(Munir Niazi)
Photo courtesy Rana Zafar ( N28 Classmate)
Lal Khan is no more. The Red Khan,(Yasrib Tanvir Gondal or YTG as we knew him), of our times breathed his last on Thursday Feb 20th, 2020 in Doctor's Hospital Lahore.
I knew him for 47 years, with some gaps in between.
Much has been said about him and much will be written about him in times to come. I want to say a bit on personal level.
I have written in a previous post about him, in 2013. I request readers to look at it also at https://ghareebkhana.blogspot.com/2013/07/meeting-with-lal-khan-at-javaid-jans.html
I want to keep the present post to the last year only.
I travelled to Pakistan in January 2019. While on board I got a call from Iqbal Adil Tareen, a fellow Nishtarian who had just returned from Lahore to England. I was short on time but somehow I picked up the phone and told him I was on my way to Pakistan. In that half a minute he told me YTG was sick and I should see him. In Pakistan I heard that he had been diagnosed with small cell cancer of the lung and has been avoiding people. He had presented with a increased confusion, which was later found to be due to low sodium, something which happens with that type of cancer. He was a chain smoker.
I left him a message that I would like to meet him when I visit Lahore. While I was in Muzaffarabad, got the call back from him. He was going to INMOL everyday for treatment and I would be able to see him there.
Since re-establishing contact with him in 2017 I has seen him almost every year when I had visited Pakistan; always in Jan Sahib's house. He was always preoccupied,بے چین روح ,thinking of something else, seem to race against time. This time it was different. I was with Zia Ghani, a dear and common friend. Yes YTG had started to avoid people, as he did not want to meet those who were almost offering their condolences to him. He would not have sympathies, His pride did not allow that. He would rather deal with it alone. He had two committed comrades taking care of him 24/7. One, known well to all the friends of YTG was Rana 'Paul", his mureed-e-khaas, had travelled from Holland to stay with him and he did that till the end. In the Internationale tarana singing at YTG's funeral you see him standing next to Jawwad.
I met with his treatment team, one of them happened to be related to me, my cousins' wife. He was getting the state of the art treatment available at that time. Physicians like me who work in the West are always judgemental about the healthcare delivered back home. I was impressed by the work and care he received over there. At a fraction of the price charged by the private sector INMOL was providing all the essential care including, chemotherapy, growth factors, diagnostics ( including PET scans) and radiation therapy.
Since then I remained in active contact with him on the phone and through Whatsapp. I remained in contact with his treating physicians. He got excellent response and went ahead to have prophylactic radiation to the brain. He was able to get away to Europe to spend some well deserved time away.
During all those times, I was a sort of his sounding board. He turned to me to get some pep talk and assurance. During these conversations, we talked about his work and his unfinished business. He wanted to accomplish a lot in his lifetime and realized he was on borrowed time. He encouraged my efforts at poetry.
As he was doing well, the communication somehow started to space out.
Towards the end of last year, he had recurrence in the brain and received more radiation and chemo.
He was to get back to me after his next meeting with the treating physicians and then some how that never happened. Perhaps when he was told about the terminal nature of his disease, he did not want to be fed any more reassurances. And his pride did not let him open up or breakdown.
Then one day I got a call from Zaheer Nasir, a dear friend and fellow Nishtarian from London, that YTG was in coma in Doctors' Hospital Lahore.
I called quite a few friends and although everybody knew about his hospitalization I could not get any particular information, I eventually called Zahid Ashgar, a Dowite, whom I know through years of APPNA. He has moved back to Pakistan and worked in Doctors Hospital. He put me in touch with the house doctor Dr Qasim who was treating YTG at that time. Yes, he was in coma and had finished taking chemo and immunotherapy, probably the same treatment one would have anywhere else in the world.
And then I got the text from Rana Pervez Akhter of Phoenix that Lal Khan is no more.
Then I heard of his funeral and the celebration. I had once heard of the saint of Domeli who instructed his followers to have his funeral as if it were his wedding procession. Somewhat analogous was the final journey of Lal Khan. It was a celebration of what is left of the Left in Pakistan. Unprecedented spectacle of women marching in the funeral, shouldering the coffin, body wrapped in Hammer and Sickle shroud along with Kalima Tayibba at the head, chanting of Internationale and much more.
Funeral Procession
Jawwad singing Internationale
I did not know him much at a personal level. He was four years my senior. I had spend one year in the same boarding house in Hasanabdal and then less than one year in Nishtar with him. I remained in contact with his classmates more than him and thus my thoughts and reflections of him could be off base a bit. But I came to know him a lot in his last year of life.
He had the reputation of not keeping contact with friends, always working for the revolution which would never happen. Some harboured conspiracy theories about his dealing and his frequent travels to the Netherlands and rest of Europe. He was a trostikyte and many thought he had significant funding available.
But the matter of the fact is that he was true to his cause, no matter how unrealistic that cause may seem to many of us.
He was a dreamer and worked towards that. He had hard time keeping his friends happy, He was always busy at work. He remained a committed worker, writer, speaker, and organizer,
He did not belong to the worker's class. He was financially well endowed in life. It did not stop him to go an extra mile to feel the pain and identify with the sufferings.
He was left a lot by his parents. He did not accumulate nor did he squander on himself. He spend his own for the greater good he thought the 'cause' needed.
One may not find a better understanding of the present day class struggle and the dialectics of 21st century issues in Urdu than the writings of Lal Khan. I hope someone takes the trouble of making them available online.
I remember he wrote an article on Bhutto's death, ' Heros die Young". He too died young.
In all the celebration of his life, I would be amiss if I don't emphasize that it was not his struggle which killed him. It was smoking. Although it may be considered an occupational hazard for 20th thinkers and activists of our times.
In my opinion this was perhaps the only vice he had. It took him away too early. World could have been a better place had he lived longer.
As a student leader, he always opened his speech with the verses by Munir Niazi quoted above. He always changed the last line to plural tense. It became his reality.
Here is a poem in his memory:
لال خان کی یاد میں
کمال کے تھے وہ لوگ
جو اس مجاہدے کے نقیب ٹھہرے
عَلم اٹھا کے جو چل پڑے تھے
اندھیر نگری میں روشنی کا سراغ پانے
وہ اس عقیدے میں متحّدتھے
کہ دن چڑھے گا
نہیں تو خود ہی چراغ بن کر
وہ صبحِ کاذب بپا کریں گے
کئی تو ان میں
غبارِراہ کی مثال بن کر
سحر سے پہلے ہی چھٹ گئے تھے
وہ اس سے پہلے کے کوئی ان کا شمار کرتا
بکھر گئے تھے
کئی تھے ان میں علم اٹھائے
بغل میں خورشید کو دبائے
شبِ سیاہ کو مٹا گئے تھے
وہ رات کو دن دکھا گئے تھے
وہ دن چھڑہاتومگر ہوا یہ
وہ دن بہت ہی خفیف ٹھہرا
اک ایسی آندھی چلی کہ سورج
مقابلے میں نحیف ٹھہرا
رہا وہ دن تو
مگراندھیرے کے استعارے
میں رات سے بھی ضعیف ٹھہرا
اسے سویرا قرار دے کر
بغل میں حساب کے جو چراغ تھے
ان کو ہاتھ لے کر
کئی تھے جو اپنے گھر سدھارے
مگر تھے چند ایک
جانتے تھے
کہ رات اتنی سہل نہیں ہے
یہ روشنی کے جو عکس دکھتے ہیں
دن نہیں ہیں
یہ داشتایں ہیں تاجروں کی
جو بیچتے ہیں
ہزار رنگوں بھرا اندھیرا
وہی تھے چند ایک جو نہ مانے
وہ رات کو رات کہہ سکے تھے
اڑے رہے کہ یہ دن نہیں ہے
اگرچہ لگتا ہے روشنی ہے
مگر سویرا ہوا نہیں ہے
سیاہ جب تک نہ سرخ ہو گا
افق پہ سورج نہیں چڑھے گا
اے رات کو رات کہنے والے
حدیثِ اثبات کہنے والے
ضیا کے ظلمت کدے میں رہ کے
ہمیشہ حق بات کہنے والے
تو اے کہ تنویر ہائے یثرب
جو لال رستے پہ چل پڑا تھا
لگا کے سب کچھ چلا گیا ہے
کہ اس کی دھرتی کی سرحدوں تک
افق کے اس پار بسنے والے
ہلالِ احمر دکھانے والے
پیمبروں کا پیام پہنجے
تجھے ہمارا سلام پہنچے
تجھے ہمارا سلام پہنچے
ناصر گوندل
نیو یارک
جمعہ6/مارچ2020
