I had the pleasure of attending a very interesting event today, which was the launch of a pictorial biography by Rasheed Jamal on the leader of the MQM “Altaf Hussain”

Born in Sept of 1953 this student leader has not only galvanized the middle class immigrant minority of Karachi into becoming its strongest party in his tenure, but has also seemed to foretell what turn future events would take in the hotch potch of our countries politics. Perhaps this is why his party always seems to end up on the right side of the book when the pages of politics turn. Surprisingly enough for some people who still think of MQM as a party based on sectarian politics  it has emerged as a secular force not only in this city but across Pakistan as its cadres include the most educated and literate people in this country. It is the only party in my knowledge who takes people up from the grass roots level of community and sits them in the halls of power.

The proceedings for the launch were quite well organized and started off at around 7pm today at the Karachi Marriot hotel, which was heavily secured obviously as a number of leaders from MQM and other parties as well as Governer Isratul Ibad who was the chief guest & some counselor generals were in attendance. Upon being seated just a cursory glance was enough to tell one that the who’s who of Karachi’s educational as well as urdu literati were present for this occasion along with every media channel in the book. One thing I absorbed today was that the english journalists of our country, do not have 1/ 3rd the aura of our urdu press and its zauq.  Rather than go into the details of the ceremony, I would choose this moment to try to explain what people do not understand about the  absolute worship which Mr Altaf Hussain gets from his followers. Its not fake or made up, you can literally see it in their faces right from the party worker to the MNA’s who were literally helping people sit in their places.  I do not know about you but I have yet to see a party where its most powerful representatives work side by side with party workers except for MQM.

Today people questioned me as to why  someone  would buy this book. Well for that answer you have to see it, firstly it has some 2000 pictures of the entire movement and its leader in small and large formats. However where it is totally apart to this scribe from the other autobiographies he has collected over the years is in the pictures itself. Where you will find other leaders autobiographies showing pictures of them  standing with party posters, here you will find a young Altaf Hussain tying posters of his party to the telephone poles himself. Where in other autobiographies you will see leaders tucking into enormous feasts, here you will see a young man with his friends as a student leader sitting on the ground and having samosas in torn newspapers like anyone else in this cities masses. This is the difference in this man and the rest of our leaders to me, he is one with his people, one with those that follow him. They do not worship him because of what he is, but what he represents in his party which is equality.

In any case I would recommend all of my readers to buy this book, its an experience going through it and should be a welcome addition to any collectors shelf. Perhaps it can even go some way in explaining what it is that makes Altaf Hussain what he is.

I would like to leave you with a few shairs some members of our glittering urdu press whom I had the honor of sitting with imparted to me, as they curiously peeked over my shoulder at me twittering.

“gham duniya me bhi gham yar ko shamil karlo

nasha barhta hay us sharab se jo sharabon me mile,

tu khuda hay na

mera ishq farishton jaisa

donu insan hi to hain kyun itne hijabon me mile”

Pretty much sums it up for me.

Photo credits:

Raja Islam, the photo blogger extraordinaire