Major Munir Ahmad
06 January 2021
My first battery commander was Maj (later Lt Col) Bashir Ahmed. A Dhariwal Jat, tall and impressive, he was a fine, professional soldier. I learned much from him in the few months I spent in his command. Thereafter I, as a lieutenant, commanded the battery until early in 1974, word was received that Maj Munir Ahmed had been posted to the regiment.
Since my battery was the only one without a commander he was coming my way. As things go, reputations precede and the word I received was of a very stern disciplinarian who brooked not the slightest shade of misdemeanour. He was, in a word, a true terror.
Labels: Men at Their Best, People
posted by Salman Rashid @ 11:19,
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Borderline Sanity
26 December 2016
I am a fraud. But the kind that does not hurt others. I am a fraud in order to empathise with others in conditions worse than me.
Several years ago, Salman Aslam (Lt Col, retired) the secretary of our course sent out a text message asking for my email address so that I too be a part of the course yahoorgroup. Unthinkingly I forwarded my address to him.
Now, that was the beginning of the group and everyone of us formerly Gentlemen Cadets now retired officers (even deserters like me) was required to send in their bios. Salman had, very thoughtfully, created a form for us to fill. Among other items, it contained a notification of one’s illnesses, surgeries etc.
Since our course was expanded (not in duration but in intake) because of the 1971 war, we had passed out some four hundred and forty from PMA in April 1972. Now, at the fag end of their lives, all those energetic, fresh-faced young cadets, some of who could run the mile in under five minutes (hear that, Sikander Afzal? Admire my memory, chum.) had a litany of medical complaints.
Read more »Labels: About, Men at Their Best, People
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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A kind of Life
10 June 2015
People get the impression I am rich. I am not.
I was commissioned in the army (Air Defence, then called Anti Aircraft Artillery) in April 1972. I wasn’t the classic heroic soldier. Being the first ever in the entire family to have joined the profession of arms, I had no idea how it worked. But that’s not the point.
The point is that I have been broke all my life. When someone – I don’t now recall where it was, but it must have been in the last week in the military academy – advised us cadets on how much Defence Services Officers Provident (DSOP) fund it would be useful to have deducted every month from our salaries, I was quite averse to the idea. Why save, I argued, when by the time you were ready to use it, it was devalued way below what you were so diligently putting away. Consequently, I opted for the minimum deduction of Rs 25 per month. This too I made because by army rules I simply had to contribute a DSOP.
Read more »Labels: About, Life, Men at Their Best
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Men at Their Best
28 February 2014
I have known Brigadier Humayun Malik since, I think, 1974. He was commanding one of the brigades of 6 Armoured Division where I served as an anti-aircraft artillery (now Air Defence) officer. But he came to know me only when we met twenty years later when he was working with the Houbara Foundation. I introduced myself and it was like meeting an old friend. Now, with so many years of having benefited from his company I feel that if he had not joined the army, Brigadier Malik would have been a writer.
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| Brig Humayun Malik with his childhood friend, the late Aslam Malik |
Brigadier Malik is a true officer of the classic mould and a great raconteur with a remarkably sharp memory that dredges up even minor details of events more than half a century ago. He was the teller of the story of Karam Hussain Shah, that man of admirable fortitude who could only thank his Lord when his only child, a son, died – a story told in this blog.
Read more »Labels: Men at Their Best, People
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Salman Rashid, CCW and Bar
05 December 2013
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| Yes, this is me |
This makes me think I should have asked Cecil years later if he thought that was the right kind of caper for a young lieutenant to pull. But I never did. Faisal now makes me suspect that the make-believe wrath on his face and everything else was just something to put me in place and that perhaps even when my misdemeanour was reported to him, Cecil probably had a laugh – at least to himself.
So that brings me to another story from the first few months of my misadventure in the army. I was selected for 49 PMA Long Course, but with the 1971 war right on us, I received a letter in August 1971 telling me that the course had been abridged and that we would pass out in six months. I had a choice: I could take short service commission or wait until the regular courses resumed after the war.
Read more »Labels: Humour, Humour in Uniform, Men at Their Best
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Driving a Truck on a Runway
04 December 2013
And I would tell them that was the very reason, I did not get along.
There is a story that I never told until the last school reunion when its protagonist had shortly before passed away. Today I have a tweet from Dr Aamer Iqbal (@DrAamer) asking if I had narrated a certain antic about driving a truck on a runway. That’s a great story from my ‘criminal’ past and I think it needs a re-telling.
Read more »Labels: Humour, Humour in Uniform, Men at Their Best
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Living with one of those Alam brothers
29 November 2013
Guest Post by Mrs Subuha Khan
It has been said before, and it needs be repeated: the famous Alam Khan brothers of the defense services were a very special breed of men. Nine of them, all in the forces and all of them with brilliant careers as soldiers. There is one thing about these good men that one needs to stand back and regard – and not without a degree of awe: there is no one, absolutely no one anywhere in the world, who can bad-mouth any of the Alam Khan brothers. There is only admiration and respect for this merry bunch.
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| Ejaz Alam |
And a merry bunch they were too! They were all gifted with a great sense of humour and with that unique facility of delivering a witticism deadpan. More often than otherwise, the joke was on the hearer because it came so seriously one was hard put to grasp if it was a joke or a serious statement. For that, one had to know these good people.
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| Brig Zahir Alam Khan |
Among other things, Mrs Subuha Khan writes that whenever her late husband was asked how he got his SJ, he always said, he just happened to be standing in the right line. That, people, is the mark of the true hero, a man who made no big thing of the outstanding work he had done. That was one self-assured, self-effacing person with great wit to boot.
Having read this moving Urdu tribute, I was thinking what Tumble would say if one were to ask him why he never got an SJ. I can bet my last few rupees he would go, ‘I got caught up in the traffic and missed the investiture ceremony.’ Incidentally, as far as I know, all the Alam Khan brothers were decorated for gallantry in action. All, save the eldest, Brigadier Zahir Alam Khan and the youngest, Lt Gen Javed Alam Khan. But that does not take anything from these people.
PS. Tumble said he hoped my Urdu was better than his and I responded, ‘In Urdu, Sir, you are illiterate compared to me. I can read and understand Nun Meem Rashid!’ Tumble did not have anything to say to that!
Read more »Labels: Men at Their Best, People
posted by Salman Rashid @ 08:00,
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Cheers!
21 October 2013
The following story was told me by Tumble back in the 1970s on the evening of the day it occurred. He remembers it well for he narrated it in Mangla again some years ago
Year 1974, Tumble (Javed Alam Khan), the youngest of the Alam Khan brothers, was a captain with 24 Cavalry and Brigadier Zahir Alam, the eldest, was commanding a brigade in the same division, that is, 6 Armoured Division in Kharian. Tumble narrates that he was over for lunch with his brother and they are sitting down with the lady of the house eating when she narrated.
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She had earlier that day been at the CMH for a urine analysis. There she met up with three other young army wives who were there for the same purpose. So they sat in the Ladies Waiting Room to be called in by the laboratory man. Now, for some peculiar reason, the way to the officers’ toilet was through the ladies’ waiting room. (It is no longer that way now).
Labels: Humour, Humour in Uniform, Men at Their Best
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Humour in Uniform
18 October 2013
My dear friend Ejaz Haider, like me ex-army, loved this story. He said my line to Capt Mirza was my finest ever
He of 42nd PMA (or was it 40th?) was a typical Karachi ka bhaiya and way too senior to me. His mates called him Mohtaram or Capt Mohtaram depending on whether they were senior or junior to him. On his door he had this nice wooden nameplate with the brazen lettering Capt A A H H B B Mohtaram Mirza. When I walked from my room to Artillery Mess or to my unit for games, his room lay on my route down the veranda. He knew me as serving in the same division and from the various TEWTs (Tactical Exercise Without Troops) and MDs (Sand Model Discussions) that we attended together. We were on quite cordial terms and in passing I would greet him.
Labels: Humour, Humour in Uniform, Men at Their Best
posted by Salman Rashid @ 12:05,
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