WHERE’S Abdullah Malik, in Lahore or Islamabad, you wondered as you packed last Thursday morning for the 8am flight to Lahore. Anyway, you said to yourself, you will catch up with him in either Lahore or Islamabad. Then the morning papers came, and there it was, the headline: ‘Noted writer Abdullah Malik is dead’.
So, on Thursday afternoon, you were in a milling crowd at Abdullah Malik’s house in what was once Shaukat Hayat Colony but is now part of Lahore’s Garden Town, for the final farewell. They were all there, those who loved and admired him and those who attacked him as a member of the Indo-Russian lobby but nevertheless could not but acknowledge that he remained throughout steadfast in what he believed — peace, and democracy for the people and decency in politics.
This was also the bedrock of the policies followed by the Progressive Papers Limited (PPL) on Rattan Chand Road where so many grew up to be committed journalists and political commentators.
Memories welled up. Abdullah Malik and colleagues from the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists walking into PPI’s ramshackle offices on The Mall and threatening us with a boycott of the agency’s news if we did not send out an item saying that Mr Z.A. Suleri was no longer chief editor of the PPL. That must have been sometime in 1962, and Abdullah Malik and the rest of the Imroze staff had campaigned long and hard to ensure that Mr Suleri remained confined to The Pakistan Times and had nothing to do with the sister paper. The item was released, but it was then followed by a PPI boycott by Mr Suleri and The Pakistan Times (mercifully, it did not last long).
That was perhaps the first encounter with Abdullah Malik and his formidable, no-nonsense attitudes, but as the years rolled on, you found a friend and guide willing to talk, to teach, to recall, to advice. He would sit in his oblong-shaped drawing room, with windows at one end and the window sills cluttered with photographs dating back to the old days of the Communist Party of Pakistan, one specially remembered of Abdullah Malik with Sajjad Zaheer and another with Abdullah Butt. Abdullah Malik, in his Aligarh-type pyjamas, would sit with his legs pulled up on the sofa that ran round the wall and keep open house.
You would find political activists and journalists from both the left and right in heated discussions. On summer evenings, a pedestal fan would be dragged out to the front lawn, and the sitting would be held there. Sometimes you would find Faiz Ahmed Faiz there also, totally relaxed because he was in this gathering under no compulsion to recite his poetry. It was during one such session that Faiz had recalled his days as editor of The Pakistan Times, and we had all sat and listened fascinated.
You recall also a trip to Quetta for the Sibi Durbar when Abdullah Malik was in great form and had engaged in a cut-and-thrust discourse with the redoubtable Nawab of Kalabagh, whose fearsome looks and turban could not awe Abdullah Malik. It was a trip full of good cheer and hilarious evenings. Then there was the PPL hunger strike shortly after the 1970 general elections when Mr Z.A. Bhutto had faced his first street challenge and retreated from a confrontation with the Yahya regime. The strike, led by the late Safdar Mir, had originated in a dispute over retrenchment of staff, but had been seized upon as an occasion by the left to make a political statement for Mr Bhutto’s benefit, with several of his MNAs-elect, including Skipper Abdul Hafeez Kardar, joining in.
Abdullah Malik was among those in the forefront of the strike’s organizers, and also among those who helped to resolve the issue. Later, we would joke about how the union leaders were willing to send everyone on hunger strike except themselves. He was against what he called “adventurism” in politics and trade unionism, but was not averse to a compromise when he felt that it would be practical to wait and fight another day, but this was one struggle in which he played an active role.
Abdullah Malik was a fastidious, almost a natty dresser, often in winter with a flower in the buttonhole and wearing a smart felt hat. Behind his jovial facade, he had an immense capacity to work laboriously on his papers and produced book after book on various aspects of the tortuous history of the politics of Pakistan and Punjab. His who’s who of the country’s prominent political families was impeccable. He has left behind a treasure of books, newspaper files and notes that should be saved for posterity, and last Sunday, both his sons, Kausar and Sarmad, were busy talking to friends about how best this should be done.
Abdullah Malik was an institution, what we would say an “anjuman” in himself. There is so much else to recall and cherish. But whenever, after a long evening, somebody would raise a fresh topic of conversation, Malik Sahib would say: “Not now, that needs another bottle.” So that’s where we should leave this, too. Only, there will be no next time now or another bottle.
WHERE’S Abdullah Malik, in Lahore or Islamabad, you wondered as you packed last Thursday morning for the 8am flight to Lahore. Anyway, you said to yourself, you will catch up with him in either Lahore or Islamabad. Then the morning papers came, and there it was, the headline: ‘Noted writer Abdullah Malik is dead’.
