Ghani Khan, son of Bacha Khan, is a humanist — poet, painter, sculptor and writer. Immersed in his heart- searing poetry is his revolt against politics, feudalism, violence, mullahism and the hidebound traditional Pakhtun society. His poetry is in Pashto, translated into English by former bureaucrat Imtiaz Sahibzada and exquisitely produced by Shandana Humayun in a book titled The Pilgrim of Beauty.

One glorious morning when the fog has lifted to bare the beauty of Islamabad, Imtiaz Sahibzada sits narrating the love story of Ghani Khan. He begins with Simla. “Ghani sees a beautiful woman on horseback. He falls in love. She is a Parsi, daughter of a nobleman. He vows to take her down from the horse,” says Imtiaz, meaning Ghani will win her over. They marry. Age withers the lovebirds.

In his poem ‘Do You Recall’ Ghani asks his wife: Oh Fairy princess, gentle-eyed … /When beauty, youth, the spring and love/ And you and I were all then one/ In ecstasy entwined were then … / Do you remember, call to mind / Or have you all forgotten since? Roshan proves a loving wife and a caring companion till her death in 1987, leaving Ghani disconsolate and lonelier than ever.

There is one man who would have spoken. He is dead but lives on in his poetry

The lifelong friendship between Imtiaz, a CSP officer who rises to become cabinet secretary and the weed-smoking, opium addicted Ghani is a tale unique. Imtiaz remembers meeting this strapping young man in brown khaddar shalwar kameez with a towering personality at his neighbour’s home when he was a child. “The majesty of the man was overpowering.” The next time he meets Ghani is when he is assistant commissioner Charsadda. He formally calls on Ghani, the son of the Red Shirts leader, Ghaffar Khan, who is on the government’s proscribed list. “I go ahead not caring about the consequences. I am greeted by his beautiful wife Roshan.”

Their first meeting seals a long, cherished, and adored friendship between Imtiaz and Ghani. “Despite our 20-year age difference, Ghani respects me. He never takes his daily dose of opium or alcoholic drink when I am around.” Opium he ingests to dull the unbearable pain that made him a Pethidine addict after his kidney surgery. Later arthritis attacks his knee joints; the aging lion takes to drinking alcohol for relief. “Roshan and Ghani love each other but like any other couple, have their ups and downs especially when he is in a state of inebriation.”

Yet the poet beseeches Roshan, his fairy princess, for help with pain that wracks his body: I’m weary of the world outside / Afraid of pain in store / Oh hide me from the eyes of grief. Their only son Faridoon dies. The poet mourns his loss but celebrates Faridoon’s wife Nageen’s presence in their amidst: Oh how very fortunate/Is Ghani in his old age/ In a home of tears, laughter/In the midst of Hell, a hoor/In a sea of darkness, light.

Ghani is a bohemian, an iconoclast, who lives and dies by his own rules, breaking ranks with his father and two famous siblings, Wali Khan and Ali Khan. The familial bond between Bacha Khan and Ghani has collapsed due to the latter’s free-spirited ways that never can conform to his father’s high ideals of conservatism and discipline. As an avowed leader of Pakhtun nationalism, Bacha Khan wants Ghani to inherit the party’s mantle. “But Ghani will have none of it,” says Imtiaz who quotes Bacha Khan telling his son “The freedom of India will not be achieved by you adding colour to paper or form to clay”.

One can picture Ghani as the unkempt, unruly hulk of a man who prefers to live life according to his own whims and fancies. He cares not for the huge tracts of fertile land he has inherited from his father. Frustrated by the lack of interest as a landlord, an angry Bacha Khan reproaches Ghani why he cannot be like his younger two brothers who handle their lands with responsibility and generate good income.” Pat comes the son’s reply, “Baba, it’s your fault!” How, asks the father. “Why did you name me Ghani, the giver!”

A rebel with a cause — Ghani’s poetry is about humanism and the search for truth. “It is self-realisation. I want my people educated and enlightened. A people with a vision and sense of justice, who can carve out a future for themselves in harmony with nature.”

Ghani criticisises his father, “Baba you organised the Pakhtuns but you failed to socially mobilise them in a bid to remove the social distinction between the tenant and the landlord; between the trader and the craftsman. Nor did you give the educated youth an economic programme because you were not committed to state socialism.” Only the firstborn dared to tell Bacha Khan that his father never did care for the empowerment of the Pakhtuns! A rebel with a cause — Ghani’s poetry is about humanism and the search for truth. “It is self-realisation. I want my people educated and enlightened. A people with a vision and sense of justice, who can carve out a future for themselves in harmony with nature.”

In his earlier years, Ghani attends the Art School at Shantiniketan’s Visva Bharati University, near Calcutta, to learn sculpture and painting where Indira Gandhi too is a student. The father does not approve, so he withdraws Ghani despite Nehru and even Mahatama Gandhi imploring Bacha Khan, their good friend, to let Ghani continue learning fine arts. “It was in Shantiniketan that I discovered myself and the past greatness of my own culture and civilisation which has produced several men of versatile genius. It was a whole new experience for me … I got the opportunity to assimilate Asian philosophy, literature, and appreciate performing and visual arts,” Ghani is quoted as saying.

His poetry is targeted on the hypocrisy of the clergy who hold the masses as hostages:

Get away, Oh pious priest! / What is there in all your books? The hand of God writes Ghani: is manifest; / In all things created…/ To each is apportioned its proper weight / Held in balance, in harmony… / Each by His hand, to their roles confined… / The end of the journey the mind can travel… / But if you wish to amuse yourself, Then there is the dome, the pulpit and priest!

This then is the flesh and blood story of a man transcendentally alive for all times.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, February 14th, 2016