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.
