Dareechah-e-Nigaarish

Qamar Yoorish (1932-2007)  was a Pakistani Short Story Writer belonging to Lahore's lower or working class. He obtained education upto Grade 2 in Elementary School before he dropped out of school. He was committed to a classless democratic society in Pakistan. He was committed to the Pakistan Labour Movement and was jailed many times, most notably during the brutal military dictator Zia ul Haq's time and tortured in the dungeons of the Lahore Fort where his fellow prisoners and free thinking writers Hassan Nasir lost his life and his close friend Mohammad Aslam Muznib lost his mental balance.

Qamar Yoorish's books include:
Meraa Bachpan

Qamar Yoorish Kay Afsanay

Phir Subah Hoe Gee

Yaaraan e Maikada (Word Sketches of some Pakistani Literati; published by Daar ush Shaoor, Publisher: Mr. Mohammad Abbas Shaad, 32 MacLagan Road , Lahore, Pakistan. 

Yaaraan e Maikada can be read online at Scribd where it has been uploaded by my facebook friend Rashid Ashraf)

Dareechah is proud to reproduce here a column by Ms. Saadia Salahuddin, Lahore journalist, Ravian (alumnus of Government College Lahore) and fellow Cathedralite (alumnus of Cathedral High School, Mall Road, Lahore like myself) describing the last days of Qamar Yoorish when he used to spend his days at Ustad Daman's baithak in Lahore's Old City and spend his nights at the Pakistan Labour Party office at Abbott Road, Lahore.

Fearless Fighter

Qamar Yoorish (1932-2007)  had nothing to lose,
for he shared all that he had

By Saadia Salahuddin

This article was originally published by The News on Sunday (Jang Group of Newspapers, Pakistan)

Qamar Deen, known as Qamar Yoorish, who became a labour leader in 1950 was a short story writer with 27 books, mostly on the lives of labourers', to his credit. Yoorish was his pen name which means battle, rebellion. All his life, he has been raising a voice against exploiters and oppressors.

Qamar Yoorish's life was devoted to revolution. Comrades have come and gone but not without influencing millions of men around them. Comrade Fazal Elahi Qurban would say: "If I had ten men like Qamar I would have established a labourers' government."

During the Zia regime, Qamar was retained at the Lahore Fort where Hassan Nasir lost his life and Aslam Maznab his mental balance. Only Qamar Yoorish had nerves strong enough to survive the dungeon where they had placed a snake under his mat which he found to be dead.

Qamar protested every time he felt the need. He once went on a 15-day hunger-strike and fainted with weakness. He was charged with treason in Ayub's regime and asked to leave the country. And when he was hiding in Ashfaq Ahmed's elder brother's house, the agencies planted a bomb outside, which was luckily detected in time.

Both his hands were damaged for life while saving Ahmedi labourers. This was at the 'Khatm-e-Nabuwat' rally when the police opened fire at the labourers and where he took the bullets on his hands and saved the labourers. This surprised the Ahmedis and they wanted to know why he saved them, he said that first and foremost they were human beings and that is what mattered to him.

I met Qamar Yoorish for the first time two years ago. It was a week before his birthday that fell on May 5. May Day was approaching and I had gone to interview him on the occasion. As I entered the Labour Party office where the meeting was scheduled, I found a man sitting on a chair on the landing of the staircase. He greeted me warmly as if he instinctively knew who I was. This was Qamar Yoorish with sparkling eyes and a very kind face.

Born in poverty in 1932, Qamar and his elder brother lost their mother when they were very young. Their father was sold to carpet weavers for Rs 10 when he was a child and died when Qamar was quite young. People suggested that both the brothers be sent to an orphanage, but his naani (maternal grandmother), who Qamar remembered as a brave woman, resisted the pressure. She raised the two brothers. While Qamar's brother became a lawyer, Qamar ran away from school when he was in class 3. "I hated school. I loved to roam around in the city like a free spirit. When I was a young boy I loved to wear khaksar uniforms and people called me a little mujahid," Qamar Yoorish told me. 

When he grew up he realised the importance of education but he had to earn to survive. He spent a year at a technical college and joined the Railways in 1950. From the very beginning he was part of the labour struggle.

Qamar Yoorish kept moving from one place to another. "When I had a sort of permanent place to live I gave shelter to many people in my house. My brother got so sick of this practice that he sold the house. Since then I have been staying here and there," he said in his interview to The News on Sunday.

"I stayed in a deeni madrasa for 13 years. I was there because of a friend. When he died they turned me out labelling me a heathen."

When I met him he was living in the Labour Party's office. I couldn't believe it and said that I see no place where one could sleep in that office. At this he asked me to follow him. He led me to the rooftop. An old bedding could be seen folded at a corner. "This is my bed and here I sleep," he said. At the age of 73, he would walk down to Ustad Daman's dera every day and come back to Abbot Road every evening. Qamar had nothing to lose for he shared all that he had. The only gain in his life was the love of the people whose paths he crossed.

Both his writing and speech retain the sharpness of a razor's edge. Qamar said that as long as feudals thrived, labourers would never get their due. "The maulvis raise such a hue and cry over the marathons but none of them has ever condemned dog fights which is actually one of the most dirty games men play," he said, indicating at the roots of feudalism in Pakistan.

"I want to bring democracy to Pakistan, a setup where there will be no hunger and deprivation. Where there is no unemployment and corruption, no guard on thinking. Where luxury is not for a chosen class and happiness is for everyone. Where humanity is not divided into compartments, where hunger, poverty and disease is not the fate of the poor. Where money, corruption and threat are not the means to success," he wrote.

Qamar Yoorish passed away on July 18th, 2007.