a case for keeping ancient emblems of faith alive in Pakistan, a land that has been a home to multiple ancient faiths, yet stood besieged by unpalatable extremism. Along with the words, Madiha Aijaz’s photographs of antiquated Hindu shrines and their rituals and festivals, too, struck more than just a chord amongst the visitors. It was in this environment that I met Hamid with the idea of seeking his help to promote my then upcoming biography of the late Indian superstar Rajesh Khanna.
One often hears about the love for Indian pop culture especially Bollywood in Pakistan and gauging from Hamid’s reaction I learned that the older the cine star, the deeper the love went. Having heard about Dilip Kumar’s autobiography, Hamid was more than enthused about the idea of a book on Rajesh Khanna as the generation that loved India’s original superstar was the one that still preferred reading books and would gladly pick up a copy. Besides his fondness for nostalgia, being a one-time contributor to his newspaper, The Dawn, also endeared me to him and he promised to prop up a promotion trip across a few cities in Pakistan once the book released. Besides Bollywood, Faiz and food, we spoke about many things under the sun in the course of the afternoon and Hamid came across as not just an extremely congenial person but also a very pragmatic human being.
Like many in my generation, I, too, had a strange image of someone from there in my mind and I knew that our shared lineage notwithstanding we were different. Unlike me, Hamid had seen both countries and for someone who had first visited India in the early 1980s was witness to both India as well as Pakistan’s trajectory of overall growth in the last three decades. While he was amazed at the manner in which India had transformed in just a matter of years, he was more impressed with the way the young of this country seemed to react to things around.
In the course of the conversation Hamid felt that much of India’s sense of nationalistic pride came at the expense of his country, which I didn’t agree with. He, nonetheless, felt let down by way the youth in Pakistan reacted to what was unfolding around them. It was interesting to exchange notes with a person who was a part of the mainstream journalism in Pakistan and hearing him talk about the young there not being as progressive as they could have been hinted about the scenario across the border. Although he didn’t say anything directly he was worried about how things were shaping up in present-day Pakistan and the one reference he gave was the style of the beard the young men were sporting these days. Some years ago, said Hamid, you’d see one or two in ten men donning a religious beard while today you’d notice that only one in ten has a "fashion ki dadhi…"
A few days after we met I received an email from Masood Hamid telling me how he had enjoyed our chat and that he eagerly looked forward to reading my book. Moreover, his daughter had been researching on Sikh history in Pakistan and I had promised to connect her to my wife’s family here who hailed from Aroop village near Gujranwala. Following the book on temples in Pakistan Hamid wanted to chronicle Pakistan’s Sikh history and happily formed yet another connection with me via my wife’s paternal grandfather, Sardar Pritam Singh Bhinder, on who a road has been named in Pakistan, a first of its kinds post-Partition. But destiny had other plans.
As Indians, there are times when many of us find it difficult to understand why we should be hopelessly optimistic about peace with Pakistan even when its own house isn’t in order. It’s because of people like Masood Hamid, and Sabeen Mahmud and the eternal dream of a better tomorrow that they leave behind. People like Masood Hamid and Sabeen Mahmud aren’t interested in power but taking power away from those who aren’t interested in peace.