How do you write about a person who remained an integral part of your life for over 60 years? Someone who guided and helped you at every turn of your life and never expected anything in return. That was Muhammad Rashad Mahmood, my father, who peacefully passed away on June 27, 2024 in Karachi, just 10 days shy of turning 92.
Eulogizing fathers is an old practice; most, if not all, sons sooner or later realize that the man they at times hated was perhaps the only man in this world who unconditionally felt proud of their achievements. But no eulogy can actually pay back what my father did for me, and, of course, for my siblings.
As I write these lines a week after his departure, sitting in his room, staring at the space where he spent the last 33 years of his life, I can feel his towering presence around me; can hear his voice urging me to read this or that article or book.
When he turned 90 in July 2022, I wrote a series of columns about him titled ‘Ninety years of a full life’, detailing his journey of life from Bombay (now Mumbai) to Karachi, which anyone can access online, so I am not going to repeat that. Here I share some personal recollections and his impressions on me.
In 1970, I was six, and he was 38. I distinctly remember him installing the first TV in our home in Liaquatabad, Karachi where he was actively participating in the election campaign of the National Awami Party (NAP-Wali).
From his teenage years -- when he lost both his parents -- he became involved in left-wing and progressive politics. He could not complete even school education but luckily had the opportunity to attend literary meetings of the Progressive Writers Association (PWA) in Mumbai (then Bombay). Progressive writers such as Ali Sardar Jafri and Kaifi Azmi took this teenager under their wings and gave him books that changed his life.
This teenager became an avid reader who hardly spent a day without reading. Having read nearly all major........