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KARACHI, Pakistan / Dawn.com / Columnists / August 2, 2009
View from America: Wisdom of the Ages
By Anjum Niaz
Wisdom’s source is the word of mouth; the
narrator whose love of life is unbeatable. — Dawn
Everyone had left except the two old people sitting with their back against the wall, without their baggage, not knowing what to do...
What I brought back that lazy summer afternoon in New York cannot be measured in material terms. Its worth is not in gold but in the wisdom that was scattered around. That wisdom is hard to come by in books or in high sounding psychology/ philosophy journals. Its source is the word of mouth; the narrator whose love of life is unbeatable.
As New Yorkers slow down a bit to soak in the sun, the warm blue interior of Dr Nafis Sadik’s living room radiates its own energy gravitating towards her persona. Dressed casually in black pants and a bluish/black fitted top, the first woman to break the glass ceiling in the UN-male-dominated hierarchy appears comfortable in her own skin. She was the under-secretary general of the UN, just a heartbeat away from the top UN slot. In two weeks she turns eighty.
‘I’ve already had two birthday celebrations – one in Washington DC and the other here in Manhattan,’ she smiles puckishly. ‘It was like my memorial, except I was there to hear all the nice words said about me,’ she laughs good humouredly. Her colleagues, friends and admirers in the UN and many high-powered NGOs on whose boards she serves, paid her scintillating tributes. And she appears basking in the praise. If anyone deserves it, it’s Dr Nafis Sadik, the first Pakistani to have earned high praise from kings, queens and commoners from around the world, not to leave out billionaires like Ted Turner, founder of the CNN.
Dr. Nafis Sadik photographed during the international conference on HIV/AIDS in Tianjing, China. November, 2006. Third week August 2009 she turns 80.
With her designer sandals firmly rooted to the ground, her head clear of vainglory and pride, her heart in the right place, Sadik still speaks passionately about Pakistan. ‘What we need is an American-Pakistan association like the Indians have here in the US,’ she says. ‘Many Americans in the government, private and public sector have asked me to set up one,’ she adds. ‘Mehnaz Fancy is now working full time to put together such a foundation. She’s trying to get Pakistanis living in the US to come on board.’
The Indians set up American India Foundation (AIF) in 2001. Its aim is to ‘accelerate social and economic change in India.’ The foundation has already raised $50 million and sent the money back to 100 NGOs in India devoted to social change. ‘It is one of the largest secular, non-partisan American organisations supporting development work in India,’ claims the AIF website.
There are many prosperous American-Pakistanis who make individual and corporate donations to charities back in Pakistan. The one name that gets mentioned to me often is that of Farooq Kathwari. The Srinagar-born Kashmiri is the CEO of one of the largest US furniture chains called Ethan Allen. He’s been heading it for 22 years. According to Nafis Sadik, Kathwari gave a substantial donation to DIL (Developments in Literacy) an NGO in Pakistan which is actively engaged in educating the poor and disadvantaged children in underdeveloped regions of Pakistan.
Kathwari, 64, lost his eldest son, Irfan, in 1992. Irfan was a medical student at Harvard and had gone to Afghanistan to fight with the mujhaideen. Farida, his wife of 41 years, co-founded Funkar International, which promotes Kashmiri classical music. As a peace activist Kathwari demands of India that Kashmiris live in dignity and honour. ‘By showing Americans what was really going on in Kashmir, Kathwari angered Indians. At about the time the (Indian) government made it clear he was no longer welcome (in Indian-held Kashmir)’ wrote the USA Today some years back. The Kashmir Study Group that he founded in 1996 has since been bringing together former diplomats, academics and American politicians to set up a framework for discussion between Indian and Pakistani negotiators ‘sparring about control of the region.’The only time I met Farooq Kathwari was at a Pakistan Day reception hosted by the then Pakistan ambassador to the UN Munir Akram several years ago in New York.
Kathwari came across as an intensely serious person focused on the fate of Kashmir. He seemed disinterested in small talk. ‘He's so intellectually curious and has more interests outside his work than any CEO I've ever known,’ said Tracy Mullin, CEO of the retail federation. ‘Farooq is a true internationalist.’
Other than Nafis Sadik, who has been a tireless fundraiser for DIL, Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times interviewed Tauseef Hyat, executive director, DIL, and produced a documentary Books not Bombs that invited donations, pouring in since November last.
Opposite the Empire State Building stands a travel agency. Shakur Alam, 73, runs it. He’s been in this office for over 20 years. The Pakistani community on the east coast know Alam well. But it’s the haj tours that Alam is renowned for. He personally accompanies the haj tours and insures that everything runs smoothly. He has a cupboardful of stories to tell. Most of them are about ordinary people whose faith in haj belies belief.
‘When I was working in PIA many years ago I came across an aged couple sitting next to me in the plane. The husband thought he was travelling on a train and kept asking his wife, ‘when will the next station come?’ His wife, a more worldly-wise soul, told him to keep quiet and wait. After we had landed, it occurred to me that the couple wouldn't know what a conveyer belt was. I decided to go check on them. Sure enough, everyone had left except the two sitting with their back against the wall, without their baggage, not knowing what to do. ‘Didn’t I tell you that Allah will send a farishata (angel) to help us?’ she triumphantly told her husband. I was so humbled.’
Alam received the
New York Times and
Citi Bank performance award, announcing that he was one of the 50 ‘Outstanding Asian Americans in Business’ in 2002.
That afternoon in Manhattan talking to two Pakistanis I came away marveling how Nafis Sadik and Shakur Alam, who had spent decades in New York, never once spoke of retiring nor giving up hope for their homeland. Most of us want to retire citing old age, but these two Pakistan-lovers refuse to talk about old age or walking gently into the sunset. No way! [
rc]
www.anjumniaz.com
© 2009 DAWN Media Group.
Wisdom’s source is the word of mouth; the
narrator whose love of life is unbeatable. — Dawn
Everyone had left except the two old people sitting with their back against the wall, without their baggage, not knowing what to do...
What I brought back that lazy summer afternoon in New York cannot be measured in material terms. Its worth is not in gold but in the wisdom that was scattered around. That wisdom is hard to come by in books or in high sounding psychology/ philosophy journals. Its source is the word of mouth; the narrator whose love of life is unbeatable.
As New Yorkers slow down a bit to soak in the sun, the warm blue interior of Dr Nafis Sadik’s living room radiates its own energy gravitating towards her persona. Dressed casually in black pants and a bluish/black fitted top, the first woman to break the glass ceiling in the UN-male-dominated hierarchy appears comfortable in her own skin. She was the under-secretary general of the UN, just a heartbeat away from the top UN slot. In two weeks she turns eighty.
‘I’ve already had two birthday celebrations – one in Washington DC and the other here in Manhattan,’ she smiles puckishly. ‘It was like my memorial, except I was there to hear all the nice words said about me,’ she laughs good humouredly. Her colleagues, friends and admirers in the UN and many high-powered NGOs on whose boards she serves, paid her scintillating tributes. And she appears basking in the praise. If anyone deserves it, it’s Dr Nafis Sadik, the first Pakistani to have earned high praise from kings, queens and commoners from around the world, not to leave out billionaires like Ted Turner, founder of the CNN.
Dr. Nafis Sadik photographed during the international conference on HIV/AIDS in Tianjing, China. November, 2006. Third week August 2009 she turns 80.
With her designer sandals firmly rooted to the ground, her head clear of vainglory and pride, her heart in the right place, Sadik still speaks passionately about Pakistan. ‘What we need is an American-Pakistan association like the Indians have here in the US,’ she says. ‘Many Americans in the government, private and public sector have asked me to set up one,’ she adds. ‘Mehnaz Fancy is now working full time to put together such a foundation. She’s trying to get Pakistanis living in the US to come on board.’
The Indians set up American India Foundation (AIF) in 2001. Its aim is to ‘accelerate social and economic change in India.’ The foundation has already raised $50 million and sent the money back to 100 NGOs in India devoted to social change. ‘It is one of the largest secular, non-partisan American organisations supporting development work in India,’ claims the AIF website.
There are many prosperous American-Pakistanis who make individual and corporate donations to charities back in Pakistan. The one name that gets mentioned to me often is that of Farooq Kathwari. The Srinagar-born Kashmiri is the CEO of one of the largest US furniture chains called Ethan Allen. He’s been heading it for 22 years. According to Nafis Sadik, Kathwari gave a substantial donation to DIL (Developments in Literacy) an NGO in Pakistan which is actively engaged in educating the poor and disadvantaged children in underdeveloped regions of Pakistan.
Kathwari, 64, lost his eldest son, Irfan, in 1992. Irfan was a medical student at Harvard and had gone to Afghanistan to fight with the mujhaideen. Farida, his wife of 41 years, co-founded Funkar International, which promotes Kashmiri classical music. As a peace activist Kathwari demands of India that Kashmiris live in dignity and honour. ‘By showing Americans what was really going on in Kashmir, Kathwari angered Indians. At about the time the (Indian) government made it clear he was no longer welcome (in Indian-held Kashmir)’ wrote the USA Today some years back. The Kashmir Study Group that he founded in 1996 has since been bringing together former diplomats, academics and American politicians to set up a framework for discussion between Indian and Pakistani negotiators ‘sparring about control of the region.’The only time I met Farooq Kathwari was at a Pakistan Day reception hosted by the then Pakistan ambassador to the UN Munir Akram several years ago in New York.
Kathwari came across as an intensely serious person focused on the fate of Kashmir. He seemed disinterested in small talk. ‘He's so intellectually curious and has more interests outside his work than any CEO I've ever known,’ said Tracy Mullin, CEO of the retail federation. ‘Farooq is a true internationalist.’
Other than Nafis Sadik, who has been a tireless fundraiser for DIL, Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times interviewed Tauseef Hyat, executive director, DIL, and produced a documentary Books not Bombs that invited donations, pouring in since November last.
Opposite the Empire State Building stands a travel agency. Shakur Alam, 73, runs it. He’s been in this office for over 20 years. The Pakistani community on the east coast know Alam well. But it’s the haj tours that Alam is renowned for. He personally accompanies the haj tours and insures that everything runs smoothly. He has a cupboardful of stories to tell. Most of them are about ordinary people whose faith in haj belies belief.
‘When I was working in PIA many years ago I came across an aged couple sitting next to me in the plane. The husband thought he was travelling on a train and kept asking his wife, ‘when will the next station come?’ His wife, a more worldly-wise soul, told him to keep quiet and wait. After we had landed, it occurred to me that the couple wouldn't know what a conveyer belt was. I decided to go check on them. Sure enough, everyone had left except the two sitting with their back against the wall, without their baggage, not knowing what to do. ‘Didn’t I tell you that Allah will send a farishata (angel) to help us?’ she triumphantly told her husband. I was so humbled.’
Alam received the New York Times and Citi Bank performance award, announcing that he was one of the 50 ‘Outstanding Asian Americans in Business’ in 2002.
That afternoon in Manhattan talking to two Pakistanis I came away marveling how Nafis Sadik and Shakur Alam, who had spent decades in New York, never once spoke of retiring nor giving up hope for their homeland. Most of us want to retire citing old age, but these two Pakistan-lovers refuse to talk about old age or walking gently into the sunset. No way! [rc]
www.anjumniaz.com
© 2009 DAWN Media Group.
