Umair Arif doesn’t quite remember the time when the legendary seven-time British Open champion Hashim Khan had picked him up in his arms, but he has been told about it often by his parents.

Umair’s mother is Hashim Khan’s granddaughter. And the budding 13-year-old squash player gets his squash genes from both sides — the 1963 British Open champion Mohibullah Khan Senior is his paternal grandmother’s brother.

“My dadi [paternal grandmother] says to me that I should be just like her brother and my mother tells me stories of Hashim Khan.” I imagine he is smiling shyly. I am talking to him on the phone while the young teenager is in his hometown Peshawar. Umair tells me there is a big photograph of Hashim Khan hanging in their gym, where he works out regularly.

The training and hard work seems to be paying off too. Umair has been in the news lately for his fine show in junior squash events, including his taking the All Pakistan National Junior Under-15 title in Karachi in July. Currently, he is the No 2 ranked junior squash player in Pakistan and the No 1 ranked player in his own province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Umair Arif became the national Under-15 junior squash champion in July. He has an illustrious lineage in the sport that Pakistan once dominated globally

Umair also looks up to the country’s other great squash legends. “I met Jahangir Khan in Karachi. With 10 British Open titles and six World Championships to his name, he is the best of the best. He also liked my game and told me to practise hard. He told me that only hard work can get me anywhere in squash and that he always worked hard to get where he is today,” gushes the young player.

He also knows six-time British Open and eight-time World Open champion Jansher Khan quite well. “He is more approachable, since he lives in my city. I met him right here and he occasionally also shares the court with me. What a player! Even I can feel like royalty when playing against him,” he shares.

“Jansher tells me that everything in squash depends on how fit you are, so he also wants me to work hard on my fitness, as that will automatically improve my game.”

Umair has not let the advice coming his way fall on deaf ears. He runs one hour in the morning and practises for another two hours in the evening. The morning run makes the Class 8 student of Peshawar’s Capital Model School miss the first couple of classes.

“My friends tease me about it. They say ‘You sure are enjoying yourself’,” he laughs. “I’m allowed to reach school late and also miss school if needed due to my game,” he explains. “I’m lucky to have a school principal who is very understanding,” he smiles.

Still, Umair says he doesn’t take his studies for granted. “My favourite subject is English. I work hard not to lag behind in my studies, no matter what. Also, I have to leave a good example for my younger siblings,” he says as I hear a toddler screaming in the background. It’s his youngest brother.

Umair is the eldest of five siblings, which include one sister and three brothers. He says all his brothers like playing squash, although his sister is more interested in academics.

Umair himself started playing quite early, when he was eight or nine. “But I know other players who started playing at even younger ages than myself, such as two of my rivals, Abdullah and Azan Khan. The latter of the two is the one Umair beat in July to lift the All Pakistan National Junior Under-15 title.

“You know, Azan had beaten me six times in the past. I was worried that he just might make it seven, but then I won 3-2,” he smiles.

Coming to his ambitions for himself, Umair says that he wants to start by winning the junior tournament at the British Open. He also wants to appear for the trials for the World Junior Championships.

Umair has already featured in international events in Singapore, Malaysia and Qatar. He won the Under-11 in Malaysia in 2019 and took silver in the Qatar International Junior Squash Championship held in Doha in May this year.

He starts laughing. “Wherever I go, my dada [paternal grandfather] also accompanies me. He gets so excited when I win. Then, when we return home, he has more stories to tell about my tournament than even myself. He doesn’t play himself, but he is my good friend,” says Umair.

Unfortunately, so far, Umair’s family has had to itself pay for his travel and stay expenses for all the tournaments held abroad.

“Maybe, I’ll start receiving some support from the government after my consistent good performances,” says the youngster thoughtfully. “When I approached the Pakistan Squash Federation earlier, sometimes they would say to me that I’m too young, and sometimes they would say that they don’t have the funds. But now I’m hoping that my victories will turn the tables,” he smiles.

Does he do anything else for fun, other than train and play squash, I ask him. “I don’t watch television so much but I do enjoy watching squash matches. I watch all the matches, especially those being played live anywhere in the world,” he says.

He has also been watching Hashim Khan’s and other family members’ videos. “It has helped me see many of my relatives’ and other players’ techniques. But if we specifically speak of Hashim Khan, he was winning more for his speed than technique,” he observes about the family’s favourite ancestor.

Umair says that he has read a lot about Hashim Khan and his struggles before he started winning. “It is all part of history, because he is known as the pioneer of Pakistan’s squash dynasty. It was sheer hard work that made a boy, whose father worked as a steward in the British Officer’s Club in Peshawar, become the British Open champion, and that too again and again, seven times over.

“Hard work surely pays off, as it did for his younger brother, the four-time British Open winner Azam Khan, Mohibullah Khan, Jahangir Khan and Jansher Khan,” Umair says.

If that’s not a winning attitude, I don’t know what is.

The writer is a member of staff

She tweets @HasanShazia

Published in Dawn, EOS, September 4th, 2022