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My family belongs to
a rural area (at least in early sixties) of
Larkana District. It was our father's desire to
provide good education to his children and thus
hopefully lead to better opportunities in life. My
journey to Petaro started in the footsteps of my
elder brother (late) Ali Raza Memon( kit 56), who
had impressed my father very much and gained an
American Field Service scholarship to visit USA
for a whole year, right after completing his
intermediate in 1962.
My father had
recently been appointed Ambassador of Pakistan to
Saudi Arabia. He had departed for Jeddah with the
whole family leaving me behind in the charge of my
uncle, waiting to join Cadet College Petaro.
When the call came
for the interview to CCP in Hyderabad, my uncle
bought me a return trip ticket to Hyderabad on a
train and gave me a lot of money for expenses.
After the train departed for Hyderabad, the first
thing I did was to order lunch from the dining
car. I had always fancied this lunch along with
its frosted bottle of cold water. The fridges had
not made it to Larkana as yet in 1963, or at least
to our house. During any travels with the family,
meals used to be carried from home. So I had never
had an opportunity to partake of the tray of
food coming out of the dining car. This was my
chance, being all alone and with plenty of money
in my pocket. This was a memorable lunch in full
grandeur.
At the interview, I
tried to impress Col. Coombes and offered him a
military style salute. I don't think he was very
impressed with my saluting abilities. The
interview turned out to be very brief. I think all
they did was ask my name and let me go. A couple
of weeks later, we received news that I had been
accepted. My acceptance was probably because of my
elder brother Marhoom
Ali Raza Memon, kit 56, who
had done so well at Petaro.
I arrived in Petaro
– a scared 14-year old kid from Larkana who could
hardly speak a complete sentence of English and
had never spent a day (or night) away from the
safe abode of home. After the initial cultural
shock, I got into the routine of Petaro. Even
though I was not outstanding in any sphere of
life, I soon picked up on the training provided by
Petaro regime in discipline, in organizing my
studies, in personal hygiene and tidiness, in
social life, in adapting to the community life,
and in learning English, which I hardly knew
before arriving in Petaro. The effect of Petarian
regime is with me to this day and has helped me
ever since.
Petaro was a great
experience and a great enlightening period for me.
It opened doors for me for international
education, travel and employment. To this day, I
am still living abroad. It taught me English, it
gave me self confidence and it gave me opportunity
in life. Due to my two short years at Petaro at a
young age of 14 years, I did not make any close
friendships and bonds. And neither was I an
exceptional student nor was I good at any sport.
But in some subtle ways, the college sowed the
seeds of progress and improvement for which I am
grateful to Petaro.
As luck will have
it, after doing matriculation from Petaro, I moved
on in 1965, totally alone, to the newly
established College of Petroleum and Minerals in
Dhahran, Saudi Arabia (which is now known as the
King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals or
KFUPM) with a full scholarship. I essentially
completed the equivalent of American High School
Diploma with very high grades. I was also the
Editor of the College Newspaper called Sahara.
In 1968, I was
admitted to Middle East Technical University in
Ankara, Turkey, which is one of the finest
technical and engineering schools in the world. I
studied Chemical Engineering and graduated in
1972.
Turkey is the best
place in the world that I have ever been to. I
love it and its people in comparison to any other
country in the world. It was my wish, and still
is, to live permanently in a medium sized city
like Ankara. Unfortunately it was not meant to be.
I had the best times ever in my life in Turkey and
developed many friendships and bonds, which
continue till this day. Turks loved Pakistanis and
most of us loved Turkey and Turks. The nostalgia
continues till this day and I often get together
with old friends from Turkey and recall old
memories which are nostalgic to say the least. And
listening to old Turkish songs brings out the best
in me.
In 1973, I moved to
the USA to do my Masters at University of Miami,
Florida. Even though I had the best of everything
- a part-time Graduate assistantship at
university, my own apartment and a car - I never
really enjoyed living in States. I have a sort of
love and hate relationship with States.
Upon completion of
my Masters in 1975, I was hired by a subsidiary of
Halliburton Ltd. They trained me and I worked in
Houston for several months. Their original plan
was to transfer me to Tehran, Iran as an
expatriate. As luck would have it, at the last
minute I was sent to Egypt in 1976, and I have
been there ever since. I worked for Halliburton
until 1984 and was laid off as a result of
recession in the oilfield industry.
With my Pakistani
Passport, there was no chance of getting a good
job in Egypt. I had fallen in love there with a
sweet 30-year old Egyptian girl, and got married
to her in 1979. She bore me a son named Assem in
1983.
Due of my wife's
personal situation, we could not leave Egypt. She
was the only surviving child of her mother. Her
brother had been martyred in the 1973 Arab-Israeli
war. He was an Air Force Pilot. Her elderly mother
was the closest and the only relative she had.
I did not have the heart to force her to leave
Egypt and leave her mother alone.
Thus, in 1984 we
established Al-Memons Office Supplies Company,
which blossomed immediately. We did very well
financially. In 2004, I decided it call it quits
and liquidated the company and have been retired
ever since.
My son Assem was
educated in Egypt and Canada and now with the
grace of Allah he is a young Project Manager for
IBM Canada.
Egypt is so much
like Pakistan in many ways minus the crime, power
shortages and expensive petroleum products. Gas in
Egypt is still amongst the lowest priced in the
world. Eight months out of a year the weather here
is beautiful. Allah has blessed this ancient land,
which has been mentioned so many times in Holy
Qur’an with the River Nile and two lovely seas -
the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. Fortunately
I own a chalet on the Red Sea coast where I spend
weekends every other week.
Cairo is a crazy
city with maddening crowds and traffic jams. Egypt
is also a favourite tourist stopover for Europeans
and others because of its ancient history,
monuments and weather. Some people claim that 80%
of the world heritage is located in Egypt. I won't
be surprised if it were true.
Egypt has been very
kind and good to me, and my lovely wife Salwa has
made my life so comfortable for me. I still miss
Pakistan and the Pakistan experience. My longest
stay in Pakistan since I left the country
permanently in 1965 has been a month at a time in
which is not enough.
Sometimes I wonder
that had I had never gone to Petaro, would I have
ever left the country? This is a question, the
answer to which I would never know. How destinies
change with events indeed! And Petaro had its
important role to play in this regard.
Now that I look back
at my life almost 43 years after I arrived in
Petaro, leaving home forever as a 14 year old boy
with no knowledge of life or much else, I give
most of the credit to Petaro regime, which
instilled discipline, knowledge, self confidence,
efficiency, ability to work with people and learn
from them, and independence. All of these were
seeds for making me into a good citizen. After
being totally disconnected with Petaro for almost
40 years, the magic of Internet made it possible
to reconnect. I came to find people I hadn't seen
or heard from for 40 years, who were either room
mates or class mates or simply Petaro mates. And I
discovered how they in their own way had made
progress in life, mostly due to Petaro's training
and experience.
As I look back over
these years, I can see myself going back in time –
so many faces, so many names, so many places and
so many incidents. One of the incidents I still
remember vividly happened in the summer of 1965,
when I didn't know that I would be leaving Petaro
for good within a couple of weeks. We (meaning
some boys from the 9th and 10th classes) were
taken to Ghora Gali for some scouting camp and
training under the supervision of the mighty
Toor
Sahib (the mathematics teacher) and Mr. Afsar
Rizvi (the Urdu teacher). One afternoon I wandered
away towards Murree and met some close friends of
my elder brother who were themselves young
Petarian cadets (a couple of years older than me).
They invited me to dinner in their Mess to be
followed by movies. By then it was pretty dark and
late and I was terrified of returning to our camp.
So I bunked with them in Murree. Early next
morning I made my way back to our scouting camp.
Toor Sahib and Rizvi Sahib were both very angry
and upset at my absence. I got a thrashing from
Toor Sahib. At that time I couldn't comprehend why
they would be so angry. But soon I understood that
they were worried about my safety, and that it was
their responsibility to account for all the boys
who were dispatched in their care. Since then, I
became a very responsible person and always
appreciated responsibility. Thank you
Toor Sahib,
I may have caused you a sleepless night and lot of
worry, but I still remember that episode and it
has truly affected my outlook in life ever since.
Another incident I
remember occurred during my early days – shortly
after my arrival at Petaro. My elder brother – the
late Ali Raza Memon (kit no.56/Jinnah), who had
recently returned from USA after spending a year
in Montana with an American family on an AFS
scholarship – decided to visit me at Petaro and
say hello to Col.
Coombes who was fond of
Ali Raza. So one fine
evening Ali Raza Memon, with his close friends
Anwar Memon, kit no. 48/Latif (now my brother in
law), Hameed Anwar
kit no. 12/Liaquat, and I think
Mirza Ashfaque Beg
kit no. 69/Liaquat, came to see me. It happened to
be “Prep” hour and Col.
Coombes was on his rounds. Here was a bunch of
young men and old friends talking and laughing
loudly in the corridors of Latif house and guess
who they ran into? You are right, it was
Col. Coombes. He
gave them a good verbal thrashing and asked them
to leave the grounds of Petaro without a second
thought, which they did in a hurry. But a short
distance from campus, they had second thoughts and
returned to Petaro to face
Col. Coombes at his
residence. I am not sure what transpired there,
but I have heard several versions. One of the
versions was that after further thrashing, they
were treated like royalty and even offered drinks
by the late Col.
Coombes at his residence as he was very fond
of his boys who had generally made him a proud
man. This was the greatness of the man who would
demonstrate values through discipline and yet had
a very kind and generous heart.
In year 2000, during
one of my trips to Pakistan I took my 17 year old
son to Petaro. He –being unfamiliar with the
Petaro magic – didn't show much interest, but I
was very excited to be in Petaro for the first
time since I left in 1965. If anything Petaro
looked bigger and more majestic. I visited the
whole campus including my room in Latif House and
the bed I had spent two years of my life in. While
savouring the moment, I couldn't help remembering
the early morning wake up call for PT, the
dressing up for dinner, the prep hour, and of
course one of my most favourite moments of the
day, the visit to Radio Room after dinner to
listen to request programme from Radio Zahidan,
Iran. I did feel my eyes were mysteriously getting
moist.
Thank you Petaro,
for opening up new horizons, new experiences and a
new world for me! |
