"The Glimpses of Life's Journey" is a rare and unique book by A. Sattar Parekh, a Memon businessman, now in his 88 years of age.
The book not only narrates his participation in the freedom movement of the subcontinent in the thirties and forties but also has memories of contribution made by himself and his wife "Shaukat Suraiya" in literary activities in Pakistan.
During his political career, he also served as Mayor of one of Bombay's boroughs. Describing his political career, he says that "As the Secretary of Bombay Students Union and later on as General Secretary of Bombay Presidency Students Union and thereafter as a member of the working committee of All India Students Federation, it was my good fortune to come into close contact with top leaders of Socialists Party, Communist Party, Congress Party, Ministers and Chief Ministers of Bombay and many other All India leaders like Jay Prakash Narayan, Subhash Chander Bose, Maulvi Fazlul Haq of Bengal, Chaudhri Khaliquz Zaman".
During his school days, some students were assigned routine four-hour duty as volunteers to attend to Mrs Sarojini Naidoo who was staying in Bajaj House, Bombay, very near the School when Parekh was stuyding. Parekh was one of such students. He speaks of the talk, he had with Mrs Sarojini Naidu and says that once performing his duty, she spoke to him and asked his name.
Hearing my name she asked, are you a Muslim? Parekh said, yes madam. She affectionately told him, "his child, you know that if there were 200,000 Muslims of the good old days they would have thrown away the British from India. True Muslims would never accept slavery, so my boy try to be a true Muslim".
SATAYAGRAHA MOVEMENT:
Writing about his participation in the Satayagraha Movement by M.K. Gandhi during the 2nd World War, he narrates an interesting story. He writes that in 1941, Gandhi started his individual "Satayagraha Movement" by selecting volunteers to court-arrest by making anti-war and anti-recruitment public speeches. The first man selected for this was an unknown person to most of the Indians.
He was a close associate and follower of Gandhi, namely Vinoba Bhave. After the arrest of Bhave the lists of hundreds of thousands of volunteers from various parts of India, including their C.V. were sent to Gandhi who after careful scrutiny selected the names of the volunteers approved to court-arrest after making anti-war speeches. Parekh's name was selected very early in the movement. One of the rules was that the police had to be informed about the name of the volunteer, time, date and place where the speech would be made for the police to come prepared to arrest the speaker.
The magistrate, it appears, was informed about Parekh's background and while convicting him ordered that he should be put in "B Class" with all its facilities. For the first one month he was placed in Thana Jail which was a suburb on the GIP railway line in Bombay. Later he was taken to Yarovda Jail in Poona.
QUITE INDIA MOVEMENT:
Stating about his participation in the "Quite India" movement, he narrates his story which is rare for a Muslim and youngmen belonging to the Memon community. He writes that on 9th August, 1942, Gandhi declared "Quite India" movement with a message of 'do or die' and even gave signal to resort to violent means, if necessary.
Parekh's mind was in the movement and he wanted to rush back to Bombay, which ultimately he did. He was advised to remain underground, pretending that he was not actively participating in the movement. In Bombay, to finance and conduct the movement dictators were appointed, who had all the funds to finance the movement.
Parekh became the twelfth Dictator and in that capacity had millions of rupees at his command. Somewhere he had huge stock of explosive powder and in another spot there was a makeshift broadcasting facility and yet at another place there was a cyclostyle machine where daily bulletins were printed.
The duties assigned to A. Sattar Parekh can place him in the category of a terrorist by every standard but it was part of the freedom movement and Sattar Parekh has not hesitated to share this part of his memoirs with the readers.
LITERARY PURSUITS:
The memoirs of A. Sattar Parekh are not only about his political career but also about the happy moments of his life. In 1960, he married. Shaukat Surraiya, a beautiful, cultured and highly respected lady who was a patron of Urdu literature, particularly poetry.
Narrating a story of his married life, he says that people could not understand why did such a refined and learned lady decide to marry a Memon businessman. Parekh says, "I could not thank Allah enough for His great favour to me. It was indeed a companionship for a period of thirty years during which my house became a hub of literary and welfare activities".
He and his wife used to have regular literary sittings in the drawing room of their large house in Karachi. The drawing room could accommodate more than fifty persons, about twenty on low sofa sets and about thirty on carpets. The literary personalities and Urdu poets like Syed Aal-e-Raza, Jamiluddin Aali, Shan-ul-Haque Haqqi, Iftikhar Arif, Maulana Mahir-ul-Qadri, Tabish Dehalvi, Iqbal Azim, Bahzad Lakhnavi, Mahshar Badayuni, Sahar Ansari, Iqbal Safipuri and many others were among many guests on various occasions. Generally Syed Hashim Raza presided. Shabnam Roomani conducted most of the functions.
SHAUKAT SURAIYA COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS & SOCIAL SCIENCES:
In his book Sattar Parekh speaks highly about Dr Manzoor Ahmad. Parekh is a philanthropist as well. He writes about the establishment of Shaukat Suraiya College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences in Karachi.
Dr Manzoor Ahmad motivated him to donate one crore rupees to start a college of Liberal Arts and Social Science as a constituent of Hamdard University with Hakim Muhammad Said as Chancellor. Some of the educationists in Pakistan and the educationists attached to the Bombay School of Arts and Tata Institute of Social Sciences spoke very highly about the project when Parekh showed them the blueprints during one of his visits to Bombay.
Though the amount of Rs one crore was too small for the project, Dr Manzoor Ahmad, giving his full time in an honorary capacity, conducted the classes with a shoe string budget.
Hakim Sahib and Dr Qazi, Vice Chancellor of Hamdard University, had promised to contribute more finance but unfortunately Hakim Sahib was assassinated and Qazi Sahib left the institution.
This is the second book of Parekh. Earlier he had written a book, 'Enterprising Philanthropist", which was also the result of encouragement by Dr Manzoor Ahmad. Parekh says that Dr Manzoor Ahmad encouraged him to accept the challenge of writing a book "Enterprising Philanthropists" dealing with the contribution of the Memons to the Pakistan Movement and also their contribution in making Pakistan viable economically, filling the vacuum created in trade and business by en-bloc and sudden migration of the Hindu traders from Karachi and other towns of Sindh.
He accepts that but for Dr Manzoor's encouragement I would never have been able to write this book. Dr Manzoor spoke very highly about Sattar Parekh. He said that he found that Parekh was not a prosaic industrialist or businessman. He had led an active social and political life, possessed humility which was rare amongst the people of his class, has a very sharp memory and remembered things in detail, an uncommon trait in people of his age.