Author: Syed Habib Ahmed
Publisher:

BOOK REVIEW: “FROM SOUTH ASIA TO NORTH AMERICA”
By Syed Habib Ahmed. Oxford University Press 2001


Every once in a while, one comes across an autobiography that is rich both in personal experience and a life which has touched that of many other people in numerous places across the globe. And when you have a person of taste (in some cases quite literally) like Syed Habib Ahmed, an octogenarian who currently resides in Winnipeg, Canada, telling his life story, it is surely a journey of many words, challenges, miles, languages, cultures, and moments. It is a biography of a very personal nature that might otherwise get overlooked. And if readers do get a chance to read the approximately 400 pages of this book, they will have the opportunity to share the life of a man who was born in Delhi, in what was then British India and later made the world his home due to the nature of his work. This writer is one who received his early education in the Urdu language, then struggled with English soon after, and later in life became conversant in a number of other languages as he completed a career that spanned many decades with the United Nations.
Born on an April day during the year 1915 in the Old City of Delhi to the second wife of his father, the author grew up in a house off a street called Gully, Masjid Kalay Khan. This environment he describes in much detail, one that he shared it with his grandparents, parents, his siblings and seven other children (all basically dependent on his father’s income). He writes, “Until I was seventeen, there was no piped water in our house. There were water carriers called saqqas, who supplied water drawn from wells in quantities of mushaqs”. Another glimpse that he provides of his life is, “My father brought shoes for me for the first time when I started going to college at the age of fifteen. Until then, I only wore sandals called Calcutta, made up of black toe tops on flat soles.”
Even though we start off with much generality in narration, as one finds much detail later as even the type of meats that favor the cause of flatulence are mentioned in this book. The reader is taken through the richness of an entire culture that had precariously survived the final Muslim defeat at the hands of the British in 1857. It even visits an area of Delhi called Chowri Bazaar and its apartment buildings. “These apartments were occupied by a professional class of women who plied their business of entertainment their clients…..confined generally of men of high social class..” The author adds, “these women were highly trained in the social mores and manners of high society in those days.” Here and elsewhere in the book, Syed Habib Ahmed makes no secret to his attachment to his city of birth no matter how many places he may have lived in. He writes, “The city of Delhi where I was born and grew up made an important contribution in building my intellectual heritage.”
On his environment he writes: “Relations between the various communities were extremely cordial. In fact, both my brother and I had more Hindu than Muslim friends.”
He also thanks a Hindu teacher of his for playing a monumental role in his future success in the book. But that did not stop him from discussing the environment at the time of the Partition of India and Pakistan’s birth, when he had to leave behind his geographical identity mainly due to the feeling of no longer being welcome in India and the negative emotions that came to the forefront between the Hindu-Muslim communities of the time.
In the chapter on heritage the author writes: “I fell in love with Urdu poetry and music, which then became an integral part of my intellectual and emotional life. This experience
has always made me think that a true appreciation of art is one of those precious human faculties which remain dormant in most people unless they happen to be hit by chance by a particular spark at sometime in their lives.” And it is not just this spark that the author is excited by. His love of fine Mughlai cuisine is just as strong and is shared by millions in both India and Pakistan and far beyond. There are certainly pages in this book that can make one’s mouth water. And there is something for lovers of music here too.
The author goes to great lengths to describe his efforts towards self-education and his struggles with formal schooling. This journey is almost as remarkable as his debut into the world of hidden romance and the path that he describes to his eventual marriage with the future Mrs. Ahmed, Amtul Hafeez. “The sight of Amtul Hafeez, six months after my visit to Ajmer, made my heart start pounding,” writes Syed Habib Ahmed. He elaborates later: “Actually, the most attractive women of the Indian subcontinent are those who are in the middle of the white and dark skin colours, called gandumi or wheatish.”
Now if marriage, family, great food and music are not enough, the working life of Syed Habib Ahmed has been nothing short of remarkable. His attempt to work in pre-partition Karachi during the year 1935 and his long stint with India’s giant Tata Iron and Steel Company in Jamshedpur from 1940 and 1948 is described vividly during which children were born to the Ahmed’s. It was a becoming a comfortable life but then Partition intervened. The journey to Pakistan is described in detail and the living conditions encountered upon arrival are a common part of each immigrant family’s experience in that country.
The area that the author does spend a great deal of time on is his struggle to educate himself. Education, in all its forms that Syed Ahmed encounters during his life certainly makes for interesting reading. But it is his working life especially with the United Nations from 1949-1975, while making use of that education which is indeed remarkable. Work at the UN headquarters in New York, plus in Libya (twice), Ethiopia, Iraq, Afghanistan, South East Asia, Lebanon, Congo, Somalia and retirement life in Canada is detailed and makes for most interesting reading.
Family life also gets some exposure in this book. The couple’s sons Iqbal and Inam and
daughter Attya get a great deal of mention here as do the grandchildren, of whom Syed Ahmed is extremely proud (and not only because one of them, Samir urged him to write this book, and made it a part of his Dissertation Requirements at Harvard University). But all is not rosy within the extended family. Life with them in Pakistan is described with a rare honesty that makes this book a very personal window into a life which has experienced the good and the bad. And Ahmed has written about it with a rare honesty that some of us readers from the younger generation could certainly learn from.
When one first picks up this book and reads a couple of chapters, it initially appears that
this is going to be a self centered effort on the part of the author. But after the reader has finished reading this work in its entirety, he or she knows the author and his family quite well. Words of wisdom that are added in the concluding chapters may just be required reading for immigrants worldwide. People of South Asian origin in North America and in countries where Syed Habib Ahmed has worked and lived will find parts of their own history in “From South Asia to North America”. But let me also conclude this review by saying that it might just be the South Asian Muslims who will get maximum benefit from reading about the life of one of their own here. One who has lived in many countries overseas during his life, yet still makes us feel right at home in this book.

Review By

Ras H. Siddiqui