About 28 miles from where Hugh Catchpole lies in eternal rest, in that once sleepy little town called Hasanabdal, there is eternal unrest in the capital of the country that Mr Catchpole loved so dearly. This week as old students of institutions where he served so admirably, gather to pay tribute to him I am compelled to face so many conflicting images, of the times he lived in and shaped, in a young and promising country and what we have been reduced to just half a century later. That land where Mr Catchpole administered and taught bright eyed youngsters, instilled in them life's great virtues, is long gone, replaced by the worst kind of things with which the human race is shamefully identified. Somehow while all nations must have evil interred in their very bones, why is it that we seem to have an unlimited supply in gigantic quantities that make rodents look like the kind of guys you could spend a nice evening with?
In Islamabad where the amount of falsehood and deceit could easily be amongst the highest quantities per square inch in the whole world, headlines tell the story of a nation in deep crisis and a government which has brazenly decided to confront those who do not speak its twisted language. 'You left me in the lurch,' screams the president at his allies who slink into corners like petrified rats and sit there, mouths agog and eyes wide in fear at the approaching storm.
The army of boot-lickers, self-serving sycophants and cheap, hick town opportunists whom he approved of and elevated to positions of great and totally undeserved fortunes and official clout, revealed their real colours as soon as the chips began to come tumbling down. These are men and women of no real substance, merit or integrity. They have major difficulties writing 'A for Apple, B for Boy,' but are resourceful enough to 'acquire' degrees that 'qualify' them to 'contest' elections and win and thereafter grab whatever goodies they can. It should not have shocked the president that at the first sign of fire, they would disappear at speeds that would have amazed Captain James Kirk of the USS Enterprise. He lamented that out of 1,000 provincial, federal ministers, parliamentary secretaries and chairmen of standing committees (why must they always remain standing? Why can't they finally sit down?) not even 10 spoke in his defence. Of course the president was being generous with his compliments because according to my calculations, I thought the number was three -- maybe he meant that three of the regular recruits and seven considering that Slapper Wasti can shout, scream, slap and abuse like seven men rolled into one -- a quality that apparently endears him to 'Long Grain' Shaukat Aziz, who discovered recently that you can't have your rice and eat it too. Obviously rice dishes do not suit his carefully cultivated image.
And in Mr Catchpole's brave new world that is Pakistan today, while the president has been slapping his gutless allies into some battle shape -- surely no commandos these soft-bellied, corpulent bleachers, Pakistan's dwindling ranks of genuine scholars is further eroded as Dr Ayesha Siddiqa, who dared to find cracks in Camelot, has quietly left the country having received a friendly message that she was not really welcome in her own country. Why the army has been so petrified of a serious book, without any Shoba Dey revelations, is beyond most of us. Only a thousand copies were printed and the number of Pakistanis who actually read books being less than five, chances of the book finding massive support in little Chichawatni were just about the same as this country having electricity 24 hours a day.
In any event, the armed forces are doing everything they can including a long list of things they can't, so that we can all go about our lives and they can go on governing the country as they like without someone in a messed up black coat telling them where the white lines are drawn. Elsewhere on Thursday morning, four more 'missing' persons had been found, probably from the duty free area of the Islamabad airport where they had been loitering about and thousands of families and many more individuals were moaning and weeping over the billions that have been neatly siphoned off by Double Shah, who had a following of thousands, some with legit money and many with not so legit money, that Shah could double in no time at all. Great amounts of currency in sacks is one of the more enduring images that have surfaced and if people have forgotten the cooperative rip off that destroyed thousands of lives, well what can one say? In that great scam, some the nation's great philosophers today played leading roles in and were guilty on all counts, but since accountability is a word that finds no support in Pakistan, they lived on luxuriously, had all their 'debts' written off by a president too happy to gather support even if those were men with tainted hands and black souls. Willing behemoths like NAB -- No Accountability Bureau, carried on with more dumb charades.
But these are jaded times and mercifully, Mr Catchpole didn't live to see this country plunge to the depths that it has now. As a gangly, awkward and unsure teenager, I stood half trembling in his office many summers back, clutching for dear life the reassuring hand of my father as Mr Catchpole gave me the once-over, his blue eyes piercingly bright, missing nothing, his bushy eyebrows, that broad forehead and slicked back thinning hair. He was an imposing man and as he stood up, well over six feet high, the prospect of survival in the boarding school seemed ever bleaker. But it was not to be and the five years were amongst the happiest of my life. Mr Catchpole was an extraordinary inspirational man who took personal interest in each and every one of his charges. He knew when we were good and he knew when we were bad, but even when catching us out, he would give us the benefit of time to cover up the various pranks we were up to. Years later, on a sunlit afternoon, he sat in the Shezan Restaurant on Lahore's Mall, drinking a cup of tea and took just a few seconds to name me, my roll number at school and my wing. His warmth, love, guidance and knowledge touched our lives deeply and shaped our approach to many things. Knowing my passion for cricket he offered to bring be back some cricket books from England and when the fall term opened, he had two hard covers for me. The first 'A Farewell to Arms,' by Sir Donald Bradman and Peter May's autobiography, but what was inside the books was simply sensational. Both books had been autographed by the two legends and bore the words, 'To Masood Hasan with best wishes.' Mr Catchpole chuckled while I almost fainted with delight. It was an act of supreme generosity and consideration and he must have gone to an awful amount of trouble to buy the books, get the elusive autographs and carry them back -- all for one of the hundreds of boys who were his boys. In these days of vanished principles, people like Hugh Catchpole shine on brilliantly. May his great soul rest in peace.
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Hasanabdal, there is eternal unrest in the capital of the country that Mr Catchpole loved so dearly. This week as old students of institutions where he served so admirably, gather to pay tribute to him I am compelled to face so many conflicting images, of the times he lived in and shaped, in a young and promising country and what we have been reduced to just half a century later. That land where Mr Catchpole administered and taught bright eyed youngsters, instilled in them life's great virtues, is long gone, replaced by the worst kind of things with which the human race is shamefully identified. Somehow while all nations must have evil interred in their very bones, why is it that we seem to have an unlimited supply in gigantic quantities that make rodents look like the kind of guys you could spend a nice evening with?
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Views: 2132