December
16 , 2005
A High Achiever
Shows the Way
Dr Amjad Hussain, a high achiever
by any measure, a paragon of versatile talents,
and a virtual monument to modesty and self-effacement,
has just come out with his tenth publication “Dar-e-Maktub”
–the portals of learning.
I have just finished reading this 239-page book
in Urdu that presents the profiles of his teachers
at the seven educational institutions in Pakistan
and the United States who have shaped his personality
and put him on the pedestal of eminence where he
is today.
It is a tribute of a grateful student to his mentors,
but it struck me also as a subtle, undeclared manifesto
for the youth of Pakistan aspiring to reach high
in life. By narrating how the qualities of head
and heart of the outstanding mentors have rubbed
off on him, he has attributed all his successes
in life to their impact. Fact of the matter is that
his inbuilt modesty does not admit of his even mentioning
that the major factor has been his own intense desire
to acquire knowledge and improve himself from all
sources available. Without this burning desire and
matching efforts to quench it, nothing could have
been achieved. That message, though unexpressed,
comes through the book clearly. He retired a couple
of years back as the Head of the Dept. of Cardiovascular
Surgery at the Medical University of Ohio, where
he is now a Prof. Emeritus.
In the brief introduction, he has beautifully summed
up his perspective by saying: “When I cast
a look at the voyage of my life (he is 67 now),
the schools, colleges and other learning centers
where my breeding took place strike me as glittering
islands in the vast ocean of life and my teachers
as light-towers brightening up the path to my future.”
The glittering islands were and still are there,
and their number and glitter have both increased.
But, how many pupils are there who have taken full
advantage of these facilities. It is only the thirsty
like Amjad Sahib who have drunk deep at these fountains
of knowledge. Not only that, he would seek out such
fountains even in far off lands and manage to reach
there somehow. While still a student at Khyber Medical
College, he reached Kabul to watch closely the surgery
of a famous American heart surgeon.
It was this thirst for knowledge that took him to
the United States. It was this thirst for knowledge
that made him study hard and qualify in the Adeeb
Fazil, Urdu {B.A. (Hon)} exam while he was a full
time medical student. It was this very thirst that
turned him into an excellent calligraphist in English
and Urdu, an efficient photographer, an essayist,
columnist, an award-winning author, a connoisseur
of music, and a linguist with proficiency in half
a dozen languages. On the top of these attainments,
he elected to be the first person to travel the
entire course of the Indus river, from its source
in Tibet to its terminus in the Arabian Sea, by
boat, raft, on the back of a horse or yak, or on
foot. What a versatile genius!
The book mentions the fact that he had flunked in
the Intermediate exam. He could have easily avoided
a mention of this, as the context did not demand
it. But he deliberately makes a mention of this.
Perhaps, he wanted to make the point that a setback
like this should not deter an ambitious, focused
person from his objective. He is not selected for
admission to the Khyber Medical College. He became
a clerk in an office and joined the BSc course.
But, he kept knocking at the door of the medical
college. Eventually, the college door opened for
him. I recall that my elder brother too had likewise
failed in the Inter exam, but he was not disheartened.
He reappeared, passed and got admission in the medical
college. He too became a surgeon and set up a 500-bed
hospital in Karachi. Moral: remain focused and work
hard in pursuit of your objective.
A quality of Dr. Amjad that stands out is his distaste
for any kind of bias. He is uncomfortable with those
inhabitants of the Frontier province who consider
the Hindko speaking people as immigrants and outsiders.
Similarly, while offering a bouquet to his Islamia
College professor of Urdu, Tahir Farooqi, and crediting
him for generating in Dr. Amjad a taste for Urdu
literature, he is critical of his biased views in
the Urdu-Bengali controversy.
“In my view”, writes Dr. Amjad, “East
Pakistan separated from us because we regarded that
part of the country as subservient to us.”
Several of his teachers and colleagues in Ohio were
Jews -Dr. Steven Rosenberg, Dr. Ernst Sternfeld,
Dr. Zwi Steiger- for instance, but Dr. Amjad had
the highest regard for their professional competence
and deep affection for their qualities of head and
heart. He learned from them that professional responsibility
holds sway over personal, religious considerations:
an accomplished mind is seldom a biased mind.
Being a highly accomplished person, Dr. Amjad comes
through this and his other books as an exceptionally
unbiased man. His love of Pakistan and of his city-Peshawar-
emanate from no sentiment of bias but from a deep
feeling of patriotism
A practicing Muslim, a man with a religious bent
of mind, he is nevertheless quite comfortable in
the company of people of other religions. He is
essentially a purveyor of happiness and bias would
have derogated his efforts in this direction. While
still under training at a hospital in Toledo, he
went from room to room on Christmas Eve with liquor
bottles, ice and soda on a trolley and served by
one by one all patients. His superior called him
to his office next morning and pulled him up for
having served liquor to the patients while being
a Muslim himself who had never tasted any alcoholic
beverage.
The highest ambition of Dr. Amjad was to be a teacher
at Khyber Medical College and serve the people of
Peshawar as the first cardiovascular surgeon of
the area. He had and still has a strong patriotic
nerve. That kept urging him to return to his beloved
place of birth soon after he became a qualified
heart surgeon. He had to pend his marriage to Dorothy
Brown whom he loved deeply till she agreed to accompany
him to Peshawar. He did return to be given a left-handed
treatment by the authorities of Khyber Medical College.
They cancelled the job they had advertised and Dr.
Amjad had traveled all the way to Peshawar to give
an interview. He describes the sad episode but without
bitterness. Stability being the outstanding facet
of his character, he bore no grudge and continued
to nurture a deep affection for the College. It
is this quality of stability and sustenance that
has made his marriage and family life an exemplary
success story spread over the past 37 years.
Dar-e-Maktub, a book worth reading and keeping in
your library, can be had from: aghaji@buckeye-express.com
- arifhussaini@hotmail.com Dec. 9, 2005
