During his stay in Lahore, many a time Abid Ameeq seems disoriented and in pain. I know why but neither I touch the subject nor does he open up. He has been interrogated. Only a few know what an interrogation of a political dissident in the Lahore Fort means in our brutal martial law regime backed by the American-led democratic West and Islamic Middle East in their final battle against the Godless Soviet Union that has blundered into a trap in Afghanistan.

The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan has proved to be a disaster that changed the course of history. His body movement is jerky. His epileptic condition seems to have been aggravated as a result of torture. He takes his pills and falls asleep. No talk, no food. He sleeps for 24 hours, even longer depending on what he has been through. “…What should I hide and what should I reveal? What madness it was! Whoever opens one’s mouth is lashed/ Whoever demands bread is thrashed…” he says in one of his poems. But it’s not all doom and gloom. Our continuing dialogue on literature, culture, philosophy and politics enlivens our lives.

Abid and Irshad Taunsvi, a brilliant Seraiki poet, and I are having breakfast in the morning. Taunsvi, a terrific wit, addressing Abid while pointing towards me says; “Ajj iendi khushamad di lor nahi. Mein Nasreen toon 500 udhaar gidhi baithan (No need to flatter him today. I have already borrowed rupee 500 from Nasreen”. Nasreen is my wife.

Abid’s wife Saaji is diagnosed with a kidney problem. Abid musters all his financial resources which are meagre anyway. He doesn’t care two hoots about increasing his income. He is content with his pay as a college lecturer. His sense of self-esteem doesn’t allow him to accept help even from his closest friends. He draws his provident fund.

Dr. Mahmood Nasir Malik, a competent physician and refined poet, and Dr. Khaliqur Rehman, a urologist and remarkable sculptor, arrange medical facilities for the patient. Abid continues to put on a brave face and does all that’s possible to get her treated. She is finally put on dialysis, an excruciatingly painful process. She dies.“…Tell me where have the sparrows gone? Where do they have their night stay? Where should I make my call that evokes a response? What a strange silence! Like water, sweet water. Let me fill the pot for your sake and drink it till my last breath,” he says in his poem on her.

Abid is left with three children shattered. He isn’t a family man in the traditional sense. A difficult man to live with in any case because of his fiercely independent nature and eccentricities. He loves his wife but he isn’t uxorious.

He has a score of friends in Lahore though he is very choosy in terms of forming a relationship. He doesn’t believe in proselytizing mission as many Leftists are wont to. He treats even a novice as his equal when it comes to intellectual interaction. In Lahore, he mostly visits Nabeela Kyani, Najms, Dr. Khaliqur Rehman, Dr. Mahmood Nasir Malik, Nadir Ali, Fayyaz Baqir and Akram Warriach. They’re among his best friends. He has a good rapport with Samina Hasan Syed. Both are in love with parapsychology and ESP.

Abid has been endowed with a strong intuitive faculty; his prophecies have deadly accuracy. But he doesn’t make much of it as he is a rational being to the core. He thinks it’s all working of the mind. When in Lahore he usually attends Sangat, a weekly literary meeting, but not always. At times one can see him sitting in the verandah smoking his cigarette while the meeting is going on inside. He can get fed up with the monotony of views and discouragement of dissent which seems to be a universal practice among Leftists, he tells me. He also visits a woman in a posh locality. He passionately talks of secret rendezvous with her and her witticism. One evening he comes back after seeing her. He is almost overwhelmed by an adrenaline surge. “You know”, he tells me excitedly, “what did she say to me today? ‘Hai Allah, hik ashiq miliya, oh vi ukka e jhulla (O God! I found just one lover but he is mad)”. Abid relishes playing his ‘madness’ at times.

He keeps meeting political activists. He never gives up his dream of social transformation premised on the notion of justice and equality. The path is booby-trapped. He shares with sadness how some intellectuals in Multan play the role of informers. “When came the crunch time, the ones standing on their tiptoes in their desire to appear taller were dwarfed further…’ he says in his poem ‘Informers’. But he accepts such a treacherous act without rancor. They have their compulsions, I have mine, he says nonchalantly. Strangely, his mind and imagination are overheated, to borrow his words. He can’t stop thinking and questioning things the way they are. But for some strange reasons, his literary output isn’t big. Just two collections of poems titled “Tull Watni (published in 2000)” and “Pakhi, Jatak te Rasta (published in 2005)” and one dozen articles. His connection with oral tradition—the art of conversation—can be one of the reasons. His poems are fresh and unpretentious and read like inimitable conversations coming from the depth of his inner self. Their deceptive simplicity with a touch of irony has evocative power that can simply disarm the readers. His contribution is deliberately ignored because of his political vision which goes beyond every shade of nationalist persuasion including the Seraiki one. He refuses to discriminate between the people for their language, ethnicity, and historical roots. “Judging what we own as indigenous is difficult/ Just think; as the rivers belong here, so do the trees in the deserts of Thull and Rohi / the cranes, the flocks wherever they come from belong here / diverse flowers, various tribes and clans belong here/ count again / Think afresh / the sun, the moon, the coming days, the children; wherever they come from belong here/ Think once again; everything beautiful belongs here”, he poetically elaborates his inclusive vision of what is indigenous to the chagrin of nationalists.

Being cosmopolitan he stays in touch with ex-pat writers such as Manzur Ejaz, Nuzhat Abbas, Mahmood Awan and Mazhar Tirmazi.

The year is 2010. It’s freezing in February. He goes to his favourite haunt, Lahore Museum, in a simple jacket ignoring the treacherous weather. Being a connoisseur of art he can’t resist the temptation of visuals. He catches a cold and is diagnosed with pneumonia. I leave for Delhi for my younger brother Zafar’s liver transplant. After a week partially cured, he leaves my place for Multan but the deadly lingering effects damage his lungs rendering him unfit for traveling or resuming normal activities.

Abid Ameeq, the man having a child’s wonder, poet’s imagination, and thinker’s mind leaves our planet on the last day of the year 2021. “I ‘ll never see the likes of him again”. — soofi01@hotmail.com

(Concluded)

Published in Dawn, January 24th, 2022