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Moon of contention
Our attitude is negative WITH reference to Mr Ali Jamali’s letter (November 23), in which he claims to talk about a few bitter realities while pointing at “learned Pakistanis (like Dr Zaman) serving in foreign Universities to get rich”. Sadly, most of what he talks about are neither realities, nor is Dr Zaman a Pakistani. The only fact being that he is learned and what I can add, a fine gentleman and a great friend of Pakistan. I happen to know him personally and feel duty bound to remove the misconceptions that the writer of the letter has created unwittingly. Dr Viqar Zaman got his higher medical education in Britain and lived and worked there as a British national. Subsequently he was selected by Singapore University as the head of a Department in an open international competition, which was an honour for any South Asian. He is a Singaporean by nationality now living in Singapore and often visits Pakistan. While he worked there he was also a visiting Professor to the University of West Virginia. He could indeed have gone on ‘getting rich’ as Mr Jamali imagined, till the founders of Aga Khan University at Karachi asked for his help for establishing the Microbiology Department in an honorary capacity. Dr Zaman had to pay frequent visits to Karachi for three years, which required taking leave without pay from his job. All that AKUH had to do was to give him the ticket and pick up his Hotel bills. It was much later when he retired from his Singapore job and devoted full time at AKUH that he drew any salary. Now that he has retired, he still comes to Pakistan to teach as a visiting honorary Professor when the Parasitology Programme is run at AKUH. More than a thousand medical graduates in Pakistan have since benefited from his exceptional teaching skills in tropical medicine for which he is much admired. He never forgets to mention his short stay in Karachi to complete his unfinished medical degree after his family was uprooted in India in 1949, and has never stopped working for the good of Pakistan in one way or the other. What he has contributed is much more than many ‘full-time Pakistanis’ can boast about. He is an unassuming and retiring intellectual who believes in sharing knowledge by writing and speaking whenever he is asked to do so. He is forthright and truthful. If he has ruffled some feathers and feudal sensitivities in his interview, we had asked for it. A misplaced criticism only shows how negative we can get in our attitude. S.A. ABIDI Karachi | ||
WITH reference to the main-story and the subsequent interview, in the November 23 issue, I would like to comment that it is most unfortunate, though not for the first time, that there was a controversy over the sighting of the moon.|
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