This is a story of a lonely young boy from Lyari during the 1980s. His mother had died and his father had remarried and started another family. The boy was spending more and more of his time away from home and his uncle, hoping to get him involved in some kind of a healthy activity, got him enrolled in a boxing club. Boxing, he thought, besides being fun would also do him good as it was a form of self defense, too.

“Football and boxing are the two popular sports of Lyari. It was a given that young boys would follow either of the two to get employment as well. The club my late uncle took me to gave me a taste for boxing for the first time. And winning encounters made me take up the sport seriously,” Syed Hussain Shah says as he reminiscences about his early days.

And as expected, boxing got him employment. Doing well at the club level, Shah found a job with Pakistan Railways where, he said, he was being paid around Rs300 or 400 a month. “I had to stand in a long queue along with sweepers, etc., in order to get my monthly wage. My job was to represent the Railways boxing team but I still I had to stand in queue every month,” he says.

But the meager wages helped him eat better, and since he was still a growing boy, Shah advanced from lightweight to middleweight category. It was during a fight in 1984 that he was noticed by the then secretary of the Pakistan Boxing Federation, a very influential figure on the international boxing scene —Anwer Chaudhry. Chaudhry took Shah under his wing.

Following the release of Shah, a movie based on his life, Pakistan’s boxing legend Syed Hussain Shah speaks about his life and career

“I was sparring with an Army boxer Fazal Hussain in 1984. I must have done well as after the fight Chaudhry Sahib asked me to see him. Later, after the meeting, he invited me to join the national camp. I did not even have proper footwear at the time,” he remembers and becomes quiet.

From his younger days

National camp was an entirely new experience. The facilities there made this boy from a very modest background feel like a king. “I was very happy to be part of the national camp. It was a different world altogether. The unlimited supply of meals there was also an attraction for me,” he laughs.

Things were beginning to pick up pace. Shah performed exceptionally well at the Asian level. Winning five gold medals in the South Asian Games, he became one of the most prominent boxers in Asia. Continuing to climb the ladder of success it wasn’t long before he found himself at the Olympics.

It was 1988 and the nation felt dejected after the national hockey team’s failing to bag the gold while unexpectedly losing to hosts South Korea. Suddenly, a ray of hope came in the form of Shah. He recalls his glorious run in the mega event: “I was not taking the Olympics as the biggest stage. Honestly, I took it like participating at the Asian level. Had I realised the magnitude of the competition, I probably would have done even better,” he says honestly.

He remembers how the pressure mounted on him after the quarter-final. “During my first fight, against a Mexican boxer, I received painful blows to the nose. However, I managed to win that bout. After winning another round game, I qualified for the quarter-final where I beat the opponent after a tough fight.”

A screen shot from a 1988 Olympics match

After overpowering Mexico’s boxer, Shah beat Serge Kabongo of Congo (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) followed by a quarter-final victory against Zoltan Fuzesy of Hungary. Expectations skyrocketed. Shah recalls that after the quarter-final victory, the barrage of telephone calls from Pakistan, including some from politicians and ministers, made him realise his achievement and, at the same time, put pressure on him. Shah lost to Egerton Marcus of Canada in the semi-final. “Everybody wanted me to win the semi-final, and that put pressure on me, I think. I still believe I could have done a lot better that day.”

But his bronze medal in the middleweight category in the 1988 Olympics is still the only boxing medal and the only individual medal of Pakistan in the Olympics.

“On my return from Seoul, I was very warmly greeted at the Karachi airport. It seemed like the entire Karachi was there. I was escorted to Lyari in a convoy. The jubilant crowd beat drums and danced the entire way,” he remembers with fondness.

Then there are also certain things that he is not too happy about. A number of people invited him, honoured him and announced cash rewards but promises remained promises. “The Karachi Electric Supply Corporation announced to provide me with a house but nothing happened. In 1992, I was on the professional circuit with the KESC but they didn’t even pay me for months because, as per their logic, I was a professional, although I was wearing their logo during bouts,” he informs.

Standing tall among his group: Hussain Shah’s son

Still there were some out there whose kindness and friendship he would never forget. Squash legend Jahangir Khan played a crucial role in Shah’s career growth. The king of squash helped the struggling boxer. He took him to London where Shah stayed for about two years and did some profession boxing. “Jahangir Bhai help me a lot in the early ‘90s, he took me to London, let me stay at his home there. Returning to Pakistan after about a couple of years, I went to the USA and boxed there for some time, too,” he says.

Then sometime in 1995, Shah decided to move out in search of a secure future for his family. He was kind of sad over the treatment meted out to him by the big politicians and organisations even after a historic feat at the Olympics. “I feared for the future. I was illiterate, hence the post retirement scenario started to haunt me. When the opportunity came, I moved to Japan, where I boxed for a few years before joining a boxing gym as trainer,” he narrates.

It’s been two decades and he still lives there. But Shah has had multiple coaching stints with Pakistan’s boxers. He says he’s always ready to facilitate and train Pakistani boxers in Japan. And saying so he urges the government to take care of the Pakistani sportspeople, who are short of resources. “I am ready to help in whatever way that I can, but primarily this is the responsibility of the government of Pakistan. The Federation, I heard, has been begging for funds. This situation demands urgent attention from the relevant quarters,” he says.

He advises boxers to not think about their shortcomings and instead remain focused on their goals. “My message for you is to focus on your training and fitness and not think about what you don’t have,” he says.

Asked how come his son, Shah Hussain Shah, who is a professional Judo player and represents Pakistan in international events, chose judo instead of boxing he explains, “I chose judo for my son because it is Japan’s national sport. Hence the scope for judo is wider than other sports there. Both my sons are judokas.”

Finally, Shah considers himself very lucky and thanks the filmmakers of Shah. “I am one of the very few in Pakistan whose life struggle was recongnised in this fashion. I thank Adnan Sarwar for the effort and urge others to highlight achievers in other sporting disciplines as well,” he concludes.

The writer is a sports journalist working for a private TV channel.

Twitter: @mak_asif

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, August 23rd, 2015

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