CHAKWAL, Nov 20: Battling poor health, a 91-year-old teacher and historian of Chakwal misses his son who died young and how history was being lost in his village, Bhoun. Bhoun, a Sanskrit word which means ‘the land of gods and angels’, where Prof Anwer Baig Awan, author of eight books, is fighting diabetics and loneliness. Today he is unable to visit a doctor, as the local authorities are oblivious to his contribution in preserving the history of Chakwal. Prof Awan is considered the sole custodian of Chakwal’s history.

After passing matriculation from Bhoun’s Sanatan Dharam High School in 1937, he joined Pakistan Army but thirst for knowledge was too great to spend all his life at one place. Prof Awan passed the exam of Munshi Fazil and did master’s in Urdu and Persian.

After leaving the army, he was appointed lecturer of Persian at Government College in Gujranwala, starting a career in teaching, which took him to Haripur, Chakwal, and Islamabad, where he was deputy director for colleges. In Islamabad he wrote a regular column for Pukar, whose editor was Prof Baig’s fellow villager-late Shorish Malik.

His book ‘Dhani Adab-o-Saqafat’ is the most authenticated account Chakwal’s history. ‘Dharti kay Sodagar’ discusses effects of feudalism in Pakistan. He accumulated poetry of Urdu’s first poet, Shah Murad, in “Kalam-e-Shah Murad’. His other books are ‘Bihari Musalman’ and ‘Ghazi Mureed Hussain’.

Trying to remembering 1947, he says: “There was no dispute among Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs. We all were living in peace. I do not know what went wrong.” He denied any killings over the partition in Bhoun village. “Rather Muslims said goodbye to Hindus and Sikhs in tears.”