Overcoming
Hard Times
By Akhtar Mahmud Faruqui
Outlaws they were,
as is well known
And men of noble blood,
And often was their valor shown
In the forests of Merrysherwood…
Once too often school-day
rhymes play pranks on one’s mind and rekindle
childhood fancies. Robinhood was truly a daring
character! He still is, with perhaps an added appeal
for yesteryear youth, the grownup white-collared
academics of today.
Irked constantly by
the price spiral one is prone to trifle with fanciful
thoughts. A show of valor in one of the glittering
malls - centers of affluence - might provide the
much-needed respite, a facelift at home and a more
congenial equation with the better-half.
For men of ‘noble
blood’, the facelift is a compelling yet vexatious
proposition. The furniture-turned-antique in posh
surroundings relays many subtle messages. The defaced
refrigerator moans and whines as if with exhaustion.
The rickety contrivance called the ‘family
car’ is perched listlessly in the garage.
Like an irate household maid, it hisses and rattles
moodily and is seldom road-borne.
The bedroom setting
is reminiscent of the Dickensian world, portraying
little Dorrit’s privations and young Copperfield’s
haunted surroundings. A broken mirror embellishing
the dressing table projects a split image, reflecting
the split personality syndrome - a distracted mind
torn between the conflicting urges of worldliness
and the nobler science of values and learning.
Mentally, the Pakistani
academic is not disposed to revel in a scholarly
pursuit or conditioned to pride on a research accomplishment.
A paper published in UNESCO’s prestigious
multilingual journal from eight capitals of the
world! No mean achievement, yet, the financial gains,
if any, are too miniscule and they are all that
seem to matter.
The mind is overborne
with the more trivial though pressing obsessions
of work-a-day life: the constant badgering at the
hands of the butcher where Sahib apologetically
advances the order for 2 kg of mutton to the admonitory
grunt of the qasai, the exasperating grocery bills
which raise the pulse beat to a new high, and the
unpalatable proposition of choosing between an English
or Urdu daily.
The children’s
prattle and precocious wisdom at the dining table
is particularly disquieting. “Ammi, for a
change, could we have prawns and fish steak in the
evening?” enquires the youngest who claims
resemblance with Superman Christopher Reeve as he
treats the carbohydrate-rich dishes with disdain.
“I need to build my muscles,” he innocently
explains. “Carbohydrates are also needed by
your body system, beta,” Sahib meekly explains.
“Milk and eggs should do for proteins,”
he vainly argues. “And so also a regular shot
of vitamins - fruits and salad - for proper nutrition.
He is already short sighted,” snappishly interjects
the irate Begum, casting a look of remonstrance
at the subdued Sahib whose mind is overborne with
June’s exasperating callings.
May, June bring evil
tidings. To invest or not to invest is the pressing
question agitating his mind as he works out different
permutations and combinations. The school challans,
inopportunely timed, seem to upset all calculations.
Sahib is piqued. Disbursement of the hefty monthly
fees is a tall order at the critical period of the
year. One does realize, though belatedly, the wisdom
of the kam bacchae khushal gharana jingle.
On the domestic front,
Begum continues with her constant rattle: the long
cherished dream of buying a new pair of karas. Thirty
years have gone by, yet, hope, the energizing force,
has not eluded the energetic better-half.
The Sahib has his eccentricities too. His obsessions
are of a peculiar nature. He does not crave for
a Lamborghini or a mansion in Beverly Hills. For
years he trudged his way to Thomas and Thomas and
Pak American and now visits the glittering American
bookshops. The acquisition of a personal set of
Encyclopedia Brittanica has been a long-cherished
dream. The paperbacks have come to cost more than
the video films. You can watch 4-5 video films for
the price of one paperback. Easy trading!
Psychologically, the
price hike takes its toll. The academic loses in
confidence, his vision blurs, the thought process
suffers. And this happens particularly in the Pakistani
setting. Didn’t Jane Austen say so wisely
that resource-limitation leads to contraction of
ideas? What was true for her times is true for ours.
Perhaps more, for we unabashedly talk of ethnic
groupings, confirming an age-old maxim: small minds
discuss people, average minds discuss events, and
great minds discuss ideas.
But are we people
with small minds, the followers of Rakhman Baba
who detested factionalism and kept to his line of
peace and pacification; of Bab Bulhey Shah, the
mystic, who went to Lahore in search of peace of
the soul; of Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai, whose poetry
had a message to strive for justice, equality, fraternity
and dignity of man; and of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan who
opened the portals of the Aligarh University to
Muslims of the subcontinent irrespective of their
cultural or ethnic background?
The answer is a definite
no. In the words of the late Professor Abdus Salam,
the Nobel Laureate, “Ours is a numerous -
potentially a great - nation. Our tragedy is that
we do not seem to realize this; we act in a narrow
manner only befitting a small nation…Our people
have a natural endowment of first-class talent in
science once it is developed. I am not saying this
as a starry-eyed patriot. I know this from experience
after a lifetime of supervising researchers of many
nationalities. Likewise there is no question that
we have a great talent in technology…Could
a people who can write a whole surah of the Holy
Book on a grain of rice not succeed equally when
it comes to microelectronics?” Salam, a man
of ideas, went on to win the Nobel Prize.
The past too serves
us with many shining examples. The era of ideas
was an era of prosperity. According to Purnell’s
Concise Encyclopedia of World History, London (page
139), “For a century and a half, under Mughal
rulers, South Asia with 100 million inhabitants
had a standard of living slightly higher than contemporary
Europe.” The region “flourished: The
arts and crafts boomed. Persian influence led to
the development of a new Mughal school of miniature
paintings and to a new architectural style…”
In an earlier period,
to quote Hugh Thomas (A History of the World): “While
Europe slept and America lived a dream of innocence
free almost both of disease and physicians, Islam
was at work.” The universities of Cordova
and Toledo in Muslim Spain formed the hub of scientific
enquiry where scholars from the rich East - Syria,
Egypt, Iraq and Afghanistan - to name a few, dabbled
in science and prospective researchers from the
poor West looked askance when told to go back to
clipping sheep because their teachers “doubted
the wisdom and value of training them for advanced
scientific research” (Nature, London, December
1979).
The decline in Spain
and the subcontinent set in when social and academic
strivings shifted from ideas to ordinary events
and commonplace people. Group vilification became
the order of the day like the current confrontations
blighting the national and community scene.
The economist is better
poised to rescue the academic. He will. But his
prescription might provide only short-term relief.
The long-term panacea lies in fostering genuine
scientific enquiry, in promoting education and science
on a broad scale to generate ideas, opportunities,
jobs, and a vibrant, dynamic society receptive to
change. At the beginning of the 21st century let’s
turn a new leaf and act on Sir Syed’s counsel:
“Hamarae daen
hath maen Qur’an ho,
Baen hath maen Science,
Aur peshani par Kalima La Ilaha Illallah”
Science, education
and the Holy Book would see us through. The larger
allocation for scientific research and the higher
education initiatives are heartening features of
contemporary Pakistan.
- afaruqui@pakistanlink.com
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