Pakistani humorist, writer, broadcaster and diplomat who served as a
Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations
The Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations ( ur, ) is Pakistan's diplomatic representative to the United Nations (UN). The permanent Representative (UN ambassador) is the head of Permanent Mission of Pakistan to the United Na ...
.
Born in
Peshawar
Peshawar (; ps, پېښور ; hnd, ; ; ur, ) is the sixth most populous city in Pakistan, with a population of over 2.3 million. It is situated in the north-west of the country, close to the International border with Afghanistan. It is ...
,
British India
The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...
to a
Kashmiri Kashmiri may refer to:
* People or things related to the Kashmir Valley or the broader region of Kashmir
* Kashmiris, an ethnic group native to the Kashmir Valley
* Kashmiri language, their language
People with the name
* Kashmiri Saikia Baruah ...
family, Shah studied at Edwardes Mission School in
Peshawar
Peshawar (; ps, پېښور ; hnd, ; ; ur, ) is the sixth most populous city in Pakistan, with a population of over 2.3 million. It is situated in the north-west of the country, close to the International border with Afghanistan. It is ...
and moved to
Lahore
Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is the capital of the province of Punjab where it is the largest city. ...
where he studied English literature at the Government College. Shah moved to United Kingdom where he received his
Tripos
At the University of Cambridge, a Tripos (, plural 'Triposes') is any of the examinations that qualify an undergraduate for a bachelor's degree or the courses taken by a student to prepare for these. For example, an undergraduate studying mathe ...
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
. He returned to Lahore where he taught English at Government College in 1927. He became a prominent part of the Muslim
intelligentsia
The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the in ...
in South Asia. Shah moved to eventually become Director General of
All India Radio
All or ALL may refer to:
Language
* All, an indefinite pronoun in English
* All, one of the English determiners
* Allar language (ISO 639-3 code)
* Allative case (abbreviated ALL)
Music
* All (band), an American punk rock band
* ''All'' (All a ...
in Delhi and then Principal of Government College. He was appointed as the country's envoy to the UN in New York City from 1951 and 1954, followed by the
Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations
An under-secretary-general of the United Nations (USG) is a senior official within the United Nations System, normally appointed by the General Assembly on the recommendation of the secretary-general for a renewable term of four years. Under-s ...
for Information until 1958.
Life
Patras was born in
Peshawar
Peshawar (; ps, پېښور ; hnd, ; ; ur, ) is the sixth most populous city in Pakistan, with a population of over 2.3 million. It is situated in the north-west of the country, close to the International border with Afghanistan. It is ...
to a
Kashmiri Kashmiri may refer to:
* People or things related to the Kashmir Valley or the broader region of Kashmir
* Kashmiris, an ethnic group native to the Kashmir Valley
* Kashmiri language, their language
People with the name
* Kashmiri Saikia Baruah ...
family (which migrated from Baramulla in the 19th century). His mother was of
Hindkowan
Hindkowans (lit. "Indian-speakers"), also known as the Hindki, is a contemporary designation for speakers of Indo-Aryan languages who live among the neighbouring Pashtuns, particularly the speakers of various Hindko dialects of Lahnda. The o ...
ethnicity. Before settling in Peshawar, his ancestors had migrated to Kashmir from
Bukhara
Bukhara (Uzbek language, Uzbek: /, ; tg, Бухоро, ) is the List of cities in Uzbekistan, seventh-largest city in Uzbekistan, with a population of 280,187 , and the capital of Bukhara Region.
People have inhabited the region around Bukhara ...
. Bokhari received his early education in the city of his birth and in 1916 moved from Islamia College, Peshawar, to attend Government College, Lahore. After completing his master's degree in English he was appointed as a lecturer at the same institution. In 1922, he took his MA in English after just one year's study and stood first, after which he was appointed lecturer. This was his creative period. His bilingual excellence is owed to his intensive translation of great books and plays from English into Urdu. He was tall and blue-eyed, had a razor-sharp mind, an equally sharp tongue, and a keenness to go forward in life. Patras' brother Zulfiqar Ali Bukhari was a noted broadcaster in Pakistan.
Bokhari left Government College, Lahore in 1925 to complete a
Tripos
At the University of Cambridge, a Tripos (, plural 'Triposes') is any of the examinations that qualify an undergraduate for a bachelor's degree or the courses taken by a student to prepare for these. For example, an undergraduate studying mathe ...
in English at
Emmanuel College, Cambridge
Emmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer to Elizabeth I. The site on which the college sits was once a priory for Dominican mon ...
. Many years later, the Bokhari English Prize was established there in his honor. In 1927, he returned to Government College, Lahore, and as a professor remained there until 1939. Before the independence of
Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...
in 1947, he was the director general of
All India Radio
All or ALL may refer to:
Language
* All, an indefinite pronoun in English
* All, one of the English determiners
* Allar language (ISO 639-3 code)
* Allative case (abbreviated ALL)
Music
* All (band), an American punk rock band
* ''All'' (All a ...
. Being a professor of
English Literature
English literature is literature written in the English language from United Kingdom, its crown dependencies, the Republic of Ireland, the United States, and the countries of the former British Empire. ''The Encyclopaedia Britannica'' defines E ...
Faiz Ahmed Faiz
Faiz Ahmad ''Faiz'' (13 February 1911 – 20 November 1984; Urdu, Punjabi:
فیض احمد فیض) was a Pakistani poet, and author of Urdu and Punjabi literature. Faiz was one of the most celebrated Pakistani Urdu writers of his time. Out ...
,
Noon Meem Rashid
Nazar Muhammad Rashed ( ur, ), (1 August 1910 – 9 October 1975) commonly known as Noon Meem Rashed ( ur, ) or N.M. Rashed, was a Pakistani poet of modern Urdu poetry.Kanhaiyalal Kapoor were among his students.
He was a member of Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan's delegation during his visit to the United States in 1950. He drafted the prime minister's speeches and public pronouncements. These have been published in a volume entitled Heart of Asia. It was his close association with Liaquat Ali Khan, which culminated in his posting as Pakistan's permanent representative at the United Nations (1951-1954). From 1954 to 1958 he served as the Undersecretary of the UN, Head of Information.
In New York, Bokhari lived in a small house on a small street along the East River. He used four languages at home: the local dialect, Persian, Urdu and Pashto.
Background to Pen Name ''Patras''
Ahmed Shah Bokhari first started using a pen name ''Peter'', in respect of his teacher ''Peter Watkins'', when he wrote in English. In his Urdu writings he used the pen name ''Patras''.
According to Khaled Ahmed, ''The House of Patras'' which appeared in The Friday Times, Lahore, on May 13, 1999, Patras is a Persian adaptation of an Arabic rendering of 'Peter'.
An extract from Z.A. Bokhari's autobiography about the orientation of ASB's pen name is:
"My brother's full name was Pir Syed Ahmed Shah Bokhari. Our headmaster (in Peshawar) Mr. Watkins addressed him by his first name ‘Pir’ but pronounced it as ‘Pierre’ as if it was a French word. Pierre in French stands for Peter, which is Patras in Greek.... As a result of this similarity, my brother took up ‘Patras’ as his pen name".
Contributions
His collection of essays, ''
Patras Kay Mazameen
''Patras Kay Mazameen'' is a collection of short stories by Patras Bokhari published in 1927. The book contains eleven humorous essays and is considered a milestone in the humour of Urdu literature.
Synopsis
The eleven essays are a combination ...
(پطرس کے مضامین)'' published in 1927 is said to be an asset in Urdu humor writings. It is undoubtedly one of the finest works in Urdu humor and despite the fact that it was written in first half of twentieth century, it seems to be truly applicable even today. He lived in times of personalities like
Allama Iqbal
Sir Muhammad Iqbal ( ur, ; 9 November 187721 April 1938), was a South Asian Muslim writer, philosopher, Quote: "In Persian, ... he published six volumes of mainly long poems between 1915 and 1936, ... more or less complete works on philoso ...
and had interacted with him on several occasions and engaged him in philosophical debates. One of his debates with Iqbal led to creation of one of his poems in his book ''Zarb-e-Kaleem''.
Ahmed Shah Bokhari was well read in Greek philosophy. He wrote an article ''Ancient Greek Rulers and Their Thinking'' which was published in March 1919 in the ''Kehkashan'' Lahore. He was only 21 at the time.
His work at the UN was truly amazing during many years of his service to this body, which was in infancy while Patras worked there. One of his major contributions was fighting the case of UNICEF during meetings which were convened to discuss its closure because apparently it had fulfilled its designated task. Patras argued successfully that UNICEF's need in developing countries is much greater than its role in European countries after second world war. His arguments persuaded even Eleanor Roosevelt to change the stance of her country, United States.
His contributions to the UN as a leading diplomat were summed up by
Ralph J. Bunche
Ralph Johnson Bunche (; August 7, 1904 – December 9, 1971) was an American political scientist, diplomat, and leading actor in the mid-20th-century decolonization process and US civil rights movement, who received the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize f ...
(UN Secretary General and Nobel Peace Laureate) in these words:
"Ahmed Bokhari was, in fact, a leader and a philosopher, a savant, indeed, even though not old in years, a sort of elder statesman. His true field of influence was the entire complex of the United Nations family.... He was acutely conscious of the aspirations of people throughout the world for peace, for better standards of life, for freedom and dignity, but no one was more soundly aware than he of the difficulties and obstacles to be overcome in bringing about a broad advance of humankind along these avenues."
Bokhari's great work was done at the UN. He said that apart from being as great an internationalist as Dag Hammarskjold, he was the first advocate of liberation movements in colonized countries across Africa and the Middle East. That credit has been denied him by his countrymen, as they have denied it to Sir Zafralla Khan, though for different reasons.
Death and legacy
In 1923, he married Zubaida Wanchoo, a Punjabi-speaking Kashmiri lady, and daughter of a superintendent of police. They had three children – two sons Mansoor and Haroon, and a daughter Roshan Ara. Roshan Ara died as a child. Patras Bokhari died on December 5, 1958 still serving as a diplomat and is buried in Valhalla Cemetery, New York.
A major Pakistani English language newspaper comments about him, "In addition he inspired great devotion and love in his friends, companions and students."
Awards and recognition
*He was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire (CIE) in the 1944 Birthday Honours list.
* In October 1998, to mark his birth centenary, the
Pakistan Post
Pakistan Post ( ur, ) is a state enterprise which functions as Pakistan's primary and largest postal operator. 49,502 employees through a vehicle fleet of 5,000 operate traditional "to the door" service from more than 13,419 post offices acro ...
Office issued a commemorative postage stamp in his honor under the series, "Pioneers of Pakistan".
* On 14 August 2003
President of Pakistan
The president of Pakistan ( ur, , translit=s̤adr-i Pākiṣṭān), officially the President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is the ceremonial head of state of Pakistan and the commander-in-chief of the Pakistan Armed Forces.General Pervez Musharraf
General Pervez Musharraf ( ur, , Parvez Muśharraf; born 11 August 1943) is a former Pakistani politician and four-star general of the Pakistan Army who became the tenth president of Pakistan after the successful military takeover of the ...
, announced the conferment of
Hilal-e-Imtiaz
The ''Hilaal-e-Imtiaz'' (; ), also spelled and transliterated as Hilāl-e-Imtiyāz, is the second-highest (in the hierarchy of "Hilal") Awards and decorations of the Pakistan military, civilian award and honour given to both civilians and milit ...
, the country's second highest civilian award, posthumously on Bokhari. This award was formally conferred on 23 March 2004.Profile of Ahmad Shah Patras Bokhari amazingpakistanis.com website. Retrieved 28 November 2018
*Dr. Anwar Dil, a well known Pakistan writer based in the US published a book on Patras Bokhari in 1998 called "On This Earth Together" in 1998, after 20 years of painstaking research in the US and Pakistan.
Named after him
*The Government of
Tunisia
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, ...
, in recognition for his contribution towards the freedom of Tunisia from French Colonial Rule in 1956. There is also a road named after him in
Islamabad
Islamabad (; ur, , ) is the capital city of Pakistan. It is the country's ninth-most populous city, with a population of over 1.2 million people, and is federally administered by the Pakistani government as part of the Islamabad Capital T ...
, Pakistan.
*Government College, Lahore named their auditorium "Bokhari Auditorium" to honour him.