Paich-o-Taab-i-Zindagi
By Brig (retd) Saulat Raza     Kalam Foudation International
ISBN: 9789697461523
152pp.         

Can someone be an excellent writer and a great teacher with excellent public relations skills, besides also being a soldier? Brig (retd) Saulat Raza is one of the few such military men who still believe that the pen is mightier than the sword.

With a Masters degree in journalism from Punjab University, the officer and gentleman served in Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) for nearly 30 years. With an enviable memory, humorous style and an eye for detail, he has come out with this book, that is more than an autobiography.

A popular figure among print journalists in Karachi, Brig Raza is known to many as the man behind Kakuliyaat. Published in 1976, Kakuliyaat gave birth to Shoaib Mansoor’s famous TV serial ‘Sunehray Din’ in 1991.

Raza’s next book, Ghair Fauji Column, a collection of articles on non-military matters, brought him to a respectable place among military humourists. Now his latest, Paich-o-Taab-i-Zindagi [The Twists and Turns of Life], further cements his place. The book is an amalgamation of stories from his personal and professional life, written in his familiar tongue-in-cheek style.

A former army officer’s autobiography provides eye-witness testimony to various historical events and is written with his characteristic tongue-in-cheek humour

Starting from his humble beginnings in the Lines Area of Karachi, he mentions

his induction into Pakistan Army, his shift to ISPR and his life afterwards. During his military career, he had the chance to work with two of the four generals who ruled the country with an iron fist. The reasons for his early retirement are also there while his return to academics explains why the book has been titled Paich-o-Taab-i-Zindagi.

Brig Raza has divided his life’s journey into eight chapters, the first two covering his early and carefree days, while the rest are related to his days in the army.

Born in Peshawar in 1952, the way he has described Comilla (East Pakistan), Karachi and Lahore of the 1960s, simply transports the reader to those relatively peaceful days. From the temporary accommodation for muhajireen [migrants] after Partition to double-decker buses, it all paints a picture of a very different country.

After his initial education in Karachi, Raza moved to Lahore, where he completed his Master’s degree. One of his teachers at Punjab University happened to be Prof Waris Mir, the father of senior journalist Hamid Mir, who would use the fields as a shortcut to the university. Some of his students would accompany him on the route.

Be it the power struggle between President Ghulam Ishaq Khan and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the military operation against the MQM in Karachi, the Kargil War, or the takeover by Gen Musharraf, Brig Raza’s pen continues to spin magic while relating those events from his perspective.

They were the lucky ones, who got to listen to his lectures in the open air class, with Raza usually sitting on the hind carrier of the professor’s bicycle, while his friend sat on the front fender.

Raza started his professional life in the early 1970s. The narration of events of the time makes one turn page after page. You can’t put the book down. There is the funny story about the turn of events which changed from a trip to the cinema into an internship.

Raza and his friend were waiting for a bus to take them to a cinema when they were offered a lift by their teacher, who happened to be passing by. He didn’t like them loitering around. They were soon offloaded at the Nawa-i-Waqt office, where he got them work as interns thanks to his being friends with the editor there. Raza was a junior reporter at Nawa-i-Waqt when the alleged hijacking drama of the Indian aircraft Ganga took place in Lahore in January 1971.

He was selected for the army the very day East Pakistan seceded and became Bangladesh, hence there was no one to congratulate him. After joining the ISPR, he got to witness the Pakistani prisoners of war returning from India. He met then Maj Ziaul Haq during the coverage of the Attock Conspiracy Case and got close to him during his rule as military dictator.

Some of the other anecdotes in the book might leave you in fits, including the induction of a senior TV actor as a compere for the annual horse and cattle show at Lahore’s Fortress Stadium. The commentary ended in disaster, as the wannabe compere fumbled during the dog race. Due to another mix-up, during an official trip to the Middle East, Nazeer Maseeh, a Christian by faith, was turned into a ‘Syed’.

Brig Raza served in Quetta, Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi and each deputation carries its share of stories of interesting events. He witnessed the change in the mindset of officers, with the coming into power of Gen Zia. He also saw the break-up of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, which split along ideological lines during that time.

He also served as a public relations officer (PRO) for the Chief of Army Staff Gen Asif Nawaz in the early 1990s. Brig Raza has painted a marvellous picture of the general, who used to scold people in many languages simultaneously.

Be it the power struggle between President Ghulam Ishaq Khan and Prime

Minister Nawaz Sharif, the military operation against the MQM in Karachi, the Kargil War, or the takeover by Gen Musharraf, Brig Raza’s pen continues to spin magic while relating those events from his perspective.

He was also a part of the Pakistan contingent deployed under the umbrella of the UN in Serbia in the late 1990s, and has drawn comparisons between the people of Serbia and the residents of the former East Pakistan, who he feels were divided by an unnecessary war.

With over three decades with ISPR, Raza had accumulated a wide circle of friends. It was nice to read about the late veteran journalist Qaisar Mehmood, one of my mentors, who ended up inadvertently captured as a ‘POW’ in the Zarb-i-Momin military exercise he had gone to cover in 1989. Mehmood got left behind asleep in a tent when the forces he was attached with moved on and the opposing forces took over the area.

The journey that started from Lines Area, concludes at Hilal Road, Rawalpindi. After an early retirement, Brig Raza joined NUML University as a departmental head, only to later join a private TV channel.

A witness to history, Brig Raza’s book is a welcome addition to the collection of books in which history is not taught as a lesson, but as an experience.

The reviewer writes on old films and music and loves reading books.

X: @suhaybalvi

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, December 17, 2022