THE power of recapitulation is a rare phenomenon and those who are gifted with this asset are worth admiring. Sayeed Hasan Khan, a veteran journalist and intellectual who breathed his last in Karachi on Monday after reaching the nonagenarian mark, was no exception. Sayeed Hasan Khan, popularly known as Nawab Sahib or Saeed Bhai, was a man of many talents.

He was a freelance journalist, an independent filmmaker, social activist, political analyst, and above all, a living encyclopaedia on political events. He had an avid interest in the lineages of distinguished politicians and media personalities.

Born into a well-to-do family of Bareilly (India), he moved to Lahore at the time of partition and joined the Government College. Thanks to his activism, he came in touch with eminent academicians, journalists and political figures in the formative years of Pakistan and later occupied important positions in the bureaucracy.

His love for the new country prompted his friends to give him the nickname, Saeed Jinnah.

Travel across the globe was in his destiny and a passion with him. As a free-flowing man he moved to Europe, which changed the course of his life in many ways.

He met a number of like-minded people and developed life-long friendships with them, working together for pro-people causes and progressive ideas.

His memoirs, Across the Seas - Incorrigible Drift, is an outstanding account of his wanderlust. He recaptures events and well-known personalities who met him and with whom he developed a life-long relationship,

At no stage he was found lacking in his unflinching devotion to humanitarian causes and his crusade for justice.

The book is full of gripping accounts and is a testament to the author’s gift of conversation. He was equally good in recollecting with precision the encounters and incidents that shaped his life.

For instance, he recalls that while en route to London by sea during the 1960s, he met none other than Qurutulain Hyder and her mother as they were fellow travellers.

His memoirs as a globetrotter speak of many other personalities, including members of the British parliament and influential names in European politics.

He had developed personal bonds with some of the leading intellectuals and politicians not just in Pakistan, but also in India, Britain and elsewhere in Europe.

He had a great admiration for Swedish prime minister Olof Palme, who was assassinated in 1986.

All along his life he associated himself with many causes, but his equation was honourable and independent. Whenever he contributed a column to a newspaper, he wrote fearlessly.

Saeed Bhai was a familiar face at the Karachi Press Club, especially at book launches and serious lectures.

My last meeting with him was only two days before his death when Prof Anwar Naqvi of the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplant (SIUT) asked me to accompany him to his house in PECHS as he was in frail health.

His abode, which was once declared Bareilly Intercontinental by his close friend Mark Tully of the BBC, was always open to visitors. Perhaps that day he had a premonition about his ultimate fate as he gifted me two painted trays and an antique flask to Prof Naqvi as parting mementos.

Saeeed Bhai will be sorely missed.

Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2022