Owais Mughal
Very seldom one comes across a book that just by reading its title, one feels like buying it immediately and at any cost. I recently had this feeling when I read a book review in Dawn on a book titled ‘Once Upon a Time in Nazimabad‘ by M. N. Arslan
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This book talks about cricket, the cricket grounds and about a time and events which were happening right when I was there too. It felt like I’ve seen everything described in the book with my own eyes. Arslan Saheb’s and my lives crossed cricketing events and places but without us knowing each other. We saw the same games, same venues and same players. It is almost like how Ibn-e-Insha once said
hum bhi waheen maujood the
hum se bhi sab poocha kiye
That is what makes this book so special for me. It indeed feels like the book is especially written for me.
The books’ main theme is evolution of cricket in the streets and grounds of Nazimabad. This locality as well as the larger District Central Karachi were once the largest cricket nursery of Pakistan. This area is also where the ‘tape ball cricket’ and the earlier form of Twenty-20 cricket as we know it today originated. The earliest form of T20 cricket started as ‘Nazimabad Ramzan Super Cup’ in the summer of 1982 as 20-overs a side game. All games were played at the Eidgah ground Nazimabad # 3 or in later years at Bakhtiari Youth Center in North-Nazimabad.
An interesting event that Arslan Saheb has mentioned is how he was part of the founding members of ‘Pakistan Association of Cricket Statisticians (PACS).’ It was around the same time that I was also going through my ‘aalam-e-junoon’ of collecting Cricket Scorecards from any source I could find then. It included daily visits to city libraries and ‘old book thelas‘ selling copies of ‘The Cricketer’ and akhbar-e-watan magazines and laboriously copying each and every ODI scorecard of Pakistan in a journal that I was maintaining. I used to do my own statistical analysis from the score cards which even included details like who won the toss and how big the crowd was for a particular match. Crowd detail was highly speculative but it came from either daily newspapers, or TV/Radio commentary where I heard how big the crowd was or from Cricket magazines. By 1984-85 I had found and written down score cards of each and every ODI that Pakistan had played till date except for couple of games in 1973. Arslan Saheb mentions in his book that one day he made a phone call to monthly Cricketer’s office to talk to Gul Hameed Bhatti (fondly called as GHB in the book.) GHB has been the authority on cricket statistics in Pakistan and Arslan Saheb got a couple of photo copied scorecards from him and became acquainted with him. I, around the same time took a more introvert approach and being shy of talking, I wrote a postal letter to Gul Hameed Bhatti and asked him if I could also join PACS. I also asked GHB for score cards of 2 ODIs that Pakistan played in 1973. I somehow never got a reply to my letter and that was also the end of my introverted reaching out to PACS and Gul Hameed Bhatti. In the book, the author Arslan saheb also talks about visiting an ailing GHB in his last days in Liaquat Memorial Hospital. Gul Hameed Bhatti passed away from Feb 4, 2010 and it saddened everyone who followed Cricket and Statistics. Four days after his passing away, on Feb 8, I also wrote a piece on Gul Hameed Bhatti’s life which can be read here. Arslan Saheb’s book also has a full essay dedicated to GHB.
The book mentions several cricket grounds of District Central Karachi where I also played cricket around the same time e.g. Eidgah Ground Nazimabad Number 3 – we used to have daily cricket practice there of Adamjee Science College team. Bakhtiari Youth Center (BYC) where I played Inter Collegiate matches as well as watches tens of games of Nazimabad Ramzan Super Cup, KCCA Stadium of Block N North Nazimabad where I played Inter Schools Cricket, TMC, Gulberg Gymkhana and Shadab Sports Grounds in Federal-B-Area where I played numerous Club Cricket and Tape ball games. The book mentions with photos the famous Annu Bhai Park of Nazimabad # 4 where I also watched the very first club match of my life in 1976. I was few years old and I didn’t even know what cricket was but I still ended up doing a gibberish cricket commentary atop a children’s slide. There were few big names of national team e.g. Mushtaq Mohammad, Asif Iqbal etc. which I kept shouting while describing the game 😊. The club cricketers were looking at me in amusement. My last few games at TMC and Shadab Sports grounds were as late as in 1990s when I was a student at NED University – which is another ‘place’ common between me and the author
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Main Pavilion of TMC ground. Photo from the web.
Some of the details and names mentioned in the book about tape ball cricket and tennis cricket are also very familiar with me. It talks about one Nadeem Musa who is considered the founder of ‘finger spin’ in tennis/tape ball cricket. It talks about international cricketer Moin-ul-Atiq whom we also followed closely. I remember listening to live commentary and discussing the game details in my college when Moin famously scored 105 in an ODI against Bangladesh in 1988.
One of my favorite parts of this book is the collection of who’s who of Karachi Cricket Clubs. It is called “Cement, Turf or Rolled Mud: Karachi’s Club Scene in the last Millenium.” It has a list of 31 clubs of Karachu, their grounds and some of their famous players which also became International players.
In this chapter, on Page 122 of the book, the author mentions a player of Nazimabad Gymkhana who used to come to Club games in a car. That person was my maternal uncle – it is amazing how this books crosses paths with events of my own life – it is almost like somebody has written a book about events that happened before my eyes.
When I first read about this book’s introduction in Dawn, I immediately reached out to my network of friends in Karachi and asked them to buy a copy for me from Liberty books. But little did i know that one of the friends who read my message worked in the same building as Arslan Saheb and he went directly to him and Arslan Saheb was too kind to actually gave me a signed copy of his book (see the image above). Couple of days later another friend was coming to US, who brought this copy for me and so within 6 days of me making an effort to find this book, I got it in Houston. That is amazing. I wish I had shown this proactiveness wanted to join PACS back in 1985 🙂
A must buy book guys!!
Once Upon a Time in Nazimabad
By Muhammad Naukhez Arslan
ScoreLine Publications, Karachi
126pp.
Federal-B-Area 