| As I left the graveyard late that night, I realised that I would never be able to bury my father him completely; a part of him would always remain uncovered in me and in my children after me. |
| My father Fakir Syed Waheeduddin, or Col Waheeduddin as he was better known, died on 16 July 1968, exactly twenty five years ago. He suffered a sudden heart attack in his house in Karachi and died before any medical assistance could be arranged for him. We brought him to Lahore and buried him in the family graveyard at the edge of Miani Sahib later the same night. Although he had spent much of his adult life at Karachi for business reasons, Lahore had remained his home – it was his birthplace, he had grown up within the possessive confines of the family haveli in the walled city, he got his first job serving in the railways there, and he preferred its water above any other (he used to have canisters of it brought to him by train to Karachi). It would have been inconceivable for him to have been buried elsewhere, an exile in a distant grave. Being a son of Lahore, it seemed right that he should be returned to its soil. |
Published in THE NATION 15 July 1993, and reprinted in THE ARMLESS QUEEN (1994). |
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