Preface

Where should I start my autobiography? In fact, it’s a very difficult task. It is said in chemistry that when elements bond, they form life, and when those same elements scatter, death occurs. There’s a verse in Urdu that says:

زندگی کیا ہے عناصر کا ظہور ترتیب

موت کیا ہے انہی اجزا کا  پریشان ہونا

)                                   بدیع اسماوات والارض(

His attribute brought us from nothingness into existence, then our existence, thousands of billions of years before we were born, we don’t know where it was. What state it was in, we don’t know either. One thing that is found in the Quran is that when Allah asked the souls, “اﻟﺳت ﺑرﺑﮑم” am I not your Lord? To which we had replied, “ﺑﻼ ﻗﺎﻟو”, yes, you are our Lord. We don’t even remember if we had this conversation or not. Where were we in this universe? Were we even there, or were we part of mountains and trees? Then we came into our mother’s womb, and we were water creatures. Now we are terrestrial creatures. If you look in the mother’s womb, you’ll see that the baby is upside down because it is nurtured on water and there is no air in its lungs, but water goes there. Fundamentally, we live there like a frog or a fish.

We also spent 9-10 months in our mother’s womb. We don’t remember this either. At that time, we must have heard the sounds of the mother’s stomach. We must have also heard the sounds of the mother’s lungs and heart. A scientist has written that a baby hears the sound of breath in the mother’s womb like a mouth organ, behind which there is a drum beating of the heart.

You will often notice that a baby kicks or moves in the mother’s womb. This means that the baby dances to all the sounds that come from the mother’s belly. The point is that the baby also moves to the mother’s heartbeat or the sound of the lungs. But we don’t remember all these things. We have a genetic memory, and the great miracle of God is that although our memory is not even 5 minutes long, that memory has been with us for millions and thousands of years. For example, my grandmother’s nose is present in my nose, and even the color of my great-grandmother’s eyes is also present in my eyes. The point is that how our nose should be, how our eyes should be, all that is in our genetic memory. It is very strong. The changes that come from our birth to growing up are actually genetic memory, which is included in our bodies. Apparently, we don’t remember anything. If someone asks what my great-grandmother’s nose was like, then I would say it’s still present in my nose. Another memory is social memory, under which we convey each other’s words to others and take this information forward for thousands of years. If a person wants to live alone, it is very difficult for him, unless he is in a social relationship. If we run all these social relationships together, human life will go on. Therefore, genetic memory, which is natural, along with social memory, is also necessary. During the recording of my autobiography, Ali Izhar asked me to go into a flashback or the past, talk to myself, and record my life again. For this, I would say that everyone goes through this flashback. Until death, a person sees himself from being born to die, his life rewinds. We have read all this in medical books; the rest can be observed practically when we pass through them. So if I go into my past at this moment, the beginning is something like this.

“ھو ّٰﷲ اﻟﺧﺎﻟق اﻟﺑﺎری اﻟﻣﺻور”

The birth date written on my certificate is 2nd January 1961. Then I realized that the date of my birth was written incorrectly. In our neighborhood, there was a senior person, Saadallah Qureshi. Our village is Bobak, which is on the edge of Manchardhund, and the special thing about Manchardhund is that it is the largest lake in Asia; we used to live on its edge.

My father’s name is Abdul Majid Brohi, and my mother’s name is Bilqees, who is Qureshi by caste. So, we can say that we are half Qureshi, half Brohi. The person I was mentioning, Mr. Saadallah Qureshi, had a special thing: he used to maintain a diary regularly, in which he used to write the dates of joys, sorrows, and weddings, as some elders have a habit of maintaining records in the form of diaries. Even though the diary was not detailed, he would always write incidents in it. Then I got the diary from him, it was written in the diary “Abdul Aleem was born on 16th April, 1960.” My birth name is Abdul Aleem; even then, I was called by this name. So in childhood, children, old men, and men would tease me by calling me Alu Alu. When I turned 5 years old, we had an uncle named Sher Muhammad, who suggested keeping fancy names for children. During this name-changing campaign, my name was changed to Shams Raza, and my younger brother’s name was changed to Qamar Raza. Even today, my birth is written in my documents as 2nd January, 1961, but I celebrate my birthday on 16th April.

Our village was small where I was born, and our condition was poor in the early days. I remember leftover rice at night; we used to cook it like soup in the morning. There’s an interesting incident relating to it, which occurred when I went to Japan and was staying in a 5-star hotel. There, once I came for breakfast, soup was mentioned in the menu. I made up my mind, let’s see how this soup is. Let’s try it today. When my order was placed on the table, and I opened it, it was the same as we used to make from the leftover rice at night in our village. There, I told myself that we were very rich in childhood! In those days, we used to wear poplin clothes and shorts. Our father used to study engineering. I remember that at that time, there were different soaps in the washrooms. We all used to bathe with Lifebuoy soap, while the Lux soap kept there was only for our grandfather. Once, when I bathed with the grandfather’s Lux soap and this news reached others, I was beaten a lot. I was told, “You think you are so superior that you bathe with Lux soap!”

Our house was a hall-type made of bamboo huts. It had rooms connected to the courtyard, and there was a veranda outside. We had open washrooms in our house, which had an old drainage system; it was not like the latest commodes. People used to bring water in pitchers in the village, because at that time, the village was not that modern.

There was no electricity in our village. I remember Late Zulifqar Ali Bhutto once visited our village during his tenure. I attended his rally at that time, I remember. A friend named Saleem lived in our neighborhood. He put a garland on Zulifqar Bhutto and wrote his address on the back of the garland. On which Zulifqar Ali Bhutto also wrote a reply letter to him, and I was very surprised to see that people also oblige in this way, too.

In this rally, it was announced that now roads will be built and electricity will be provided to this village, and then those roads were built, which we saw.

When there was electricity in our village, we couldn’t afford it due to poverty. But our uncle, who was very rich, had it. So from him, we borrowed a connection for one bulb, which had a switch for turning it ON and off. The night that the bulb first lit up in our house, I spent the whole night staring at it. I was amazed all night, wondering how it could light up without oil? I want to say that, in my opinion, God reminds us of the things that are necessary or beneficial for us. For instance, you will see that we don’t have memories of our first two years. During this time, we might have put our hands in urine or some filth, and we might have roamed around naked. God also wants these memories not to exist because a human child doesn’t understand in childhood. For two years, we have been worse than animals. We start speaking after two years because it takes that long for our brain to develop, whereas a goat or any other animal starts using its brain quickly. In the days when we used to live by the Manchhar lake, it was beautiful, full of greenery around it, and populated. It was a lot of fun, and there were Siberian birds too. Nowadays, if you go, you will find it deserted, but back in those days, it was fully occupied. Now there is fungi surrounding it due to the sewage pipes being dumped into the lake, or even the poison from factories has been dumped. If it hadn’t happened, the lake would have been beautiful, on which our small village, Bobak, was located.

When I look at my parents, I feel that my siblings are better than I am in terms of height. They are taller than I because my mother is also short. That’s why everyone tells me, “You are just like your mother.” My mother has passed the 5th grade, while my father was a gold medalist in his Bachelor’s of Engineering. He topped in his university and even got a scholarship because our financial situation was not that good. My father also received offers from abroad, but he didn’t go because of us. I told you that my mother is not very educated. Alhamdulilah, she is alive, and may God always keep her hand over us. My mother has always been very kind to us. In childhood, she used to pull my hair and sit me down and say, “Oh, you have lice in your hair.” After that, she would apply Multani mud all over my body and sunbathe me. At that time, we used to feel like monkeys. She would forcefully clean us by grabbing our hands and feet.

Because we used to play with marbles all day in our childhood. I am the first son of my parents, then the second one was born, whose name is Qamar Raza, the third is Asif Raza, the fourth is Ali Raza, and then Shahid Raza was born. We had a sixth brother whose name was Zahid Raza Brohi. He had passed away in childhood due to illness. We also have a sister, whose name is Nasrat, who is married and lives in Kotri. Our father had three marriages. I am from the first marriage. Dad’s second marriage was from Sukkur, from which we have 4 brothers and a sister. Similarly, Dad’s third marriage was from Karachi. From his third marriage, we also have four brothers and three sisters. I think this is also a disease in our family known as polygamy. I even asked many friends if there is a problem with our genes or what? That disease is running in our family, for example, my grandfather had three marriages, and his father, our great-grandfather, also had three. My father also had three, and now all my brothers also have 2-3 marriages each. I don’t know if it’s polygamy or if the environment has done something, or if all this is due to genes. But anyway, this element of polygamy is in our family.

It’s possible that our future generations may not practice polygamy because our children now say that one marriage is enough. I studied my initial 8 grades in my village, Bobak, and also completed primary school there. During this time, I also started learning English in the 6th grade. After eighth grade, I was enrolled in an English-medium school, where I secured a notable position. It’s a moment of great pride for me that a child, after studying in a small village, competes in an English medium school and becomes a neurosurgeon!

It was a great effort I made, that a boy from a small village competed with the whole world coming from the lake of Manchhar. High school in Bobak used to be a hemp godown in old times, which is famous there. It’s famous that the villagers there are also intoxicated because hemp is grown there. We had also seen the tobacco crops with our own eyes. The hemp godown had been converted into a high school in our time. The teachers were very good there; one of them was Teacher Haji Ahmad Soomro, who is still alive and lives in Dadu. I believe he is also the president of Gym Khana. He used to be our drawing teacher in those days.

Now, whenever I go to Dadu, I meet him. Our uncle, Shabbir Ahmed Qureshi, was also a teacher there, who is still alive and lives in Malir Cantt. He also taught us, and there are many more names that I have forgotten. I remember when my father was posted in Kohat, I requested teachers there to teach me more so that I could study in English medium. Those kind teachers took extra classes and taught me.

The school in Bobak had huge grounds where all games, including cricket, were played. Besides, there was a canal surrounding the village, named ‘Danastar’, which was connected to Manchar Lake. There was a severe water shortage in our village. Once, Mumtaz Bhutto visited our village, who promised in his speech to solve this issue and provide us with water, and soon the Danastar canal was dug. Now, if you go there, you won’t find drinking water. The residents don’t know how many miles they have to travel to get water for a price. In those times, at least the politicians were honest enough. When Mumtaz Bhutto was informed about our water shortage, he said, ‘We will dig a whole canal for you.”

That canal used to run through the entire village. If you see our village, it’s built on a mound of soil, because whenever there was a flood, the village was built higher to avoid it. Our village is built the same way.

In our school batch, I became a doctor, and one of our batch fellows was a boy from a nearby village, whose name is Ramdan, who also became a doctor. None of the other boys studying there became a doctor. In the same school, we had a friend named Saleem Qureshi who gave a garland to Bhutto and received a letter from him.

Among them was a friend named Ghulam Qadir Rind, who was a relative of Inayat Rind. There were also some friends from the Bozdar caste and the Rodani. They studied hard and became a doctor and also professors in surgery. There was nothing in their village, no water, no roads.

He used to come on foot, carrying his food wrapped in cloth, and ate it on the way. They were very hardworking.

In those days, we didn’t have electricity, and our mother would ask us to clean the lanterns. We would open the lanterns and clean their glass, then put kerosene in them. We got electricity later, and as I mentioned before, we had borrowed a bulb connection. I stayed up all night, wondering how it lights up.

In the early days, my father was a headmaster in a school in Dadu, and we were quite poor. Then my father decided to study engineering and got admission into an engineering program. At that time, my grandfather had only 4000-5000 rupees, which he gave to my father and told him to go and study on his own. My father studied at the university on his own expenses, running a mess there, where they ate and managed to get by. My father used to tell me that he studied engineering for 4 or 5 years, and the money that his father had given him, he would save. We had a relative, Haji Ahmed Qureshi, who was also an officer in education and a very

kind-hearted person. He lived in Sehwan and used to send scholarships to my father. In those times, people were so good and kind-hearted that if they had to send money, they would send a money order first; there was no delay. I am sharing this so that readers can understand how our father worked hard to study and move forward in times of poverty and achieve his position. The news of his becoming a gold medalist was also broadcast on the radio. Due to all this hard work, my father got a top position, and he was offered a job from the university itself, which he accepted and became a lecturer. At that time, Sindh University used to conduct all the exams, but now all universities are separate.

My father had a friend, SM Qureshi, who was also a vice-chancellor, and he was from our village. He liked my father very much, and they were close friends. My father was offered a scholarship to a foreign country by the university, but he declined it, saying, ‘I have children at home, who will take care of them?’ After that, my father kept applying at various places until he finally got a job at the Military Engineering Services (M.E.S.), where he stayed until the end. This is why my father’s postings kept changing at various places, sometimes in Kohat, sometimes in Karachi, etc. In addition to this, his ‘wings’ would also change, which means sometimes he would be transferred from the air force to the army. In all these series of transfers, we were always with our father.

When we were in Bubak, my father’s first posting was in Kohat. I remember our entire family lived in Kohat for two years. Kohat is a very beautiful city. We were accommodated by the army, which had a servant, a driver, a car, and many other facilities. There was also an air force high school there, where I got my admission, which was also known as P.A.F. public school.

I studied in Sindhi medium until the 7th grade in the village school, and then I studied in English medium from 8th grade. It was a tough time for me. I remember, at that time, I was ranked eighth in my class. After that, my father’s posting was in Karachi. By then, the situation had improved, and we had money.

I remember that in those days, my father had bought a car, which was a blue Mazda. We, who used to sit in horse-carts with hard seats, felt strange when we sat on the soft seats of the car. The seats were so soft!

I remember the first time we saw a fridge, it seemed so strange to us that everything inside a cupboard was cold when the door was opened. Those are the strange experiences from my childhood that I still recall today.

Then my father got transferred to Karachi, and I studied in an English medium school in 9th-10th grade. At that time, I got second place in my school. In our matriculation batch, only two boys who used to study became doctors, one who used to get first position, and the other was me.

He was a medical officer, and I did FCPS and became a neurosurgeon as a consultant. Karachi has a strange environment. It’s like no one is ready to talk to you. I think it’s a strange style there, to the extent that even if you stick to someone deliberately, they won’t talk. There’s no tendency for friendship there. So, I didn’t have any friends there. I remember one thing from the doctor’s era, when I was deputed at Jinnah Hospital to the neurosurgery ward.

One day, when I went there, no one talked to me. The same thing happened the next day. After a few days, I realized that no one there was ready to talk, so I cancelled my deputation from there. It’s a custom there that people won’t talk to you without reason. Another strange tradition was that they would ask, “Did you come from interior Sindh?”

I would reply to them, “Yes, I did.” They would ask, “What is Dadu?”

They didn’t even know that Dadu is a district in Sindh.

At that time, Dadu was the largest district in Sindh. We had a teacher named Syeda Sardar, who was a very good woman, and she is still alive. Once she called me, I asked her,

“Madam, how did you call me?

She replied, “Son, I just searched your number on the net. And I’m very proud that our student has become a neurosurgeon!”

She still calls me occasionally, but Syeda Sardar is the only teacher I remember. After that, my father was posted at the Jacobabad airport, but during this time, he had built a house for us in Nawabshah, so we moved to Nawabshah after 1976. In those days, my father was in Jacobabad, and he asked us to stay in Nawabshah. Because I’ve built a bungalow for you, this is the same house that is next to the Zohaib Centre hospital. This house is on 1000 yards, which my father bought for 25,000 at that time; its foundation was also laid, which we won’t even get now for 5-6 crores.

When my father built this house, he considered that we had completely migrated from Bubak, leaving everything behind. That was our foundation stone after 1976. By this time, 21-22 years have passed in Nawabshah, and our two generations have been born here. It’s like we migrated here permanently after 1976. I did my first year and Inter at the Government College in Nawabshah.

There used to be a strong influence, or say it held sway over Brohis in the college, to the extent that the president, general secretary, and other important positions were held by the Brohis.

During the Intermediate level, I was told that there would be an election in the college, and only those whose papers were clear could stand in the election.

At this time, there was not a single Brohi in the college whose papers had been cleared, so they asked me to stand for the position of general secretary in the college elections. I told them that I don’t know how to speak, so how can I stand for the position of general secretary?

But those people forcibly made me stand in the election and also made me win. After winning the election, they put a garland on me and lifted me on their shoulders. After becoming the general secretary in the government college, I found out that there are some funds there, so there will be an all-Pakistan tour.

I remember that at that time the total fund was probably 20,000, and with this 20,000, we, 8 to 10 people, had toured all over Pakistan, including Murree, Peshawar, and also went to the southern parts.

During the tour, when we went to Bada, there was Charlie perfume in the shop, which was very popular at that time, and I liked it, so I asked the Pathan,

“Take this out, how much is it?” He told me 70 or 80 rupees. I said, “No, give it to me in 40 rupees.” On this, his young man’s son said, “Okay, take it out.”

I said that I was joking.

Hearing this, he took out his gun, loaded it, and became very angry. I gave him the money and saved my life!!

We had a lot of fun in Murree on this tour. The weather was pleasant there, and it was raining. It was a delightful time for me, a surprising sensation and experience. I remember I was sitting in a hotel when an Englishman came and sat down. We ordered tea there, then this Englishman scolded me,

“Why do you drink this tea and cigarettes?”

I answered, “Why? Don’t you drink tea? And you people have sent us such things.” He denied saying, “We don’t do this, you should drink juice or Lassi.”

When we came to Islamabad, there were 4 Punjabi boys sitting there. When they saw an Englishman sitting, one of them abused him in Punjabi. The Englishman returned the same abuse, which made them run away, saying that he also knows Punjabi. In those days, Pakistan was a safe country for visitors. Many Englishmen used to visit Pakistan, but now they are seen less, for security reasons.

After Jacobabad, my father was transferred to Sukkur, and he also stayed in other places. He was assigned to build Pano Aqil cantt, which he did. From the purchase of land to its development, all the work was done by my father. That’s why he was also called the father of Pano Aqil. He also provided jobs there, and people were very happy with him. Although he built many cantonments, he spent most of his time in Pano Aqil.

He also built the Nawabshah airport PAF base.

At this time, my father was posted here. Including Jacobabad airport, he also built PNS Karsaz and did all these works while in the military engineering service. During his job, my father faced a tragedy when he was involved in a NAB case, so we were very upset for 3 to 4 years because, due to the NAB case, even good relatives had abandoned us.

In the end, my father was relieved from this case, and he got a retirement after this NAB case.

After retirement, he started having some mental issues due to old age and developed dementia. In dementia, your memory fades away, and this was also the case with him in his last days.

He would take the car, leave the house, and offer prayers at a mosque. After that, he would forget the way back. He would then ask someone to call this number, which was our brother’s number, who lived in Karachi. His name is Umar. Then, that person would call and say, ‘Your father is sitting here, come and take him, he is sitting in this Mosque.’ Then he would take the car and bring him home.

It’s as if the brain’s GPS system were disturbed. Because when the brain’s orientation gets messed up, you forget the way. We have many such patients for whom their relatives say that when they leave the house, they can’t come back. This can also be referred to as the brain’s GPS system. Just like cars have a GPS system, a map is also made in the brain. Those things started to develop in my father, and then hallucinations also started. For example, when he is sitting in his room, our third mother, whose name is Farhat, he would ask her. “Farhat, why is this buffalo standing in the room or in the bathroom?”

He would have hallucinations like this whenever there is brain atrophy, which means when the mind shrinks. After this, understanding diminishes, memory fades, and then orientation decreases. They may not be able to dress themselves, and someone else has to do it. But if conditions worsen, a person may also urinate or defecate in bed. These are actually the stages of dementia.

In his last days, the same things happened with my father. He was admitted to our own hospital, where the hospital staff would catheterize him. Baba was already diabetic, but in the last days, he fell victim to dementia and passed away on 19th June, 2018. Diabetes is not from our mother’s side because she didn’t have this problem, but it was a known disease to our father. I am also saved from this disease, and Qamar, but Asif is diabetic.

I read somewhere about a neuro nurse who one day woke up, looked in the mirror, and was distressed. She was upset because she couldn’t recognize herself and started thinking, ‘Who is this woman?’

That was actually the beginning of her dementia, as she was a neuro nurse.

Therefore, she realized at that moment that she was beginning to have symptoms of dementia. She used various methods to protect herself from the effects of this disease. For example, where to keep the car keys? What is the layout of the house? How to get in and out? So that I don’t just stand in the middle of the road, not knowing where to go. The same thing was happening with our father.

I remember that one day he was very angry and he left in the car. We were worried about where he had gone. Everyone was looking for him, but no one could figure out where he had gone in the end.

Finally, we called Sukkur because the car he took was registered in the name of our younger brother. We asked our brother Khalid to call the tracking agency and ask them where the car was parked.

From tracking, we found out that the car was parked at a restaurant in Sakrand. Then we searched for each restaurant in Sakrand, finally saw the car parked at one restaurant, Baba was sitting in the middle, and there was a big gathering, and everyone was eating there. We asked the restaurant owner what happened. He replied, “Sain came to the hotel and said, ‘Whoever wants to eat, feed them all, I will pay the money.’ That’s why everyone in the restaurant is invited on behalf of Sain. It was a proper feast!

If someone there was asking him, ‘Sain, who are you?’ He was telling them, ‘I am Saeed,’ and in this way, he fed everyone who was sitting there and paid the bill before leaving. Once he told us, ‘I am going to Sukkur because we have another house there,’ so one of our cousins was going to drop him off. Seeing the police on the way, Baba said, ‘They are kidnapping me, and you aren’t even catching them,’ upon which the police came towards the car and took everyone to the police station. After making many calls, we managed to get him out of there and took him to Sukkur. Baba used to have hallucinations and delusions to the extent that he even had paranoid delusions. In paranoid delusions, the patient thinks that someone is his enemy and wants to kill him. Just like that, once he came and said, ‘ My third family from Karachi has slaughtered me. Why aren’t you guys doing anything?” he said. “I’ve been deliberately slaughtered with a knife,” although there were no marks on any part of his body. This is called a false belief, which is a sign of brain disorders. After my second year at Nawabshah, the environment there was very different from Karachi; it was completely friendly. But the truth is, I’m not a good speaker. I’ve slowly started to learn a bit now.

Even after becoming the general secretary in college, I believe my personality was not such that I could become a politician. I only entered politics because the Brohis couldn’t find anyone else whose papers were all clear. Since there was a majority of Brohis there and they won the seat every year, they put me up for election. Their rise was significant. I remember during those days, I had an accident. It happened when I had a blue Vespa motorcycle. In those days, there was an Arain mason. I showed him the Vespa because there was an issue with it. He said, ‘Give me this Vespa for today, I will fix it and return it to you tomorrow.’ I said, ‘Alright, just drop me off at the Government College.’

He took me from his shop to the crossing of the main road near the turn for Government College. A car driver, who was a Phalphota by caste, and a bank manager, hit the motorcycle. We both fell, and I also got injuries on my head, and he got injured so much that he fainted there. I was conscious, but I had stitches on my head, while the mason died in two or three days. Our Brohi boys gathered and almost started beating the car driver. The police had to forcefully take him to the lockup. He was crying and saying that he was the leader of the Phalpotas. The police told him that the Brohi boys are angry at this time; if we let you out, they will kill you. In the end, we saved his life. I mean to say that the Brohis had a strong hold.

I never understood how I managed to successfully navigate my educational career. My friends used to ask me, ‘When do you study?’ because I was always friendly with everyone, always hanging out and chatting with every friend so much that no one ever saw me studying. I would study a little bit when I got home. It is God’s mercy that you study a little and memorise it so well. There are many people who study all day long but still don’t get results and can’t remember anything. Some people just skim through and remember that thing. By the grace of GOD, I was among the people of the second category. That’s why I also advise my students to study with interest, but if you’re not interested at any time, don’t study. There are categories related to remembering, one is your book memory, and the other is your diary memory. An example of book memory is 2+2=4 or whatever you read in books.

The diary memory is your ingrained memory. For example, if someone slaps you, you will remember it all your life because the memory has an emotional tag. During the lecture, I frequently ask many people, “What were you doing when Benazir Bhutto was assassinated?” Believe me, hundreds of people would tell me, “I was cooking, I was sitting, I was wearing these clothes” to such an extent that they would also tell the colour of the clothes. Many girls would tell me that they were wearing a green outfit and cooking. I also remember when Muhammad Ali Sohail called to say that there had been a fatal attack on Benazir and they couldn’t insert a tube. Long story short, if you ask someone where they were on 4th June, they wouldn’t be able to tell you, or if you ask what they ate for dinner four days ago, they wouldn’t remember. Memories are like that; the more emotional tag you attach to them, the more you remember them constantly.

That’s why it’s important not to cram, but to make it interesting. Things are arranged in the brain, and filing is done in an orderly manner. But some people cram or read without interest; things in their minds are scattered like a file is somewhere in the office, which is not placed in its proper place, everything is scattered and unorganised.

If you keep things organized in your mind, you will remember them, and you will be able to recall them. It could be the reason that I read things with interest; the purpose of our sleep is also to keep the scattered data in the mind in order. For instance, if there are a lot of guests in your house and the house is scattered, when those guests go out somewhere, you pick up those scattered things and put them in order.

When the brain gets time to rest, it continues to work. We should understand that the brain is active even in sleep; in fact, I believe it is more awake than we are conscious, keeping everything in order. You will notice that people who have disturbed sleep have a negative impact on their memory. Therefore, in our field, there is a saying: “Sleep over your problems”.

That means, when you have a problem, and it doesn’t get solved, go to sleep, and you will find a solution to this problem. In this regard, regular experiments have been done in medical science. You get stressed that there is an exam tomorrow, and you start studying all day long. It’s a matter to ponder over, what will you memorise under stress? In my opinion, in old times, the punishments of making someone do sit-ups, act like a rooster, or slapping them were also necessary for remembering things. Because if I verbally explain something to someone, and for the other thing, I explain it by slapping them, they will always remember the thing explained with a slap!

For memory, there are semantic and episodic. Episodic involves things related to your life, for example, your wedding, your birthday, or when someone betrayed you. This memory has an emotional aspect, and such memories are very enduring.

Because what comes from your diary is semantic memory, which is your dictionary or bookish memory, it means it contains words. Different countries’ capitals come within. Such memory is durable; it’s also hard to remember. We keep repeating it, so if we tag any emotion to remember something, it stays forever.

All the memory champions in the world explain how they remember things. They say, suppose if a person is standing at the gate of a cinema, and 50 people go inside in front of them, we have to remember and tell those 50 people’s appearance. We remember them in such a way that when a person passes by, we start making a story in our mind, and then it becomes easy to remember that story. They also remember numbers in the same way. I have listened to their speeches, so I say again, to remember things and things, the more links and hooks you apply, which are also called memory hooks, the more you will do their emotional tagging and make them more interesting, the quicker they can be remembered. The rest is all cramming, for which it is said, ‘memory is like walking on the grass.’ Which means, the more times you walk on the grass, a path will be formed. An easy example of this is the person who memorizes the Holy Quran in Arabic, who continuously reads it, and a path of memories is formed in their mind.

So, I was talking about the college days when we used to hang out more and study less. In my intermediate, I had 70.1 percent. Now, I think people even score 90 percent. I am amazed at how they score 85-95 percent marks. In my time, I got admission in Sindh Medical College, Karachi with 70.1 percent.

In LMC, there were only 40 seats, which means that my marks were so good that I got selected to Sindh Medical College. I passed my intermediate in 1978 and got admission in a medical college in 1979. I started my first professional MBBS at Sindh Medical College. An interesting part of this whole story is how I moved from Sindh Medical to Liaqat Medical College (LMC). It’s another interesting story! It happened when I got admission to Sindh Medical College, which was a colourful period. There was an active environment. It was a batch of approximately 300 to 400 students, which was a coeducation system, and the environment was quite modern. I was very hardworking there. I used to ask a lot of questions in class, and all the boys and girls liked me. There, I made a big mistake. I had a friend who came to me and said, ‘This is a transfer form, sign it here because one of our friends wants to come here. Then you’ll be here, and so will he.

I, being his friend, signed the form. I only found out when I received the transfer letter that you’ve been transferred from Sindh Medical to Liaqat Medical. I said, I have no intention of going to LMC. The administrators said that you signed it yourself. At that time, I didn’t know much; otherwise, I could have gone to the secretariat and stopped the transfer letter.

I quietly went to Liaquat Medical College even though I was in Karachi Medical College for a few months. I don’t know if it was destiny or if it was my mistake. I feel that I had accepted all this matter, considering it to be God’s will, but I was a fool. Anyway, I had come to LMC. I stayed at LMC for the rest of the MBBS period.

In LMC, I was like a shining star, always on top. Every year, I was either in first or second position, so everyone knew me there. I was a complete playboy in Sindh Medical, but after coming to LMC, there was a change in me within a few months because I had stopped wearing pants, had grown a beard, and had become completely religious like the clerics. What I mean to say is that during this time, there was a full 180-degree difference in my life.

In LMC, all my friends who know me know that I had a beard for five years. In those days, we had a group of friends who were religiously inclined. We had one friend from Kotri, Abid Ahmed. Once he said, “I have a teacher, you meet him.” Then he took us near Thatta to the city of Guj. At that time, I was in the first year of MBBS. There was his teacher’s convent (Khanqah) there, named Syed Abdul Hafeez Shah. He was a very charismatic personality. His specialty was that if someone sat with him once, he would become his disciple. He knew the art of speaking; he reasoned everything. Syed Abdul Hafeez Shah also smoked cigarettes; he was a chain smoker. His way of speaking was attractive. In those days, I think I had become his disciple; he used to say, “Do what you like.” He was very humble himself. He himself used to offer prayers, but he didn’t force others to pray.

Then, whoever wanted to would also pray there. Not only Muslims, but Hindus and people from other religions also came there. There were discussions on various topics, during which he logically answered people’s questions. He used to say, “Whether you are Shia, Sunni, Deobandi, or Wahhabi, I have nothing to do with it.” Initially, I also didn’t know which sect he himself belonged to. But later on, I found out that he is the grandson of Ahmad Raza Barelvi. We had a lot of companionship with him, and during the 4-5 years of MBBS, we used to go to his Khanqah every week. We learned a lot from Abdul Hafiz Shah, including things related to religious matters. My first father-in-law also used to come there; he also changed after being in his company. It was also his miracle that a person who is completely worldly and is also in a good post comes into his company and becomes religious. The truth is that Syed Abdul Hafiz Shah was a saint of God. His words and his character were clear and straightforward.

Author’s Note

As I have mentioned at the beginning of this book, I apparently have no connection with literature, so I call myself audacious . Because I have no connection with regular reading and writing, nor do I have any literary style. This book is also my first book. In English, they say “publish or perish,” which means write or die. That is, if you want to live, you must write something; if not, at least write the story of your life. In this regard, this book of my autobiography “ﻓﯾﮑون ُﮐن” in your hands is all the effort of Kawish Ali Izhar, who forced me to write this autobiography. Although I had always wanted to write my autobiography, I could not do it.

Today, when I see this book as proof, I understand that due to being in the medical world or perhaps due to all the busyness, I could never fulfill my wish. This is all the hard work and love of Izhar Ali, who I don’t know how many days he spent recording my voice and then brought it in written form as soon as possible by working day and night.

I believe it would have been difficult for me to write all this without narrating him. I am grateful for expressing the impossible task for me and fulfilling my wish. All the autobiographies written in the world at this time are based on truth. The purpose of being based on truth is that they have written both positive and negative aspects of their life. Whereas they must have hidden something in it, and they have also mentioned it. If there is a good thing in my book, the reader must get motivated from it, and if there’s a mistake, they must learn from my mistakes and protect themselves. I’ve tried to write everything in this book, everything I’ve learned from life or whatever I’ve been through. Alongside, I’ve also tried to write as much as I can in my own words from what I’ve learned in the field of neurosurgery, especially for my readers and specifically for neuro and psychology students.

An autobiography should be understood as similar to looking in a mirror. It’s an act of introspection. In this regard, our self-memory system, also known as SMS, contains our autobiography chamber. By recalling it, semantic and episodic memories are penned down, which are based on facts: “Where I was born, where I studied, and in my episodic memories, I have an emotional attachment to some things. For example, my weddings, my love, or my relationships. These are all my episodic memories, which I have written down. In this regard, I would also say that this process is about recognizing oneself, as it is said: ‘He who knows himself knows his Lord’. Means, whoever has recognized himself has recognized his Lord. This is essentially a process of introspection, where we look at how good we are and what wrong actions we’ve taken. I’m extremely grateful to Ali Izhar for helping in this whole process. Along with this, I would also say that you should write your autobiography as soon as possible because the brain keeps degenerating with age. On this advice, I remember these lines by Munir Niazi:

ہمیشہ دیر کر دیتا ہوں میں ضروری بات کہنی ہوں کوئی وعدہ نبھانا ہو ا سے آواز دینی ہوں ا سے واپس ب لانا ہو

ہمیشہ دیر کر دیتا ہوں میں مدد کرنی ہو ا س کی یار کی ڈھارس بندھانا ہو ب ہت دیرینہ رستوں پر

کسی سے ملنے جانا ہو

ہمیشہ دیر کر دیتا ہوں میں

بدلتے موسموں کی سیر میں دل کو لگانا ہو کسی کو یاد رکھنا ہو کسی کو  بھول جانا ہو

ہمیشہ دیر کر دیتا ہوں میں کسی کو موت سے پہلے کسی غم سے بچانا ہو حقیقت اور تھی کچھ

ا س کو جا کے یہ بتانا ہو

ہمیشہ دیر کر دیتا ہوں میں

A special thing about my autobiography “ﻓﯾﮑون ُﮐن” is that whatever I have said, Ali Izhar has written it all very honestly, even my signature words and tone; he has not included anything of his own in it. I think this is the beauty of the work of Katha Autobiography. The book that Katha Autobiography publisher has brought to your hands, I would certainly advise all the busy people.

like me, who have a positive and beneficial message for the lives to come in their lives to definitely take advantage of Ali Izhar and his agency. If there is anything in my autobiography that has offended someone, I sincerely apologize.

Dr. Shams Raza Brohi

17 September 2022

Nawabshah

Translator’s Note

To translate a father’s memoir is to walk through his memories a second time. I have kept the language simple to let his truth stand on its own. Every word here is an attempt to bridge the gap between his world and yours, ensuring that a life this extraordinary is never lost in translation.

​— Naila Uzair
Daughter and Translator

Chapter One

A Journey Written by Destiny

I don’t know why, but it feels like I accidentally became a neurosurgeon, or should I say, I didn’t become a neurosurgeon by my own choice.

In the beginning, when I was in my first year, people would ask, “Which surgeon will you become?” and I would only say to show off, “I will become a neurosurgeon.” At that time, I didn’t know what a neurosurgeon was or what the importance of the brain was.

I only understood that this is a difficult field, so I used to say, “I will become a neurosurgeon.” After doing MBBS in LMC, I moved to Nawabshah. My first posting in Nawabshah was under the five-point program during Mohammad Khan Junejo’s tenure, on open merit.

In the five-point program, at that time, all the unemployed engineers, doctors, and others got jobs. I believe that was the only time in Pakistan’s history when so many people received job orders so easily.

I remember that we were called to Sukkur to receive the job orders. When I went to Sukkur to get the order, they were distributing orders by calling out people’s names.

The beauty of these job orders was that they were giving jobs to everyone in their city or nearby hospital or dispensary. Keeping this policy in mind, I was also posted at the local hospital in Sakrand. It was the year 1987. As soon as we finished our house job, we didn’t sit unemployed at home for even a single day.