Chance Encounter – Lasting Memories

#25 by aquaris

[What struck me , was his humility]

This brings very fond memories. I had the honour of being at the Hong Kong Open final (I think it was 1986) when Jansher Khan defeated Jehangir Khan for the first time. I met both of them. The amazing thing was that the crowd i.e. mostly the squash mad Australians, were treating both of them like veritable Gods. That, they certainly were in the Squash world. Noone would even try to come close to them because they were so overawed. I met Jansher in the dressing room before the match and he actually got up from his chair to shake hands with me ... and exchanged many pleasantries. I was squash mad myself and it was unbelievable to be treated with such respect by none else than Jansher Khan!

And the match ... It goes down in history as perhaps the toughest ever played. Jehangir was the aggressive tiger smashing winner after winner and Jansher kept getting each one back ... even the `impossible` ones. He just retrieved. Jehangir kept hitting magical shots around all corners and around the side walls and killed the ball, but Jansher retrieved each ball just before it died .... hundreds of times. Then Jehangir tired in the fifth and it was over. Jansher was the new champion.

Forget the game, I will never forget their humility.

Rgds

My observations about Indi/Paki academicians outside of India.

Indis:
Are accepting of Pakistanis, by far and large
They try to impress Pakis by doing tutti-futti shairi
They always mention their links to Pakistan(ancesstoral)
They acknowledge the partition violence as wrong and equally share the responsibility
Indis are critical of their own system and culture, always sound apologetic
Indis do not see Indian Muslims as suppressed and cite Azimji/Kalam success story

Pakis:
They support and are cordial with Indis when Pakis are few(almost always the case)
They change when more Muslims join at work or during Namaz time
They accuse Indi Managers of bias, if reporting to Indis
They never acknowledge Non-Muslim massacares and innocently say ``all Sikhs left Pakistan on their own in 1947``
They never acknowledge their cultural negatives and always dwell upon following points
Islam is the fastest grwoing religion in the world
By 2030, USA/France will have Muslim president
Jews are poisoning the West(who are otherwise good).

Indi/Paki almost always never discuss the live-wire topic of Kashmir at Work.

Above are my observations that I have seen after my 15 yrs of exposure to Pakistanis in N America.

nandan:

At IIT Delhi, there was a friend of mine, P. Natarajan. We were contemporary at Imperial College and did our Ph.D. at Imperial College. He must have retired now. Wishing you well,

Mohammad Gill

Dear Gill sahib,

about the baby ,you will get all the information here
http://www.ndtv.com/template/template.asp?template=health&id=41509&callid=1
and
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/2003/07/12/stories/2003071209921100.htm

The second website has a photo of Baby Noor.

Its interesting reading your articles.....You remind me of my father.My father is a retired
IIT professor. We used to have academicians from all ethnicities visiting us IIT Mumbai quarters ,and it was a nice secular ,liberal atmosphere to grow up in.

Thanks for taking me back in the memory lane to probably the best years of my life.....

Wishing you and your family all the best

Nandan Nadkarni

in my experience most pkistani and indians help each other famously outside the country, especially in professional areas..and more interestingly/surprisingly find it natural to seek help.

And Mr Gill I wish you and your family the very best, being a father myself i can understand the situation you were in.

I don`t know whether its relevant here or not...

But it reminded me of a Chance encounter with the Great Jehangir Khan, and he had a cup of tea wth me, in a Khokha tea stall , and that too in the prime of his career, infact still rising career as it was i believe early 80`s and he was already a world champion maybe 4-5 times by then.

What struck me , was his humility, and no false pretentions, and very down to earth , very humane attitude, and the way he responded to my request for a cup of tea, a complete stranger, ... that too from a khokha., and after that He thanked me for the cup of tea.. speaks volume of his greatness not only as a sports personlity but as a human being.

yes great men do not allow their achievements to cloud their Humanity.

.... that is one of my cherished moments in Life.

delhiwala:

In one of my posts I had written that ``irresponsible pen and tongue`` are lethal weapons because they cut both ways. Cheer up, we are human.

Mohammad Gill

Mr Gill,
I sincerely apologize for using wrong/bad words in my earlier post and I hope that you will pardon me.

I wish you and your family well.

Sometimes, I forget that I am on Chowk FP.

yes freethinker..
you hit me right on the head there!
should have cross-checked the article was indeed the one i wanted to post for!
The thing is once one selects the article for interaction (right or wrong)..the title scrolls way up and if one has selected wrongly..(for whatever reason) ..this happens!
Hota hai hota hai..chalta hai chalta hai..
nice of you to despatch me with one single line!
haha!
jayen

Hi,
disregard my post number 18 and 19!!
I actually have posted them here wrongly..
(the price of being distracted momentarily by a call while executing the muse click!!)
I posted them wrongly for this article..
These are meant for the ``interview`` article!
Sorry for the bother, in case any of you wondered what the posts had to do with what gill is saying.
sorry once again.
jayen

Posts #19 and 18 do not have any relevance to my article.

delhiwala:

I don`t believe you have experienced the trauma that we went through. Your e-mail is just trivial.

kulharee:

I do not exclude others from the trait I attributed to the scientists. In my experience, it`s more prominent among the scientists. Be well,

Mohammad Gill

Hi,
My post number 18 is a sort of ``testing of the water``.
If this gets ``edited``....``blocked``..and so on, i will have to judge chowk in different light.
It will then turn out to ``one of many`` islamic sites full of vitriol for hindus and christians..
with posts quoting heavily from the koran how despicable ``hindu baniyas are`` and so on and so forth..
Reflecting generally a closed world of mutual back scratchers glorifying their past and ``looking down`` on the rest of the world.
It is precisely this head in sand attittude that has led to the present status of the islamic world.
No questioning of anything, mere robotic glorifying of a past already 1000 years gone!
Hindus were like this when qassim arrived in Sindh!
We all know what happened.
A 1000 YEAR eclipse is for all to see and some to enjoy vicarously.

Well! Each dog has his day i guess, the hindus had theirs for a loong time in pre-history..the egyptians had it good for 4000 years before Caesar and cleopatra..

The muslims had it until the sack of Baghdad under HALAKU.
IT is down hill since then.

Will they have a renaissance? Like hindus had under dayanand saraswati, ram mohan roy, c.v.raman, vivekananda?

Questions..questions..questions..but are the muslims to question in the first place?
jayen

Hi all,
Iam new to chowk, and most muslims on this site are going to find my writing bitter!
But NOWHERE AM I INSULTING THE RELIGION ITSELF.
IT IS THE RABID PRACTITIONERS I AM TALKING ABOUT.
to keep facts straight..
1) - Is it NOT the truth that recruitment in the gulf in key positions is always RESERVED for MUSLIMS?
How come no one is protesting? And we find a LOT of fashionable secular whining when one muslim woman (i cannot believe it otherwise. one has to CONVERT to marry a muslim) got rejected on account of religion?
I mean SECULAR guys too have to be balanced dont they?
2) - The same muslims who want secular opportunities in secular countries, still WANT SEPARATE LAWS for themselves. WHY? HAVE THEY DROPPED FROM HEAVEN?
Why are the secularist apologists SILENT here?
3) - OK so one does get recruited..
next we find him / her asking for ``prayer time off`` god knows how many times a day...
next will come DEMANDS of ``NOT waering revealing uniforms``...etc!
next will come..complaints ``about no respect for my religion``..
next will come umpteen problems out of percieved insults..
the long lists of possible ``nexts`` is enough to put off people from recruiting muslims.
4) - Muslims are known to vicious when they ``feel`` let down.
who knows when a ``let down`` employee might sabotage things anytime?
After all in well of singapore..a respectable man turned out to be the mastermind of a plan to bomb the singapore underground metro..and his reasons?
SINGAPORE FOREIGN POLICY IS ANTI MUSLIM!!!
Wow at THIS RATE. which fool would hire muslims?
Jayen

>>>People who are involved in scientific research are by and large above the considerations of religion and ethnicity.<<<

Gill Sahib.. But this trait is not unique only to researchers. I think if anything Malang and Dervaish (Sufis) people exhibit such trait more than any other group of people.

Re: #16

Dilli Yaar, There is a lot of astuteness and experience in this article. It is articles like this, that one learns more from than garbage that is given more coverage. People are arguing over how to calculate interest without annoying Allah as if that is really important in this day in age. Articles like this are a breath of fresh air, and there should be more of such write-ups

Nice article but why is it on FP?

Waise, Ek gull dusso, did you have a crush on this woman Doctor from India?

Are you feeling sorry that you could not make this Kaffir as Momin?