Abdul Qadir Qureshi hosts reception to honour Arif Afzal Usmani

By Syed Khalid Mahmood

It was yet another memorable evening in which eminent personalities from different walks of life renewed decades long fellowship and recalled quite a few of those interesting incidents of yesteryears.

The occasion was the dinner reception hosted by the doyen of journalists in Pakistan, Abdul Qadir Qureshi, in the honour of Arif Afzal Usmani, Chief Editor and Publisher, Asia Tribune, which is a weekly newsmagazine published from New York, USA, in as many as three languages, English, Urdu and Pushto.

The venue was the Shaheen Shinwari Bar B Q Restaurant, located on Rashid Minhas Road, in the vicinity of the famous Millennium Mall at the junction of Gulshan-e-Iqbal and Gulistan-e-Jauhar. It’s also very close to the Askari IV Residential Complex which has spacious houses and apartments besides host of other facilities.

More than the lovely settings it was the quality of food that distinctly made an instant impression at the Shaheen Shinwari Restaurant, whose owner, Haji Shah Mahmood, was there personally to greet the guests.

The tastiest and spiciest of dishes had very little oil and there was hardly any feeling of heaviness although almost everybody took more than just a few bites. The mutton karahi ghosht was too delicious to resist as were the fried chicken pieces.

The cool sea breeze made the atmosphere even more pleasant and the decision to dine in the terrace instead of moving to the comfortable air-conditioned hall side enabled everyone to enjoy the moments even more.

Abdul Qadir Qureshi, a great host that he always is, took care of each and every guest all of whom have been his personal friends for a very long time. He’s one of the very few people in the profession who treasure values and humanity. He has earned respect and recognition for his honesty and integrity. Ehsan Qureshi is not the only one who considers him as his mentor although the others don’t have the courage or courtesy to declare it openly.

The presence of Azeem Sarwar, undoubtedly the greatest-ever Radio personality of the country, enlivened the session as he shared a lot of incidents that were not only interesting but enlightening as well.

The soft-spoken Iqbal Qasim, probably the last gentleman cricketer to have taken the field, recalled the memories of the 1987 tours of India and England as Pakistan had triumphed in both the Test series to rewrite history. It was indeed for the first time that Pakistan had defeated India in a Test series in India before beating England in England.

He didn’t mind answering to typically probing questions from sports journalists Ehsan Qureshi, Abdul Majid Bhatti and Syed Khalid Mahmood as the quintet of Ibrahim Khan, Chaudhary Abdul Sattar, Aamir Qureshi, Ghulam Mohammad and Bashir Ahmed listened most of the time rather quietly.

Arif Afzal Usmani, having started his career in Radio Pakistan way back in 1977 before relocating in the United States of America (USA) in 1989, had plenty to share as the gathering lasted more than an hour after dinner.

Reunion of Azeem Sarwar’s prodigies revive golden memories

By Syed Khalid Mahmood

What a memorable evening it turned out to be on June 17 even though it was extremely hot and humid in Karachi and the excessive unscheduled load-shedding didn’t allow the air-conditioned rooms to get any where close to be chilled.

The famous Al Haaj Bundu Khan BBQ Restaurant located in Sindhi Muslim Cooperative Housing Society, was the venue of the latest get-together arranged by Azeem Sarwar, a legendary broadcaster, writer and producer, to honour and enlighten some of the members of his team having made it big after the early training at his hands in the mid 1980s.

To the majority of the sports journalists of Karachi occupying key slots in the various media organizations for the last many years Azeem Sarwar holds the position of a father figure. Be it Ehsan Qureshi, Abdul Majid Bhatti, Arif Afzal Usmani or Syed Khalid Mahmood he remains a mentor all along.

The presence of the respected figure of Abdul Qadir Qureshi, the doyen of working journalists in Pakistan, brightened the proceedings further. He has had an illustrious career with the Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) for the last many decades.

The ever-smiling Ibrahim Khan, who didn’t mind our retakes in the studio during recording, and has kept in touch all along for two and a half decades now was also there to remind us of our early days at Radio Pakistan.

Azeem Sarwar is credited to have rewritten the Radio history of Pakistan. It was his conceived and produced Radio Programme, Aalami Sports Round-up, first aired in 1985, that attracted the young and upcoming writers who were groomed and trained so professionally as well as passionately to meet the challenges of tomorrow.

Besides being an outstanding broadcaster, commentator and producer, Azeem Sarwar possessed the terrific quality of leading by example. He was a hard task master and never tolerated nonsense of any sort neither from his associates nor from his superiors. He was totally focused to the job in hand always and he didn’t believe in half measures.

I say it with conviction that the kind of training we had during our stints at Aalami Sports Round-up and we learnt so much from him that all us, fortunate enough to be a part of his team, were bound to be successful in future lives.

I have yet to come across an individual having been blessed with so many qualities. His commitment, devotion and single-mindedness are source of inspiration for us even today. To me his standout quality has been the courage to call a spade a spade.

The lessons we learnt by working directly under him when doing Aalami Sports Round-up and then Subh-e-Pakistan have benefited us considerably in letting us accomplish our cherished goals.

I consider myself as the luckiest of all my batch-mates to have remained associated with him until his last day at Radio Pakistan. He had brought me under his folds once again when he became the Chief Editor of Ahang and Pakistan Calling in 2001 and I was with him when he retired from the organization after a staggering 44-year association.