Offloading shares leads to smoke

IT HAS been a smoky week around my office and all because of the telephone company.

A week ago it was announced that the UAE government was to allow another telecommunications company to be set up as a rival to Etisalat, which has enjoyed a monopoly position for the past three decades.

Etisalat is owned 60 per cent by the government and the remainder by thousands of UAE citizens. Owning shares in Etisalat has been akin to possessing a lottery ticket that always wins. The company has never hesitated in exploiting its monopoly situation, has consistently made massive profits and, consequently, the shareholders have always received big payouts.

To be fair, Etisalat has built a fairly efficient communications network and in recent years has been taking its expertise abroad, buying shares in telecoms providers in other countries, around the Middle East and in Africa. It has also shown interest in PTCL, Pakistan’s main telephone company, and is requested to be on the shortlist for bidding.

But, thanks to its position as the sole provider of services in the UAE, Etisalat has always managed to convey an image of arrogance and there have been increasing calls for another provider to be allowed to operate and introduce some competition.

Other Gulf states, including Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, have already allowed new telecom operators to enter their markets. In the case of the UAE, it has been announced that the new company will be a purely local venture without any foreign involvement, which has been allowed in the other countries.

Nevertheless, there are high expectations that the new company, which should begin operations early next year, will mean a cut in the present prices, especially of mobile phone calls.

And, of course, a cut in rates, could mean a cut in profits — which brings me back to the smoke around my office, which is located in the Dubai World Trade Centre, an office block and exhibition complex. It also houses the Dubai Financial Market, the local stock exchange, which is just off the Trade Centre foyer.

Until recently, the Financial Market was not very busy. It was only established a few years ago and had a slow beginning with just a few companies listed. Even today there are only 20 companies whose shares are traded, the majority being banks, insurers and those involved in the booming property market.

But, suddenly, the market has taken off and it is definitely the place to be every day for hundreds of local men and women. It is somewhere to meet friends and drink coffee - and also smoke the odd cigarette or ten.

Being a public building, smoking is officially banned in the World Trade Centre, but it is a rule that has been totally ignored by the share punters. Fed up with clearing up all the butt ends off the floor, the centre management has given in, removed the ‘no smoking’ signs and placed ashtrays around the coffee shop, which has been doubled in size.

As I said at the beginning, the smoke was particularly heavy this week, thanks to Etisalat. The news of impending competition meant that investors came crowding the stock market in a rush to offload shares. Etisalat dropped 10 per cent before trading was suspended and then other shares started dropping as well; the stress level of the investors was in direct proportion to the amount of nicotine they inhaled to keep calm and everyone entering the Trade Centre — the location for many international companies — had to negotiate a pall of smoke. Despite the increasingly hot weather, the entrance doors to the Trade Centre were thrown open to let the smoke escape, which at least prevented the fire alarms going off.

The past week has seen all the shares rising and falling as profits were made and fortunes lost but for many punters it has been the best daily entertainment in town.

I MENTIONED a few weeks ago the UAE’s decision to end the practice of young boys being employed as camel jockeys. There has been some scepticism as similar announcements have been made in the past, but this time it really looks serious.

This week the government signed an agreement with the United Nations Children’s Fund, Unicef, that will help rescue and repatriate the children to their home countries.

The government announced that Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sudan, Mauritania, Eritrea, Somalia and India were the main countries that had ‘exported’ children to work as jockeys.

That upset the Indians with their Abu Dhabi embassy issuing a statement the following day denying the allegation and saying that the last case involving a child jockey from India which had been brought to their attention was eight years ago. The embassy said it was ‘extremely unfortunate’ that India’s name had been dragged into the situation.

The UAE government later issued a clarification saying that the list of countries concerned should have included Afghanistan, but not Eritrea. No mention was made of India.

There were no denials, however, from Senator Tariq Azim Khan, Pakistan’s Minister of State for Labour, Manpower and Overseas Pakistanis, who was in town. He said his government, with the full cooperation from the UAE interior ministry, was in the process of rescuing and repatriating all Pakistani children who had been brought here to work as camel jockeys and 63 children were sent home last month.

Meanwhile, down in Doha, they have carried out more tests on the robot jockey that has been invented by a Swiss company and will replace the children. Government officials say they have patented the rights to the robot. Whether this is the same robot which has also been tested in the UAE is not clear, but I have a feeling that we now have the potential for a robot war in the Gulf. Unicef might be needed to sort that one out as well.

Parto Rohilla brings Ghalib closer

Testing as it is trying to understand Ghalib, you may imagine him chuckling in grudging delight at the exposure of your limitations while attempting anything like rendering his verse or prose into any expression other than his own words. A minimum requirement for such an enterprise would be to know his mind, his ways of thought and have close familiarity with that emotive culture which his unique choice of expression puts into words.

Commenting on Parto Rohilla’s Urdu version of Ghalib’s Persian epistles — for which he got a big hand from a score of Ghalib scholars and sundry poets and critics at a function organized sometime back by Zaviyah in collaboration with the Pakistan Academy of Letters, the late Mushfiq Khwaja attributed the creative quality of the rendition to the translator’s mental rapport with the master and his ambience together with being well-versed in the Persian language.

Parto Rohilla has devoted much of his time since his superannuation to extending the reach of Ghalib’s lay admirers to his Persian work, thus expanding the scope of what has come to be known as Ghalib shanasi, a new discipline of sorts growing in size with the increasing interest in the poet, the relevance and validity of whose perception and sensibility becomes more manifest as we become aware of the predicament of our lives. This difficult and patient work by Rohilla is so far unmatched at a time particularly when in our literary and intellectual life our bond with Persian has long since been snapped and deriving any benefit from Ghalib’s Persian epistles or even partially understanding them would be an exercise few would consider to have any utility or the time for. But for Ghalib’s admirers who cannot cross this unfamiliar terrain, Rohilla has lessened its expanse. Now for the first time, says Mushfiq Khwaja, Urdu wallas will have the opportunity to breathe in the atmosphere which Ghalib had created writing these letters in Persian.

Ghalib tickles the fancy no end and intrigues the wit not only in his verse. His prose too has the coating of a peculiar conceit that is hard to capture in transliteration but it looks as if Rohilla has come upon the master’s own palette to paint from as his Urdu rendering too allures you into daring a further version in English. At the cost of exposing my own limitations I could not resist trying my hand on this letter of Ghalib’s that he wrote to his friend Maulvi Sirajuddin Ahmad as its contents have such close resemblance and relevance to our own time. So goes:

My master, my lord,

It’s Sunday today and the first of Jamadiussani. The belaboured camel of my truancy has ultimately camped in Delhi’s passenger lounge. I am indebted to the sympathy of these do- gooders and proud of these keepers of the poor my beseeching gaze to whose soles has so got transfixed that home to a drifter like me has become more inhospitable than exile. I swear by God and by God I swear again and again that my return to Delhi has not only not lessened the sorrow of leaving Calcutta but given me no solace either. So entangled in misfortune have I been that the seeing eye would espy a wretched soul in exile rather than someone who has arrived. Yes, yes, such is my condition. And why not, since I have been separated from Maulvi Sirajuddin, Mirza Ahmad Beg Khan and Abul Quasim Khan. Fie! Me and my state of being. It is surprising how in this period of three years the elite of Delhi have changed their ways and how love and regard are banished from the disposition of friends. One company of like-minded pals has passed away and another from the tavern of love has drunk the cup of nonbeing. The authentic and the visionary have cloistered themselves in obscurity and the lowly and spurious have become the stars on this stage of doom. The state of the courts of law is worse than that of the seekers of justice and the lot of the underdog is darker than the eye of the deceitful. I am running in all directions but in no eye do I see any sign of remorse. The dislodged bemoans his disgrace and the designate is insecure in his honour. The deposed pines for the lost prestige and the appointed dreads losing his pelf and pomp.

Parto Rohilla has translated six collections of Ghalib’s Persian letters from Syed Akbar Ali Tirmizi’s Namahaey Farsi-i-Ghalib, Qazi Abdul Wadood’s Ma’asir-i-Ghalib, Majlis-i-Yadgar-i-Ghalib’s Ahang-i-Panjum, Syed Masood Hassan Rizvi’s Mutafarrequat-i-Ghalib, Mushfiq Khwaja’s Ghalib ke Praganda Farsi Khatoot and Wazirul Hassan A’abidi’s Bagh-i-dodar. Of these the compilations by Mushfiq Khwaja and Masood Hassan Rizvi are yet to be published. Another very useful book, Mushkelat-i-Ghalib, is Rohilla’s interpretation of the poet’s more illusive verses that he offers in conjunction with interpretations by other authorities also. This gives much information and lends depth and context to his own opinion. Praising this work for the simplicity of its diction and clarity of thought and lucid style, Prof Suleiman Ather Javed says Rohilla has brought us closer to Ghalib. Mushkelat is a guide that is going to earn its author a permanent place in Ghalib studies. Better known for his enchanting dohas, their genuine coinage, subtle thought, veracity of experience and all too often a rhapsodic mysticism, Parto Rohilla as a poet and the nice man that he is, stands shoulders above some of our much over-rated rhymsters.

Visionary leader of Sindh

Today marks the death anniversary of Allah Bux Soomro, who was assassinated in 1943.

IN THE political history of Sindh, May 14, 1943 will be remembered as a day of great loss. On that day, Allah Bux Soomro, the visionary leader, was murdered in Shikarpur at the age of 44.

It is not clear why he was killed but it is generally believed that elements hostile to Sindh’s centuries’ old tradition of peace among different faiths and creeds were responsible.

Allah Bux Soomro was chief minister when communal riots broke out in Shikarpur. He intervened to stop the trouble. Extremist forces had gathered in Sukkur on the Masjid Manzil Gah issue. Braving all odds, Mr Soomro delivered a moving speech, appealing to the people to remain calm. He assured the Muslims of the right to pray at Masjid Manzil Gah and at the same time assured the Hindus of safe access to Sadh Belo, the way to which passed close to the mosque. Opportunists had stirred up feelings against Hindu traders and the unrest was used to grab Hindu properties. The incident was exploited by Mr Soomro’s political rivals, and he lost the support of the Hindu members. As a consequence, his government was brought down.

Mr Soomro, from a middle class family, began his political career from the local bodies. Then he became chairman of the district council, a member of the Bombay Legislative Assembly, and when Sindh was separated from the Bombay Presidency, his party, the United Party, won 24 seats — the single largest party in the house. But the then Sindh governor invited Sir Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah to form a government. Soomro’s party agreed to sit in the opposition. Allah Bux knew this would not last long. Soon the governor realized his mistake and Mr Soomro was invited to form the government.

In those turbulent times, with the Congress leading its Quit India Movement and the Muslim League formulating its demand for a separate state for the Muslims of India, Mr Soomro kept away from both the Muslim League and Congress. To him the autonomy of Sindh was important and he didn’t see its future in either of the parties. G.M. Syed writes that Allah Bux held both parties as centralists which could not serve the interests of Sindh. “In my conversations with him, he said that since we have recently won freedom from the Bombay Presidency, we should not take any step that may harm our autonomous status. When I told him that in the recent resolution for Pakistan at the All-India Muslim League session held in Lahore, the point of provincial autonomy had been explicitly mentioned, he said that I was living in an idealist planet and therefore did not know how practical politics worked. In practical politics only might is right.” G.M. Syed adds: “Experience suggests that he was right and I was wrong.”

Mr Soomro had returned the British titles of Khan Bahadur and Order of the British Empire (OBE) while he was chief minister for the second time in reaction to a speech by Winston Churchill in which he had used derogatory language against the leaders of the freedom movement and declared that he wanted to keep India as a colony of the British Empire.

He was removed as chief minister and spent the last days of his life mostly in Shikarpur and kept himself busy in welfare works including flood relief measures.

Allah Bux Soomro was a leader without any pretentions and will he remembered as a great savant of Sindh.

He was murdered by unknown assailants, a year after his government was dismissed.