THE mood was sentimental and an occasion for warm tributes all round. It had to be that way as Sahibzada Yaqub Khan, former foreign minister, was retiring as chairman of the board of trustees of the Aga Khan University after 16 years. He was the first AKU chairman and retiring of his own choice after rendering valuable service in founding and developing the university to which the Aga Khan, resident in Paris, is the chancellor.
Scholar, soldier and diplomat who rose to be foreign minister after several top ambassadorial posts, he speaks many languages, including French and Russian. He is succeeded now as chairman by another linguist, Saidullah Khan Dehlavi, a career diplomat of 37 years who speaks French, Italian and Turkish, besides English and Urdu.
Sentimental mood prevailed at the dinner hosted for Sahibzada Yaqub and his begum by the AKU trustees, at the residence of Shams Kassim Lakha, president of the university and his wife Khadija, with Dehlavi, too, present to pay tribute.
Earlier, the Aga Khan had hosted a dinner in honour of the Sahibzada in Paris, while the trustees met there and paid warm tributes to him for the excellent work he had done as chairman of the board, particularly in the early years. He also announced a chair in the name of Sahibzada Yaqub and left it to him to suggest the subject. And he chose philosophy. Sociology may be a more apt subject in a medical university, but if philosophy means ethics in large measures, that is what most doctors of Pakistan need now to be better and more conscientious professionals, and not those who run after big money.
Dehlavi, too, has done his M.A. in philosophy, politics and economics from Oxford University, and may be able to deliver lectures on philosophy to his doctors from time to time.
Dehlavi, son of the former foreign secretary, S.K. Dehlavi who, too, was ambassador to Paris and had a French wife, was all praise for the Sahibzada, under whom he has worked in several places and in Geneva, as well during the “proximity talks” that eventually resulted in the Geneva Accord, leading to the exit of Russians troops from Afghanistan.
If diplomatic presence at the dinner was strong, the judicial prominence was no less. Britain’s David Pearey, The US Consul General, John Bauman; Gilles Bonnaud of France and Russia’s Yuri Materiy were conspicuous.
The British Deputy High Commissioner was asked why both sides of the road in front of his Runnymede office and residences were closed since Oct 7, while only one side of the road in front of the US Consulate General was closed. He did not have an answer. That is a matter for the local security agencies. But such closures cause a great deal of inconvenience for the people living in Clifton as well as those visiting it.
Former Chief Justice of Pakistan, Sajjad Ali Shah, was there and also former judges of the Supreme Court, Justice Fakhruddin and Justice Nasir Aslam Zahid.
The ICI Chairman, Munnawar Hamid, was there feeling sorry at the fact that the British Council-ICI Management Centre had to be closed down soon after it was opened with some fanfare in Karachi, because of the fall-out of the Afghan war.
The globe-trotting State Bank Governor, Dr Ishrat Husain, was also spotted. He was going off to Paris for talks on Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility now under discussion. His trips, often with the finance minister, Shaukat Aziz, have resulted in promises of large aid and considerable debt relief. When will the time come for delivery remains to be seen.
Dehlavi, a trustee of the Aga Khan University for years now, not only got his M.A. degree from Oxford, but also joined Lincoln’s Inn in London. He has also been ambassador to France, Ireland, Switzerland, Yugoslavia and Albania, and retired as ambassador to Belgium and the European Union.
Some of the guests wanted to see the medal of Officer of the French National Order of Merit conferred by the French government on Shams Kassim Lakha at a ceremony in Islamabad, recently. He brought out the gleaming medal and showed it around quietly.
Some guests wondered why the Sahibzada, with his vast military and diplomatic experience and his scholarship, did not want to write a book of memoirs. One of the guests said he had delivered a fine lecture on imagination at the university earlier, and he should not write a book on reality as he saw it, particularly in 1971, when he resigned from the army command in East Pakistan and thereafter left the service. He certainly has plenty to tell, and he should for history’s sake.
Change of guard
IT was an occasion to mark the change of guard at Defence Housing Authority. Brig Abrar Husain, who had served as DHA Administrator for two-and-a-half years, was leaving and was being succeeded by Brig Asif Ghazali. Zafar Iqbal, president of the Defence Authority Residents Association (DARA), gave a dinner to thank the departing administrator and greet the new one, and present suggestions for improving the DHA with its varied problems.
Zafar Iqbal, DARA president for ten years now, spoke of the oft-discussed desalination plant and hoped that it would be set up before Brig Asif Ghazali retired. The brigadier has two excellent records: completing the landscaping of the Quaid-i-Azam’s mazar at a record time of nine months and at low cost, and getting 100 million gallons of water more for Karachi, of which the DHA will get its share.
In the presence of guests such as former Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Saeeduzzaman Siddiqi and Dr F.U. Baqai, Zafar Iqbal thanked Brig Abrar for completing some of the good projects, such as lighting up Sunset Boulevard and the carpeting of some roads.
Discussion groups
Farooq Hasan, who gives dinners to greet major diplomats or bid farewell to them, this time, wanted something different. He wanted to get together some well-informed and relevant persons to discuss the crisis in the region and future trends.
He invited the consul generals of France and Turkey and Britain’s David Pearey to discuss developments in the region, along with H.N. Akhtar, former communications secretary and former chairman of Pakistan Steel, Nafis Siddiqi and several others.
Akhtar, who reads a good deal and has been to the Central Asian states to probe business possibilities there, knows Afghanistan pretty well. But his views are too edged.
Of the younger generation, joining the debate were the two sons of Farooq Hasan, the builder, who were anxious to know what kind of Pakistan the current crisis would leave behind. Speculation was not lacking, but no one was sure how things would shape up with too many players in a small country living too much in the past for too long.
Miniature treasures
Many thought that those delicate and lovely miniature paintings were a thing of the past, or a legacy of the past to be preserved fondly by those who have such rare pieces. Foreigners in quest of those magnificent miniatures also found it difficult to get hold of them at reasonable prices and in good numbers.
After Chughtai, the late Haji Mohammad Sharif and Shujaullah, it seemed that there were not many competent painters in this highly-sensitive style with the requisite patience and delicate artistry. But Haji Sharif and Sheikh Shujaullah had taught at the National Council of Arts, Lahore, and created a new generation of artists anxious to fill the void. And they have succeeded remarkably well. Bashir Ahmad, the head of the department of miniature painting at NCA, has put together a splendid exhibition of miniatures sponsored by with the Pakistan National Council of Arts, in collaboration with the Miniature Painters of Pakistan, which Karachiites were not aware of earlier.
This show of ancient and modern themes in miniature style was mounted earlier at the National Art Gallery in Islamabad, and it has now come down to Mohatta Palace Museum, where it was opened by Fakir Aijazuddin, chairman of the Lahore Arts Council and chairman of the Executive Committee of the Lahore Museum, whose family has a large collection of miniature paintings.
The NCA students have done excellent work in the traditional Moghul and Mangra style and contemporized the themes as well. Aminah Jahan Jamil, for example, has done a series of six paintings on “women’s issues.”
Earlier, it was said that hardly any woman did miniature paintings, but now most of the work on show is by girl students or NCA graduates. Much of the work is thesis paintings by the students, into which they have evidently put in a lot of love and labour.
Many of the pieces on show are not miniatures as much as mediatures, which break out of the constraints of miniature, such as Buddha, Sculpture Studio and Rhythm of Dance.
Visitors at the show were delighted to get a lovely brochure listing all the paintings as well as the artists and with reproductions of the paintings. The show needs more than one visit and leisurely contemplation of the exquisite beauty of the fine work done.
THE mood was sentimental and an occasion for warm tributes all round. It had to be that way as Sahibzada Yaqub Khan, former foreign minister, was retiring as chairman of the board of trustees of the Aga Khan University after 16 years. He was the first AKU chairman and retiring of his own choice after rendering valuable service in founding and developing the university to which the Aga Khan, resident in Paris, is the chancellor.
