Saturday, December 17, 2011

Ghulam Muhammad Khalid

My story begins a few years prior to emergence of Pakistan on the map of the world. Despite extreme poverty, it was my late mother’s ardent desire that I acquire quality education. Therefore on my mother’s insistence, I was admitted in a Government School where education was free.  However, when I was in my second grade, impecuniousness forced me to leave education in order to support my father financially which led to the demise of my mother’s desire of me getting quality education. At that time I was twelve years old. During the same period as a result of the honest leadership of Quaid-e-Azam and struggle of his sincere colleagues, an Islamic State of Pakistan emerged.
Testing times continued for my family. In 1955 or 1956 we migrated to Lahore. Here I got the job of a peon in the news paper ‘Daily Manshoor’ where I got the opportunity to work with columnist like Muzaffar Ehsani and Khwaja Sadiq Kashmiri, sub-editor. Their attitude towards the staff was very encouraging in those days. This literary mileu provided a flip to my educational ambitions once more. However, the news paper closed a couple of years later. But in the literary atmosphere, I got significant opportunities to study the newspapers and magazines which largely helped to improve my command over Urdu language. Although my Urdu has improved because of my constant struggle, I had obtained little knowledge of English and that too with the help of Ateeq English teacher. However, in the absence of proper educational qualification, I was not successful in even getting the job of a peon.
When I was 24 years old I got married to a woman from a family of equivalent status. After this I worked as a labor along with builders. While working, I got admission in ‘Adeeb-e-Fazil’ and passed the exam in 1964. Here I want to mention that in this educational journey I could not afford a teacher for lack of funds. By now I had become the father of two daughters.
During those days, I would go without work for days and sometime weeks. The benefit of Adeeb-e-Fazil exam is that after passing this exam a person has to appear in only one subject i.e English and thus can progress from Matric to B.A which was called B.O.L.
I cleared my B.A exam, although with poor marks. By now I had become the father of six daughters. I learnt typing and got the job of a typist at P.N.O, which subsequently became P.S.O. In 1974, I cleared my M.A Urdu exam. By this time I was father of ten daughters and two sons. In 1986, by the grace of Allah I also cleared my M.A Islamiat from Karachi University.
On insistence of my mentor and friend Shahid Hussain I started writing columns for ‘Daily Jasarat’ and occasionally my columns are also published in Daily Nawa-e-Waqt. Now I am 76 years old and my friend Mr. Shahid has contributed immensely in my career progression and my present status.