MERRY MEADOWS - Chapter 11 - Squash Days, the IBA Experience

Instilling extra-curricular in a book wormish environment

My introduction to squash I have already given an account of in chapter six. My pinnacle of amateur playing excellence was achieved in 1976 when the Institute of Business Administration’s (IBA) squash team won the Karachi University’s (KU) Inter-Collegiate Squash Championship, beating archrivals the NED Engineering University in the Final. 

The Final was played at the historic PIA Squash Complex on Kashmir Road, in its # 1 Championship Court that seated over 200 spectators. That evening double that capacity crammed into it, rendering the air-conditioning quite ineffective. That Final has gone down in the annals of both IBA history, as well as the historic PIA Squash Complex’s.

It was the first time in its illustrious life that academia and the corporate world, indeed the entire country, were speaking about the IBA for reasons other than academic excellence in business management. Play squash, or for that matter play anything at all, was not something that IBA students did. The IBA’s Faculty ensured it. It was work, work and more work, a model that would certainly not have met with Mr. Jinnah’s approval. 

The many ‘jacks’ were becoming very dull boys, fit only for employment as ‘munshis’ and managers of the superrich. Anything that might remotely smack of free thinking, something one acquired on the sports field, was met with disapproval, often of an extreme nature.

Bucking the Corporate Boot Camp

To call the IBA a corporate boot camp, much as PMA Kakul was and remains for the military, would not be an exaggeration, fit only for the human resource that was content with staying well inside the box and fixated on a singular mission with extreme tunnel vision – the destruction of the enemy in the military’s case, and profit maximization in the corporate case. Societal justice and the bigger picture had no place in this scheme of things. 

The irony was that after the systematic annihilation of the Pakistan Civil Service, the IBA attracted the best and brightest that the land had to offer. These bright sparks, whose natural inclination was to tread the unbeaten path and operate outside the box, were beaten into submission and driven back inside the box each time they dared to venture out.

I was one of those who felt suffocated inside the box, and who just couldn’t hack the regimentation the IBA quite ruthlessly insisted on imposing. So while the rest of the elite 20, shortlisted from many thousands for the two years MBA program, went about getting to know our professors better, spending hours upon hours in the library pouring over marketing, management and finance books, I immediately set about forming the IBA’s squash and debating teams. 

It was a natural extension of what I had been doing at the Economics Department for the preceding three years, organizing the inter-departmental and inter-collegiate squash tournaments, and representing KU in the inter-collegiate debating and declamation contests, and winning a number of prizes in the process, the most notable of which was the All Pakistan PAF Declamation Contest at the PAF Academy Risalpur in 1974, last won by the KU thirteen years previously by Javed Jabbar.

I had further aggravated the ire of the Faculty by writing a rather critical article in the IBA’s Student’s Journal, taking to task the IBA’s very narrow sighted vision that insisted on turning out ‘mimeograph memorizing machines’ with no thought for the health of the body and the building of character and leadership through a vibrant extracurricular program. 

I had also called into question the wisdom behind producing business managers when clearly the space for employment was shrinking given the disastrous impact upon the Pakistan economy of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s nationalization program which was in full swing. In any case, what a country like Pakistan needed were entrepreneurs who could blaze a trail of new businesses and create badly needed employment. 

The IBA graduate invariably had an exaggerated notion of self-worth which came crashing down once he or she entered the real life world. I had written with conviction, and was in many ways considered a shining example of taking the initiative and turning adversity into opportunity.

The last straw came when I opted for representing the IBA at the KU’s inter-university declamation contest, instead of sitting the 3^rd Hourly exam in Marketing. I had an ‘A’ and high ‘B’ from the 1^st and 2^nd Hourly exams, and was quite sure I could get an ‘A’ in the final exam as well as the report. The two best of the 3 Hourly exams were counted towards the grade point average.

Booted out of Boot Camp!

Professor A. G. Saeed decided that he had had enough. In his view I should have sat the 3^rd Hourly in the quest for 2 ‘As’. It was no secret to him that my interest in corporate employment was non-existent due to my entrepreneurial success in Taekwondo, and my engagements in manpower export and construction businesses. He couldn’t understand why I was hanging around the IBA. Perhaps I was enjoying myself too much in academia, which I was. Even though I was ready to fly, I was reluctant to leave the nest. Like a benevolent mentor has to sometimes function as a heartless drill sergeant, Prof. A. G. Saeed provided that little kick-on-the-ass that sent me flying out of the nest!

The boot out from the IBA came in the form of the Marketing report, passing in which was mandatory to clearing the subject. I had been assigned the cargo system of PIA as the research topic, and had spent many hours on many days studying the national airline, conducting in-depth research into what ailed this erstwhile trailblazing, very successful aviation enterprise. 

The conclusions were inescapable, and didn’t need a 23 year old post-graduate to arrive at. PIA was grossly overstaffed thanks to political inductions that paid no heed to merit. People were working at cross-purposes and driven by private agendas. These were the same conclusions that Booz Allen came to a decade later, but only after having been paid a million dollars by PIA for their report.

Getting an ‘A’ in my report I felt was a foregone conclusion. However, I was blissfully unaware of Prof. A.G. Saeed’s ‘evil’ intentions with regard to my continued stay at the IBA. To stay in the fulltime Morning program one had to maintain a GPA of 2.8, failing which the student was transferred to the Evening Program where working executives took their time completing the MBA credits over five years instead of two.

Needless to say I was barely meeting the criteria, and was given to occasional bouts of self-convincing to abandon the extracurricular embrace, and embrace instead, with equal zest, my books. 

As the IBA’s debating secretary I had been in over-drive, and this was one activity that was appreciated by all concerned since speaking confidently in front of an audience was a job requirement for executives in the corporate world. For this, and my squash escapades, I was richly rewarded at the IBA’s annual dinner where I acquired over a dozen certificates and cups in recognition of my extra-curricular efforts, in the presence of my elder sister, my unsparing drill sergeant through much of my life.

The Marketing report on the cargo system of PIA ran to about 40 pages, and by the time the deadline rolled around I had managed to type just 32 of them on my father’s Olivetti manual typewriter that made one heck of a clatter. Attaching the balance 8 handwritten pages I barely made it in time to Prof. A.G. Saeed’s office, huffing and puffing, to submit the report. There was nothing about his demeanor that could have made me suspect his intentions. In fact I was greeted by a smile and some good natured banter about my generally disheveled state.

A couple of weeks later I learnt of my grade, an ‘I’, for Incomplete, with the accompanying 1 point for the entire semester’s work in the Marketing subject, when I was all set for 4 points. The eight handwritten pages were cited as the reason for being marked incomplete. There was no convincing Prof. A.G. Saeed. He parroted that which I had heard earlier in Prof. Najam-ul-Hasan’s class; that not all of us were fated to be business executives; but not to worry since we might make excellent carpenters or electricians, even plumbers. 

While most of us took these utterances as insults at the time, in retrospect it was a feeble attempt on the part of our teachers to instill some dignity of labor into us white collar types prone to getting arrogant.

My GPA dropped below 2.8 and I was shunted to the Evening program. That was that. I twaddled along in the Evening program for a couple more semesters, trying to get my head around cost accounting. If I did learn one thing, it was the debit and credit entries, and these have held me in good stead right through life keeping track of my meager cash flows.

‘Munshis’ and ‘Mistries’ Face-off on hallowed ground

What I did take away from the IBA were some priceless friendships, and these have been of a lasting nature. Asif Mayat and Farrukh Hasan, Ashfaq Shaikh and Ali Haider Merchant, Uzer Vora and Shafqat Memon, and the solitary Turk in our midst, Yetkin erTurk. Ghulamali Allana was on the IBA squash team with me that won the inter-collegiate. He was also my nemesis at the Gymkhana’s squash courts where his light weight and swifter mobility invariably got the better of my shot making in the final of the Gymkhana squash championships. But against the NED Engineering University we were playing on the same team. Amjad Rajput was the third man on the IBA team. The three of us had represented the Karachi University the previous year, and all of us got into the IBA, which was a bit of a windfall for it.

The NED team was far superior on paper. The luck of the draw, however, favoured the IBA, with our number 1, Ghulam Ali Allana, drawn to play NED’s number 3. I at number 2 played their number 2, and Amjad Rajput at number 3 took on the NED number 1, Rashid Ahmed, who was also the reigning inter-university champion. Ghulam Ali won his match, while Amjad got thrashed in no uncertain manner by Rashid. Everything hinged on my draw.

It is a matter of great shame that I do not remember the name of my opponent on that fateful day. Rashid Ahmed I cannot forget, mainly because we forged a great friendship, with both of us doing our little bits in promoting squash at the inter-club level in the years to come. Moreover, Rashid took up golf in right earnest in later life, and even though we didn’t play in the same foursome, seeing him occasionally at the club brought back priceless memories.

My match went the distance, and never before has there been experienced such din in the PIA Squash Complex. The PIA Squash Complex, the brainchild and labour of love of the legendary Air Marshal Nur Khan, recently constructed, had seen in recent action the best players in the world of the time, with the PIA Masters bringing together the Aussie legend Geoff Hunt, Qamar Zaman, Gogi Allaudin, Hiddy Jehan, Mohibullah Junior, Torsam Khan (Jahangir’s brother), the Egyptian great Ahmad Safwat, with the past greats Hashim Khan, Roshan Khan, Mobihullah Senior, and Jonah Barrington sitting courtside, making for a truly epic environment. Jahangir Khan was still a few years away from appearing on the scene. 

I had been recruited in an honorary capacity to assist Hasan Musa, manager squash for PIA, in the conduct of the championship. That was perhaps the most memorable month of my life, aside from the six weeks spent in Sweden with the Pakistan team a few years later. For the amateur squash fraternity these were hallowed grounds.

A few months after the PIA Masters had come to a resounding and historic close, 400 boys and girls from opposing camps, with nary a notion of the squash protocol that required silence during rallies, came together in the PIA Squash Complex’s Championship Court # 1 and caused the kind of rumpus normally associated with English soccer!

I have to admit that I was very rubbery legged during the first game, never having played before such a large and boisterous gallery. My opponent was on the attack from the word go, and had me wrong footed time and again. He took the first two games in quick succession, and for a while there the IBA supporters presented a glum picture even as the NED girls and boys jumped around with joy, sensing blood.

An unlikely rivalry between the NED and IBA, some would say. But there was a strong bond between the two institutions, with the elite engineering graduates from NED joining the IBA’s MBA program, with quite a few of them in our batch as well whose loyalties could not be counted upon in such an encounter. The other bonding glue was the IBA and NED hostels, situated within hailing distance of each other. A favorite after dinner past time in both places was to walk on the hostels’ roofs, with bellows of ‘Munshi’ and ‘Mistry’ renting the air!

So, with me down 2-0, the ‘Mistries’ were in a high state of jubilation. And then I found the second wind. Suddenly the head clears and the breathing settles down to a rhythmic motion. The deafening noise from the gallery receded to the background as my concentration gained strength with a laser beam focus on the yellow dot black ball that had hitherto elude my grasp.

My opponent, meanwhile, had run himself out of steam in the first two games, and I made short work of him in the next three, unleashing upon him a barrage of vicious crosscourt shots interspersed with delicate drops and lobs. I was back! And the coveted Trophy was ours.

Making history

For the first time in its illustrious history the IBA had won an inter-collegiate event in any sport. That the sport had been squash, in which Qamar Zaman had brought back world ascendancy to Pakistan by winning the British Open in 1974, and that the final had been played in the premier squash club in the world, made the then Director IBA, Dr. Matin, do something that was unprecedented. He declared the following Monday, the first working day of the week, a holiday in celebration! It had never happened before, and it hasn’t happened since.

My friend Asif Mayat has cautioned me about name dropping and blowing my own trumpet. He read the first ten chapters that I posted on my blog, and this was part of the feedback he gave me. While I am in complete agreement with him in the main, memoirs are one place where one should be allowed to indulge in some valid chest thumping. And if there have been some big shots that have touched your life, well, where’s the harm in naming them within the context of one’s story.

‘Cloak & Dagger’ in the team

Post match two things happened that bear mentioning. Ghulam Ali’s father, the late Pyar Ali Allana, the then education minister for Sindh, was the chief guest at the Final, and we lined up inside the court for the prize distribution. Since it had been my idea and I had engaged in all the effort putting the team together and getting it battle worthy, I naturally assumed the right to be its captain, an assumption that was not contested by the others on the team, and as such I was all set to receive the running trophy on the IBA’s behalf. So it came as a bit of a shocker when the emcee announced Ghulam Ali’s name to receive the trophy.

This was so blatant, I thought! And it was embarrassing as well, or should have been, for Ghulam Ali to receive the trophy from his father. Dr. Matin had made the last minute correction in the script, no doubt an ill conceived move to curry favor with the education minister. Though, in all fairness, Ghulam Ali was in the MBA 3^rd semester while I was still in the 1^st, and as such he was the senior member of the team, as well as the better player. But I felt I had been shortchanged. That feeling soon dissipated as the overjoyed IBA camp hoisted me on their shoulders, with Ashfaq Shaikh bearing the brunt of my 178 pounds. That’s the only time in my life that I have been hoisted on anybody’s shoulders.

I did gain my ‘revenge’ though. As I was exiting the venue, the receptionist called out to me to come and attend a phone call. It was the Dawn’s sports desk calling for an update on the event. The next day’s Dawn may have carried the photograph of Ghulam Ali receiving the trophy while the rest of the team stood by clapping, but if one bothered to read the report itself, guess who was the hero of the evening, and mentioned as captain of the team? Ghulam Ali was quite livid when I met him the next day. But history had been made, and that is all that mattered.

Leveraging the gift of the gab

My other experience while at the IBA that has stayed with me for the duration of my life had to do with my debating heroics. While at the Economics Department I had fairly set the field on fire by making a clean sweep of trophies on the inter-collegiate debating circuit, culminating in the victorious PAF Academy Risalpur campaign. It was my extracurricular successes that had convinced my Uncle that his nephew would make for a worthwhile son-in-law, resulting in my engagement to his daughter whom I had been courting independently as well.

At the IBA I met, to my great delight, Ashfaq Shaikh, one of the elite 20 in the MBA direct program, a naturally gifted speaker with a penchant for the dramatic. Ashfaq and I teamed up to form the IBA debating team. Amongst our first forays was the inter-collegiate debate at the St. Joseph’s College for Women, notorious for its rowdy female population, but where my fiancé and her cohort of friends held sway.

I had begun getting cocky of late and taken to speaking extempore even on occasions where the topic was preannounced and with a few days available for researching and preparing. The prerequisite to speaking extempore was having your wits about you and thinking on your feet, as it were. I forget what the topic was, but it had something to do with the beauty and the beast, and I had decided on a flippant course of action, making light of the discourse. Piece of cake I thought compared to where I was coming from. Ashfaq, on the other hand, had gone into preparation mode as if it were a presentation for A.L. Spencer, our highly loved and admired, but unsparing teacher of microeconomics!

The St. Joseph’s auditorium was jam packed with over 100 young ladies all set to terrorize these speakers from across the country who had dared come into their inner sanctum to lecture them! The rowdiness these ladies conjured up that night definitely matched in comparison to the IBA-NED combine at the PIA Squash Complex.

Speaker after speaker was hooted and booted without so much as managing a word sideways. Sister Emily, the principal of the college and chairman of the debate, was not perturbed by the hooliganism on display. On the contrary, she appeared to be rather enjoying it. The hooting and cat calling did not faze me, as I mentally went over my plan of action to counter and subdue this mob hell bent on playing havoc with our confidence.

Just as a speaker was retreating from the rostrum in sheepish manner, I heard my name announced. The hooting subsided to a murmur, and then there was pin drop silence. In terms of its ability to generate fear, they say public speaking is only second to death. To which I would respond that since we Muslims didn’t fear death, enamored as we are of the after-life, public speaking became the leading fear in a man’s life.

After the deafening roars and shrieks, the deathly silence froze my mental mobility, and I went blank, cursing myself for the absence of a written text. The extent of my fiancé’s clout was evident in the sudden peace and tranquility that prevailed, as if we were suddenly in the eye of the storm, with not a leaf stirring. But this unexpected show of support backfired badly, and, instead of giving me a perfect platform to dazzle with my wit and intellect, it pushed me into the inner funnel of the tornado that had just ravaged and laid waste some of the best speakers on the circuit.

Weak kneed, I barely made the stage. The shouting and jeering I could have handled, and had done so on a number of previous occasions. But this complete and focused attention of the audience was something I was not familiar with, and it floored me. After addressing Sister Emily as Mister Chairman, I mumbled through a jumble of thoughts, sweating profusely through what were possibly the worst four minutes of my life, and then limped off the stage as the deathly silence continued instead of the standing ovation that my fiancé was no doubt expecting.

Ashfaq showed his mettle as a warrior that day. My performance, as the senior partner, should really have shattered his confidence, and I wouldn’t have been surprised had he left the venue before I stumbled off the stage. On the contrary, my hapless state lit a right royal fire within him, and he ascended the podium like a man on a mission. I still remember his opening gambit which drew loud gasps of disbelief from the Josephines, who were giving Ashfaq the same sort of deference that they had accord me.

“The leader of the house, madam chairman, is pregnant!” said Ashfaq, and then paused in the nature of a pregnant pause; an extended pregnant pause, actually! The girls shuffled in their seats as Sister Emily examined her fingernails. 

“She is pregnant with all manner of outdated and absurd ideas that she should abort post haste!” There was a spontaneous outburst of laughter and applause for Ashfaq who soaked it all in with a confidence that was in complete contrast with what I had put on display just moments ago. Ashfaq won the individual trophy while I brought up the rear, missing out on the team trophy which we had considered a sure thing.     

Merry Meadows - Memoirs of an entrepreneur