KARACHI: Every year as Muharram begins and Ashura approaches, the people of Karachi remember hundreds of the cauldrons of haleem that would be lined up for distribution of Niaz-i-Husain along Dr Daudpota Road, better known as the Lucky Star area.

The haleem would be cooked and distributed for free among devotees and passers-by under the supervision of the owner of a vehicle’s axle and suspension repair workshop, Shah Jee Axle Walay.

Several years have passed and you don’t see Shah Jee, a tall, well-built figure with a big bushy moustache and dark brown sunglasses, there anymore. Off and on there have been nostalgic mentions of the Ashura day dish on social media. There has been lots of speculation, too, about what happened to Shah Jee.

Some say that he passed on while his sons took their shares in the business to go their separate ways. Some say that the business empire of Shah Jee is not what it used to be and thus he can no longer afford to organise the mass niaz. Still, no one really knows for sure what happened to Shah Jee.

Dawn set out to get the real story. The place to begin our search was right there under our very noses where it all used to happen — Lucky Star.

At the biggest adjoining Shah Jee Axle Walay workshops in Saddar, we run into another tall gentleman with bushy moustache and shoulder-length hair supervising the work. He resembles the picture of Shah Jee on the shop’s banner. It turns out that he is Nazim Shah, his son.

The first question we have for Nazim Shah is about Shah Jee’s whereabouts while bracing ourselves to be informed about the worst. But to our relief, we are informed that Shah Jee is still very much around though in Islamabad. “He had a paralysis attack some years ago which has left him not as active as he used to be,” the son informs.

“My sister is married to the son of my uncle [Shah Jee’s elder brother]. They live in Islamabad. After my elder uncle’s passing, my sister and her husband were insisting that our father come to live with them because they were lonely. Then after he suffered a stroke, he also decided to move to Islamabad. In his eighties now, he is getting old also, and his health is not what it used to be anyway,” he says.

Another partner in the vehicle repair workshop business, Riazuddin, recalls that the last big Muharram niaz organised by Shah Jee comprised 400 cauldrons of haleem for which they had sacrificed some 60 bulls and cows.

“He wouldn’t even sit down for a breather,” he smiles. “Seeing his enthusiasm and goodwill, despite being Sunni, some cattle breeders sold their huge Australian cows worth Rs2,500,000 each to Shah Jee for Rs700,000 each. It was for a good cause.”

The partner also explains that Shah Jee’s popularity and his famous workshop earned them plenty of enemies, too. “So many workshops sprang up all over the city claiming to be our branches. We had to go into litigation to shut them down. Now there are only three big genuine Shah Jee workshops — one here, one in Gulshan-i-Iqbal Block 7 near Disco Bakery and one at Safoora Chowrangi on University Road — run by his sons Nazim Shah, Azam Shah and Tahir Shah. The litigation process also moved away our attention from philanthropy,” he says.

“Besides being a huge philanthropist and social worker, Shah Jee also had political leaning with the PML-N. In his prime, back in 1997, he had even brought a lion to this place. Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, too, visited Lucky Star twice. Shah Jee also used to organise football matches, martial arts demonstrations, kick-boxing and bodybuilding competitions here. He had set up several sports clubs, too. Besides, he would organise a 14th-August rally that began from Lucky Star; he would set up relief camps during natural calamities and celebrate Eid Miladun Nabi in a big way here. But after his health started deteriorating some 20 years ago, things slowed down,” he shares.

Shah Jee’s sons and business partners still do organise the famous Niaz-i-Husain at Lucky Star but, obviously, it is not done on as big a scale as their father used to do.

Published in Dawn, August 9th, 2022