In the late autumn of 1964, when the days are sultry and the evenings are cool in Karachi, Rene Burri, the Swiss photographer and I left for China. My intention was to write a book, but I had no idea how I would go about it. I was counting on some spark of inspiration that would provide me with an outline or an angle. It would not do to be the poet who “found verse in fields of corn and merely set them down.” I felt like the conjurer who appears on a stage and hopes that a rabbit will pop out of a hat.
When I had gone to China in 1956, I had told Han Suiyin, the celebrated novelist, that I wanted to write a book on China. “It will, of course, be a superficial book,” she had said, but had not discouraged it on the theory that no voice is wholly lost. She had even recommended a title for the book — Asian Heartbeat. I had preferred to go the route of Carl Sandburg and would call it Tomorrow is a Day. I would keep a diary and the opening entry in the diary was: “To take a clear blue sky and fill with pictures.” It was an evocative opening. I was raring to go.
The flight was late at night and there was an evening to spend. Yunus Said arrived and then A.J. Kardar. And then Faiz saheb, and he brought along Habib Jalib. I had not met him, but there must have been instant chemistry between us for we were soon engaged in discussion as between old friends. Habib Jalib was not only a poet, but fitted the stereotype of one. I thought of Dylan Thomas, that slightly untidy look, the clothes in need of ironing but wide-awake eyes and a fixed, pensive look.... “Oh, as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means/Times held me green and dying/Though I sang in my chains like the sea.”
The election, Ayub Khan versus Fatima Jinnah, was in full swing. Habib Jalib would recite his verses at Ms Jinnah’s election rallies to thunderous applause. One poem, a biting, satirical one, ended with a refrain “Saddar Ayub Zindabad”, and the crowd would pick it and repeat it. Habib Jalib told us, to our amusement and to his own greater one, that the police on duty even joined in, on the belief that the poem was in praise of Ayub Khan. He was persuaded to recite his verses and he did so. Rene Burri, who understood nothing of any of this, nevertheless, said that he could sense the spirit of it all. “There is something of the French Revolution about it,” he said. Faiz saheb sat through, silently, chain-smoking. He had always been a man of few words and he would utter some measured ones to bring a discussion back on its tracks when it seemed to be getting derailed.
I was not going to be a guest of the Chinese Government, but they said they would facilitate my visit and provide an interpreter and other help. On arrival in Shanghai, I was met by Hurmat Baig, PIA’s General Manager in China. I stayed in the same hotel as he was staying. Anytime spent with Hurmat was quality time. He seemed in good heart and was settling down, “I will have to get used to the loneliness,” he said to me, the closest he came to complaining. Rene hadn’t travelled with me. He had gone to Hong Kong and would join me in Beijing. Hurmat arranged my flight to Beijing.
Obviously, Beijing would be the base from where I would be operating. I checked in the T’Sin Chiso Hotel. This was where non-official visitors stayed and it was a perfectly good hotel, the food, both Western and Chinese, was excellent and it had a billiards room and Rene and I, both amateurs at the sport, spent countless hours playing it. Excellence at billiards, I had read somewhere, was “a sign of a misspent youth.”
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who had become the foreign minister, had given me a letter for the Pakistan Ambassador, Maj-Gen Raza, introducing me and conveying that I should be given every assistance. I had met Gen Raza during our inaugural flight and he had been a friend of my father as well as of my brother, Sattoo. The embassy was close to the hotel and soon after my arrival, I went there. Ambassador Raza was a somewhat retiring person and did not give me the impression that he was overjoyed to see me. In my diary, I had noted that he had not tossed his hat in the air jubilantly.
He read Bhutto’s letter and asked me what I wanted. I told him that I did not want anything, but was merely touching base. He seemed skeptical. “If you expect me to arrange an interview with Zhou Enlai, I can’t,” he said with undeserved sharpness. I told him that I was quite capable of arranging my own interviews. He softened and said that all visitors from Pakistan wanted to meet the Chinese prime minister. I told him that I didn’t blame them. He asked me if there was anyone in particular I wanted to meet. Zhou Enlai had been disposed off. I said I wanted to meet Colonel Abid Zahid, who was our military attache. The sarcasm was lost on him. “Of course, of course,” he said.
I had first met Abid Zahid during our inaugural flight and he had become a good friend of mine. He had come to the airport in his uniform, carrying a swagger-stick. There had been something of a parade-ground about him. He had spoken what I called “Sandhurt English” clipped, command-giving and few ‘bloodys’ thrown in. But he had a heart of gold, a generous and hospitable man.
Abid arrived in the ambassador’s office and was thrilled to see me. I went to his office and I asked him to brief me. I told him that I had done a lot of reading, including a major article in The Economist and the latest, Peking Review. “Then you know as much as I do,” he said. He made one observation whose importance escaped me at that time. He said that Chairman Mao was being increasingly critical and seemed to be re-educating the young people about the Chinese Revolution. “He must be quite old,” I said. “Any chance he may be preparing a new leadership?” “Not a chance,” he had replied.
During my travels, I hadn’t had much to do with our embassies. I had found them too wrapped up in themselves and not very helpful. But we had been lucky with our China missions. In 1956, there had been Sultanuddin Ahmed and the marvellous K.M. Kaisar, a prince among princes. And now there was Abid Zahid.
Rene Burri arrived, like a “gust of wind,” a camera round his neck, like a garland, and one in his hand. He said that he had also brought a movie camera and a tape recorder, and wanted to try his hand at making films. He said that he had met Han Suiyin in Hong Kong, and that she sent her best regards and wanted me to get in touch with her. She was living in a Hong Kong hotel. “How is she?” I asked Rene. “Full of life. She spoke affectionately of you and wanted to know why I had given up writing to become a bureaucrat. She also remembered the canary-yellow sweater you used to wear,” he replied. I remembered that sweater and remembered Han Suiyin telling me that it made me look like an undergraduate. It was not meant to be a compliment.
We tried to make out some kind of a programme. We respected each other’s space. I had put in a request to visit Yenan that was off the beaten track of usual visitors. But I had made a strong case. I wanted to see the place where the Chinese Communists had re-grouped after the Long March, and from where the Chinese had marched back all the way to Beijing. I was told that the request was under consideration.
The best way of getting to know a city is by walking its streets. Rene and I would browse around shops. We found a book shop and the girl there spoke a little English and we talked to her. A young man with red hair and a goatee came in. He was from Chile. He was studying at the Beijing University. I asked him what he would do when he went back to his native Chile. “Join the revolution, of course,” he said. He made it sound like a foolish question. I could have asked him: “What Revolution?” but I did not. Another young man who wanted to change the world, I thought of Oscar Wilde’s poem: “Those Christs who fall upon the barricades, God knows, I am with them in some things.”
