Azam Ali, Ahmadi Moslem
Chapter 08 – HEALTH
My Father’s definition of health was quite simple, yet it went very far. It meant that one attained, retained and maintained a robust health at all times. It included discovering the unique temperament of one’s body and looking after it. It encompassed eating such useful things as cured or improved the health conditions. It ousted harmful things including food and practices that aggravated or worsened the body conditions. He called that fully grown up person a fool who still could not identify the needs, wants, requirements and limitations of his body. He believed in a wholesome approach to promote, protect and preserve one’s body by packing the power of prayer with the ways and means to search and secure, to learn and endure, every aspect of every disease, disorder or disability one had so that he did not have the need to visit or be visited by a physician. Having had a couple of surgeries during his life, one of his prayers for himself and advice to others was to ‘never go under the knife of a surgeon.
Father’s emphasis on health had lot to do with his own life experiences – growing up in a family where his mother and five sisters succumbed to the Great Plague of early 20th century in India and his knowledge that that the disease started from unhealthy indoor conditions infested with rats. He knew that outdoor life and outdoor exercising is vital for good health. He had exercised extensively during his youth and enjoyed the benefits of good health all his life. He had seen his father severely beaten up and left behind for dead by some inimical family members, but his physical exercising helped him to recover and live around 100 {He was definitely above 95. Last time my children, my nephew, my father, my wife and I saw my grandfather was shortly before we came to America in 1975; my father was born in 1900. So even assuming a very early marriage and my father one of the older children, my grandfather at that time was older than 95. And he lived some years after our immigration to USA. I once heard my younger brother Majid Ali MD remark while lecturing senior citizens in USA about longevity: “My grandfather lived so long that I think he forgot to die”}.
Whether or not Father perceived, practiced and preached others to do physical exercises as a step towards longevity of life is a thing I can’t say. But by the word of his mouth and personal example he made us all his children believe that exercising and enjoying physical fitness went hand in hand. His determination not to fall under the knife of the surgeon was definitely transmitted to his children by inculcating in them the determination to remain health by doing reasonable exercises regularly.
His methodology to get us habituated to our daily exercise included suggesting interim goals, offering cash prizes, providing dietary incentives, arranging healthy competitions and encouraging us to render our best possible performance when tested. I can’t say if the output he expected was higher or lower than the average – whatever the average is supposed to mean. But he surely succeeded in cultivating in us all his children a definite decision, desire and determination to exercise regularly and stay in total physical fitness. So much so that one of us siblings after medicine and surgery with the ultra-modern equipment and state-of-the-art gadgetry for nearly one-half century in Pakistan, England and USA for over 40 years has finally switched his practice from the allopathic medicine to holistic – total or alternative medicine – arena where he places enormous emphasis on regular exercising as the vital step towards real heeling.
Father could not bear to see any of his children sick or even sickly. Soon after the passing of my mother in 1948, I at the age of 13 lost weight. Father was naturally concerned. The top physician in the area hospital after all kinds of testing concluded that I had no physical problem requiring a treatment. Father wanted to see me not just clinically and statistically healthy but also looking plump healthy. He found an ‘alternative medicine’ man (called ‘hakeem’) who prepared a medicinal mixture of herbs for me. It tasted delicious. It smelt nice. I liked it. I looked forward to eating it three times daily. In no time at all I started gaining weight, and thank God have never lost it since.
Father’s emphasis on health was a matter of absolute necessity. Sick and unhealthy children required more time, attention and money. If the infancy mortality had not taken a toll in our household, we would have been 17 brothers and sisters from our two mothers. Five of our siblings lost their lives in the first five years of their lives due to various childhood diseases common in the India at that time. Since my mother’s passing away, he got left at his hands 10 of us kids between the ages 1 and 15 that he had to raise practically single-handedly. I said ‘practically single-handedly’ because my step mother, a strong wonderful woman around that time started concentrating upon memorizing the Holy Qor-aan which she continued till her passing away in 1957. She having never been to a high school could not contribute much to Father’s idealistic way of raising his children the way he wanted to mould each and every one of them, in the words of a frequent quote, as ‘small Mohammed’ (s.a.w). One of my younger brothers Sadiq suffered for nearly 6 years of his life before passing away at age 8 after all by then known allopathic and homeopathic sources of medicine had been tried and exhausted on him. My older sister Rashida gave him time, attention and treatment that many mothers never give to their own children; she herself went to school, looked after a physically very sick brother, controlled (or at least tried to control) 8 younger siblings, managed a servant-full household, studied for enormous amounts of time and thus received marvelous training sharpening her mothering skills. No wonder she has grown to be a wonderful mother who has raised five of her own highly educated professionals children and is now working her 10 grandchildren. Recently I saw her bull-strong 6-year-old US-born granddaughter (who minces no words in saying that she wishes she was a Christian to celebrate Christmas and Easter rather than being a Moslem to just keep going to a mosque) study the Holy Qor-aan with her grandmother enthusiastically with an amazing speed with which she had mastered the Arabic alphabets, vowels, structured words and was speedily reading long verses. Boy, I was impressed.
Sorry for the digression, of sorts. Actually a tree is best recognized by its fruits and the fruits do not fall off too far away from the trunk of the tree. Like the trunk of the tree, Father worked over half a century ago and today we with our 20-20 hindsight can see and thankfully enjoy the fruits. Credit goes to him for getting into certain habits, for life. The painful sight of my suffering brother, the selfless nursing my sister rendered him, the terrible effect on us the rest of the siblings, all converged into leaving a deep, sad scar on my father. No wonder his desire to see us all stay healthy was almost Father’s passion. We too grew not taxing him with the unnecessary anxiety and worry of falling sick and needing medicines.
Naturally even short term illnesses or long term sicknesses leave behind unforgettable memories. Some are sad but carry pleasant tones too. One I fell sick. Besides the medicines administered to me, I had to do a lot of exercising and eat the soup and cooked meat of wild pigeons for a month. I liked the attention, enjoyed the food, gained health and have never lost the love for all gifts of God.
In the spring of 1957 I was in the final year of law school in Lahore and living away from home. I was exercising when my hands slipped from a horizontal bar and I fell very awkwardly on my back and injured (“wedged” as doctor said) two of my spine vertebras. Mayo Hospital immediately admitted me and put a plaster on my upper torso from the top of my shoulders to lower than the hips. The attending physician Dr Sardar Ali consoled me by saying that the plaster was going to be there “just for 3 months”. On my expressing extreme concern about my finals coming in barely 3½ months, the doctor remarked, “We’ll see how you progress and may saw off your plaster in 2 months and 29 days.” Some 230 miles away in the city of Multan my Father was serving as the District and Sessions Judge. He dreamt that my cousin Lateef (which in the Arabic language means ‘very subtle, with full of far and wide nuances) had fallen off a horse and broken his back. So my father wrote to Lateef’s father and his own younger brother Chaudhry Nazir Ahmed and forewarned him of the impending danger, not knowing that his own son, me, was going to and by then had fallen, was injured, plastered over and practically pinned down for 3 months. Father learnt of my hospitalization from my letter I sent him on seventh day after my accident and came to visit me in the hospital. Besides consoling me for my pain, plaster and pushed out of my hectic activities, my father’s main concern that he discussed with the doctor was the length of time it would take me to fully recover and return to full robust healthy life-style.
