KARACHI: If you were a journalist who’s concerned about class disparities in Pakistani society you would surely like to meet I.A. Rehman sahib. As a cub reporter, I was no different. He was a colossus in the field of journalism. Always spoke for the rights of the underprivileged without being loud and preachy. The articles that he wrote for various publications brimmed with unfussy eloquence. And his association with the likes of Faiz Ahmed Faiz and with all movements that sought to have a truly democratic system in the country had made him into an almost mythical figure for his juniors.

It was over a decade back that I finally got to meet him at the Karachi Press Club (KPC). I was there to cover an event at which he was one of the speakers. As soon as the programme ended and he got off stage, I almost ran up to Rehman sahib (as he was fondly known) but found him surrounded by his admirers. I waited for him to leave the premises. As soon as he, after exchanging pleasantries with his fans, moved towards the car that had come to pick him up, I walked up to him and introduced myself. He said he knew me and shook my hand. I didn’t have the courage to tell him that I was, like hundreds of others, an admirer. Still, the short meeting made my day.

After that, whenever he’d visit Karachi to participate in programmes that needed his presence, and if I was there, I’d make sure that I say hello to him. I was still unsure whether he was only being kind to me by telling me that he was aware of the fact that I was a (small-time) pen-pusher. So when at a literary festival I (re)introduced myself to him, he replied, “arey miyan aap kyun baar baar batatey hain apney baarey mein” (why do you keep introducing yourself to me?).

Now I could speak with Rehman sahib with a fair degree of freedom. I didn’t exactly know what the topics were that might tick him off. So, one day, being a Karachiite and thinking that since he and my parents were born in the same geographical part of India, I raised the topic of migration, hoping that he’d come up with some tragic stories of crossing the border in 1947. He looked at me disapprovingly. Clearly, he didn’t want to talk about it because for him what mattered was: present-day Pakistan. He changed the subject to what was transpiring in Karachi in the political sphere at the time.

This, in a way, encouraged me to pick his brain about important issues Pakistan was faced with whenever I had the time to talk to him one on one. One day, at an HRCP meeting in Saddar where he’d come to head a meeting, when the get-together was over, I struck up a conversation with Rehman sahib over a cup of tea. I asked him whether there’s any possibility, however remote, for our society get rid of the socio-cultural and political ills that had impeded its growth, or were we staring down the barrel. Again, he did not answer immediately. There was a meaningful, gentle pause. His reply, “There’ll be tremendous mayhem, after which things will begin to improve.”

The more that we interacted with each other the more I got to acknowledge his uniqueness as a human being. He was not just a socio-political analyst. He knew cultural features of our society like the back of his hand. Rehman sahib pleasantly surprised me on two occasions: one, when he spoke on a lesser-known Urdu poet Jaffer Zattalli at a book launch at the KPC; two, when he gave a talk on Pakistani films at a conference. He spoke on both subjects far better and persuasively than any literary or film critic I have ever heard.

His soft-spoken and mild demeanour was extremely endearing. At a wedding of a friend’s daughter, Rehman sahib came to the table at which my family sat. Seeing him coming towards us I stood up. I had never expected that he would leave countless familiar faces in the marriage hall and sit with us. He did. Not just that, he asked my son in his beautifully cadenced Urdu, “miyan tum kiya parh rahey ho?” (What are you studying these days?). The youngster told him that he’s in college. On our way back home, my daughter asked me who the kind man who sat with us at the wedding was. I answered, “He is one of the greatest men of my country.”

Published in Dawn, April 21st, 2021