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AMM A'abad: Renaissance man
If we are fortunate as we journey through life we may experience that one event or meet that one soul who ignites in us a spark that goes on to give us our raison d'etre and make our life meaningful. Knowing AMM A'abad, known to us as Aabad Dada, was one such meeting for me. He was the person who awakened me to the existence of human intellect with its limitless possibilities, the curiosity and thirst for knowledge, the perpetual urge to transcend the mundane and to think outside the box, long before the term was coined… He was my intellectual father. He was a part of the Quadir family.
Who was this man who inspired me thus?
He was one who can be listed among the unsung nameless who lie buried in Gray's
Country Churchyard – in this case the backwater country being Bangladesh and his unwritten epitaph should be:
Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
I first met him when the first shadows of manhood started appearing on my upper lip and I was about to embark on a search for my own identity. Till then all my energy had been spent on emulating my own father (who was - and still is - my greatest hero), unconsciously believing that I was but an extension of this entity merely existing in another body. Now of course I had to push him away in order to find myself. And who should walk into my life right then? Aabad Dada.
It was in Islamabad, Pakistan. The year was 1969. He was vaguely related to my father. A cousin of his uncle, I recall, and hence Dada (Grand Uncle of sorts). He was in fact a few years younger than my father but they were very good friends. To support his widowed mother he gave up his formal education after getting an undergraduate degree in science and enabled three of his four sisters to get Masters degrees. I discovered that he had studied in the same institution where I had received my own undergraduate education: Saint Xavier's College, Kolkata. In truth, he was an autodidact, for his prodigious mind was entirely a product of his own efforts. The fact that he retired as a Director of ABU (Asian Broadcasting Unit) in Malaysia (1981 – 1990), that he proudly held the rank of Lt. Commander in the Navy (reserves), that he had won several amateur titles in badminton, and was registered to take part in an Asian Car Rally (Kabul – Kathmandu) in 1970; that he suggested technical improvements to the Volks Wagon Beetle that the company gladly accepted and acknowledged, and so much more…barely reflects his true genius. He was a rare renaissance man.
He could deliver a lecture on subjects as diverse as the political theories of Voltaire, Rousseau and Montesquieu; where Thomas Hardy stood among the dark Romantics, the fuel injection system of the latest VW Beetle or the different schools of Sufism. Socially not very adept, he kept to himself. Self-effacing and humble, though often misunderstood for his guileless forthrightness, he chose to write as a columnist under various pen-names (Chuckles, Mawaz, AlifZabar, etc.) in both national and international journals of many hues. He started writing in the 1950s and continued till his final days – the sum of which would turn into a mammoth tome. His razor sharp analytical powers, stupendous knowledge base and succinct language helped the readers view an otherwise dizzying canvas with unequalled clarity. His political analysis of both local affairs and international ones provided uncanny insight of this to come.
I could continue writing about the man that held such a unique place in the canvas of my life, but most of that would be personal. I have to merely close my eyes to be transported back almost forty-two years to the back seat of his favourite VW Beetle waltzing through the lower Himalayas and the Hindukush to the music of Hemanta's ami jhorer kachhey rekhey gelam amar thekana… or his (and our) favourite Japanese song from the 1960s, Pokang, Pokang, Pokang…
As for the rest of the world, let it suffice to say that:
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike the inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
(AMM A'abad --- writer, critic, conversationalist, intense reader --- passed away recently)
Riaz Quadir writes from Paris.
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