TO celebrate the life of Air Marshal Nur Khan let me quickly recall two encounters with him when he was the governor of West Pakistan (1969-70) and I was the district magistrate of Karachi.

Once on the way from the airport to the state guest house while I sat next to him (he never carried a police escort nor a spare car followed), the driver of his car went over the red signal at a traffic crossing. He shouted at him whether he was blind not to have seen the light turning from amber to red, and made him reverse.

On yet another occasion on the same stretch of road from the airport to the guest house the car broke down. I suggested, perhaps, it was time the ageing Cadillac was replaced. “We should think of repairing the car -- it is good enough for my once-in-a-while visits to Karachi” was his reaction.

Those were the days when the students and labour were up in arms all over and Karachi university, in particular, was in a ferment. Against all advice, he decided to visit the university campus. As we came out of the office of the then vice-chancellor, old freedom-fighter Ishtiaq Hussain Qureshi, we had to make our way through a jostling mob of students shouting their demands but in no way inclined to listen to him.

As it got rough, the police officials present there hauled him up into their open van and drove away. The governor had gone but a short distance when he came back.

Later a police official told me that as the governor noticed that the district magistrate was not in the van, he asked the driver to turn back and there he was to rescue me from the milling mob. On the way he said in jest: “I thought you were there to protect me”. The roles were reversed but he seemed to enjoy the experience.

In 1969 when my dear late friend and governor’s secretary, Nasrum Minallah, took up to him the proposal of my posting as Karachi’s district magistrate, he found it fit to mention that some elements might object to it for sectarian reasons. “If you consider him fit, all other considerations are irrelevant” was Nur Khan’s comment as Nasrum Minallah later told me. I stayed on for nearly four years through troubled times.

Nur Khan was succeeded by another wonderful soldier, Gen Atiqur Rehman. He, on his every visit to Karachi, did not ever fail to thank me for sending a water tanker once in a while to the house of his mother who lived in a dry part of the city.

More on that may be left to another occasion. The point to note here is that the corrupt politicians who revel in protocol and keep the people at bay by employing armed guards, pilots, escorts and blocking public roads should not be denouncing men like Nur Khan and Atiqur Rehman as usurpers or dictators. Public memory is short but their abiding concern is a frugal and caring government. Judgment is better left to history.

KUNWAR IDRISKarachi