Nadir Kamal/Back To The Mountain

 

Photo courtesy Asim Amin

On Wednesday February 10^th, 2021, we lost a very dear friend. At 6:30 in the morning I got a text that he had died earlier. He had suffered a massive heart attack the few days back. By 5:30 pm I was on my way back home after his burial. It all happened so quickly; something unheard in corona times. Imam Qureshi alluded to that in his prayers by side, that it's a privilege to be buried without delay. There was not a moment's hold up from the time he was released from hospital to his interment.

Entering New Jersey from New York out of George Washington Bridge, you see a beautiful mosque on the north side of Interstate 95. It is Dar ul Islah, commonly known as Teaneck Mosque. I always wished to be there but never had an opportunity. I would have never thought that would be the place where I meet Nadir Kamal for the last time and accompany him to his final resting place in Laurel Grove Cemetery.

I knew him since 10^th of May 1973, when a hundred of us, the 20^th entry Abdalians, started our journey at age 12. We lived in boarding for five years. Nadir and I were in the same house, Jinnah Wing. By the time we left, it was a fraternity. For each sixteen or so of us in each of the six Wings, it was next thing to be a brother.

We all are similar and different in many ways, but he was more different. Quiet, aloof, but soft spoken and friendly. In those five years, almost everyone would find one person or two to dislike, hate or to be angry with. Not Nadir Kamal. I don’t think anybody had any issue with him.

He was good in studies and got recognition for that. He chose pre-engineering, went to UET Mughalpura and then to USA.

Although not born in mountains, he spent a large part of his life on them. I had accompanied him and others in two trips to Northern Areas in our final year of Hasanabdal and the year after, but that was it for me. He, sometimes alone and other times with fellow travelers like Shahid Ghafoor, have been to almost every mountain range in northern Pakistan, including base camp of K2. One part of his family hailed from the foothills of mountains south of Nepal. Perhaps he carried some inborn inclination.

His search to see new places only grew with time. When I reconnected with him after a while, I found out he was almost done checking the last few states to have all fifty under his feet. He was also working on the 100th mark on countries  of the world and eventually surpassed that. He is the only one I know who has been to all the seven continents including Antarctica.

Barring large cities, he almost never went to the same place twice. If he went, he took a different route. He was not keen to write up about his travels despite being urged about it, we would have learnt much more about him and his world. At a later date, at least, he started putting pictures online. Some of them can be seen on his Facebook page.

It seemed like he was searching for something; a wandering soul. What else took him time and again out of the comfort of home and familiar places to the unknown and unpredictable!

Waqar Sadiq, said he was a Malang. Yes he was in a true sense. He was in I.T. and worked at one time in a job which gave him the opportunity to travel to different places. In good days he had a deal with the company to have a few months off at a stretch, for his international travels. Later when that became difficult, he moved on. He had no issue when he left a job. He would go away for a few months to conquer new lands. 

Some twenty years back he suffered a big loss. Both of his parents died naturally the same night. He had to adjust his professional life to take care of family affairs, being the only brother among four sisters.  He put his family responsibilities ahead of his personal life.

In pre social media era, meeting him would mean meeting with at least another twenty or so of your old classmates; if not eighty. He was one keeping contact with almost everybody. After all he was the one who travelled most.

He never married, perhaps never had a long-term serious relationship. That kept people guessing but did not bother him. He had made a place in many hearts and it shows up now when the bereaved talk about him and find him in each other’s heart. That is what we all felt when the same night his classmates met on Zoom, benefits of modern times, to mourn together, from California to Australia. Everybody had a personal story to tell about him.Friends in Pakistan were able to be together for Ghaibana Nimaz e Janaza in Lahore. Our old teacher and housemaster Mahfooz ul Rahman Sahib was kind enough to attend at age 81, from Narowal.

He lived an independent life, not owing anything to anyone and by the time he left, he had fulfilled all his obligations to near and dear around him. Many would wish such a contented exit.

True to his name, Javed Iqbal aptly said that he was Nadir and he was Kamal.

He loved mountains and spend the most of his life tracking and searching them. In his final days, he was perturbed by the tragedy in waiting on K2 where mountaineers could not be accounted for.  His last Facebook post is about the concern he was sharing with his other mountaineer friends.

Three days later I was back in the cemetery with Zubair Niazi, who travelled four hours each way to visit him. 

Nature chose a mountain for him for his last resting place. His last worldly travel is to a serene slow uphill road, where he finally rested on the top of the cemetery hill, next to Passaic River and Christopher Columbus Highway, the Interstate 80. You can hear low humming sound of travelers. That would keep him happy.

Nadir belonged to the mountains; he is back there.      

                                                       

 

I had to mention some names to give the proper credit. Otherwise the post is a reflection of the collective sentiments of all of his 20th entry classmates.

My thanks to Naheed Usmani for letting me know at the right time. It would have been otherwise impossible for me to have a proper closure.