Friday mornings. Coffee. A walk by the river before Jummah. That's when I've been reading Patras Ke Mazameen.
A new routine. And like all routines, I'm already fighting to not let it become one.
کل سویرے جو میری آنکھ کھلی — the essay about waking up. It shouldn't be that funny. It is.
Patras Bokhari was born in Peshawar in 1898. Grew up in Bokhari Manzil inside the old Kabuli Gate — no electricity, no books at home. Taught English at Government College Lahore where Faiz was among his students. Became Pakistan's first permanent representative to the United Nations. Died in New York in 1958.
His son Haroon was posted in East Pakistan when the news reached him. Couldn't make it for the funeral. Pakistan's ambassador arranged the burial in Kensico Cemetery, Valhalla, Westchester County.
Haroon wanted Abdur Rehman Chughtai to design the gravestone. When that didn't work out, he had it done in New York — inscribed with lines Robert Frost had written to his father personally.
Nature within her inmost self divides
To trouble man with having to take sides
The funniest Urdu writer of his generation. Buried alone in a non-denominational cemetery in Westchester County.
Burial details paraphrased from Ghareeb Khana. Family history paraphrased from Khaled Ahmed's "The House of Patras," The Friday Times, May 1999, via patrasbokhari.com.