Rasheed Amjad’s autobiography, Aashiqi Sabr Talab, is not only an interesting read but also an unending jeremiad of the country’s moral bankruptcy. Everything appears tainted -- institutions, politics, faith, discipline, merit, even common sense. He is passionately critical of matters which he knows inside out, that is, education, writers and literary issues.

To read the book right through is a sobering experience. Somehow, now more than ever before, it seems that we have reached a dead end and there is only additional unpleasant ahead.

He was born in Srinagar in 1940 to parents who were not particularly affluent but knew the value of education and sent him to a good school where he didn’t feel comfortable. Things changed for the worse when, during the troubled days of 1947, his parents decided to move to Rawalpindi. Like many others, they believed that the commotion will blow over in a little while and they will be able to go back to Srinagar.

That never happened and the family fell upon dire straits. These were trying times for a boy, feeling the pinch and unable to do anything about it. Gradually, things began to change and as you read on, you see a young man, who faces up to adversity, and slowly but steadily, by dint of persistence, reaches a position of respectability as an educationist and, step by step, establishes himself as a writer of engaging fiction.

Ideologically, he belongs to the left. There is hardly any choice. No one, who is sensitive enough, can be in favour of a viciously capitalistic world. However, he is not a blind follower of the tenets of the progressive movement and passes some scathing remarks on the duplicity of many of the leftists. He was mainly annoyed by the fact that they rarely practiced what they preached, were avaricious or insolent and invariably misread the political situation.

There are many amusing, or perhaps less than amusing, anecdotes of their chicanery in the book. Maybe the leadership of the left was not canny or spunky enough. In India also, communism could make no headway. It is the height of gullibility to think that a well-entrenched capitalistic system can be voted out. A long and bloody struggle is needed to uproot it.

His first love, as he makes clear, was literature. Unfortunately, even here the writers he met or whose company he kept were often mired in petty jealousies or squabbles. Some were informers or agents of dubious nature or were attracted to literature in the mistaken belief that it was an easy way to attain some sort of fame. Rasheed Amjad says that he has seen even well-known writers stoop to abject servility to obtain invitations to writers’ conferences. It seems that we don’t have an iota of self-respect left in us. One might think that writers would show some moral integrity. Rasheed Amjad makes it perfectly plain that to see them in such an appreciative light would be a serious error.

There are many funny episodes in the book and Rasheed Amjad tells us that some of the so-called great writers easily turned amiable when you buttered them up. Fame and power usually fattens such people’s ego which always craves for a sweetener.

There are exceptions also. There have to be. He pays a handsome tribute to Ghulam Rasool Tariq, his earliest mentor. He remembers Muhammad Mansha Yad with great affection and holds Wazir Agha in high regard. He was also impressed by Shamim Hanafi’s level-headed-ness and erudition. In short, the autobiography can also be read as a detailed study of literary life in Rawalpindi and Islamabad, the good and the bad all mixed together.

But one man certainly stands out. He was not a literary figure but as a human being great enough to put most of the writers, always beset by trite ambitions, to shame. He is Rasheed Amjad’s Aliya Chacha. A village lad, named Muhammad Ali, he was taken on as a servant in Srinagar by Amjad’s parents. As he was not treated as a menial, he almost became a family member. Amjad was extremely attached to him. When the family left Srinagar, Amjad’s parents told Aliya Chacha to look after their house. He stayed in Srinagar for a number of years and then turned up in Rawalpindi one day, saw that the family was having a hard time of it and did what he could to allay its discomforts.

We don’t fully comprehend, or don’t want to comprehend, the nobility of such a gesture which is profoundly humane, caring and utterly altruistic. Persons like Aliya have no notion of a reward in mind but believe, deep within their hearts, that the way they have chosen is the right one. A sense of belonging, of togetherness, which defies explanations. The salt of the earth really. The world would be an insipid place but for such men and women. Unluckily, integrity of this order has become quite foreign to our nature. We are to be pitied.

The pace of the narrative slackens somewhat when he describes his visits to China, the Emirates, Saudi Arabia and India. Generally, you see things in a hurry and record your impressions without any enthusiasm. The account of China is disappointing. To go on tours which are managed officially is simply a waste of time. If you wish to see a country, visit it on your own, wander about and interact with the people. Maybe, to be fair, Rasheed Amjad could not afford to be so adventurous.

There is a startling piece of information in the book, although not substantiated in any way. Someone told him that a foreign company, drilling for oil, had come upon a huge oil field between Islamabad and Hazara. There were billions of barrels of oil down there. Rasheed Amjad looked forward to the day when the news or the tip would become a hard fact. Nothing happened. He asked his source about it and was told that the federal minister who was supposed to give the go ahead signal to the company demanded fifty millions in bribe. The company did not agree, packed up and left.

It doesn’t make any sense. If there were billions of barrels down below, worth trillions, no company on earth would let such a deal slip out of its hand. It would have gladly paid a billion to get things rolling. Perhaps just one of those fairytales which float about every now and then.