How-to-do tips from the wise man

ISLAMABAD
Zahid Abdullah is a multi-dimensional personality. Right to Information (RTI) activists know him for his admiring contribution towards promoting transparency.
He travels throughout country training activists and journalists how to use RTI law. Not only this, he guides and assists in filing RTI requests on behalf of those unable to do by themselves. Others know him as a writer having mastered the art of translating his original thoughts into words. He is author of ‘Disabled by Society’ published in 2011. His latest book ‘The Wise Man’ has just been released late Wednesday. Both of them are based on his personal experiences and observation. Nevertheless, they invoke interests of every sections of the society.
Before shedding light on the books, let me unfold Zahid’s relatively less-familiar aspect of the personality that he chose not to make part of his introduction. It is only known to those who have ever met or worked with him.
Zahid had lost sight in 2001 but refused resigning to fate. Although he did master in English before becoming blind, he enrolled himself for another master degree and this time in development studies. This was the time he was experiencing life as a disabled person. Married and migrated from his home town Sargodha to Islamabad, Zahid had to take care of his family being the sole bread earner. He would attend classes in the morning and do work in the evening. After finishing his second masters, he got a job but the earning was insufficient to feed a family. He decided to work from dawn to desk at two different jobs. This had been his practice until recently. Father of three girls, Zahid currently works as a coordinator of the Coalition of Right to Information. I would often ask why didn’t he chose to spend time and energy advocating for the rights of disabled instead of RTI. His response: “I don’t want anybody to think as if I am building my career out of personal tragedy.” This doesn’t mean he is blind to the issues facing the disabled persons. He gave input for legislation making rounds in different standing committees of the Parliament. He raises voice at different forums. Zahid filed RTI requests asking about the disabled population registered with NADRA that the authorities refused to provide. He fought until he got a favorable decision from the appellant forum: Federal Ombudsman. His book ‘Disabled by society’ is about the indifference towards disabled in Pakistan. It brings under spotlight the dilemmas and heartbreaks of people suffering from disabilities. It also features two inspiring individuals who are disabled but living with feelings and emotions as natural and normal.
In his newly realesed book, ‘The wise man,’ Zahid has touched upon the serious issues in a light manner. It narrates the story, for example, of an office worker who goes to a wise man for an advice who tells him: “Work hard young man…..but never miss a chance to heap praises on your bosses for the qualities they possess but always make sure to praise them for the qualities they don’t possess and will never.” Likewise, the wise man’s advice to an intellectual with a long drawn face: “Always remember that an intellectual never smiles and always speaks with a long drawn face.” One chapter of the book is about a meteoric rise and rise of a small time reporter who is advised by the wise man like this: “You can be a great journalist by unearthing corruption stories and rich journalist by first unearthing and then burying corruption stories.”
Then a chapter is about a bald man worried about his ‘naked’ head and became cleared-headed after an advice from the wise man: “Don’t associate baldness with shame. If a disgraced man cannot hide shame by hiding his face in public, nor can you my friend hide your baldness no matter how evenly you may spread your remaining tufts of hair on your head.” A wife-bitten man asks the wise man in the next chapter that why the years following marriage do seem longer than those preceding marriage? The wise man returns to him by saying this: “The years following marriage seem longer because of Einstein and his theory of relativity.”
Another chapter “The lord of disability,” is about a development sector practitioner who undergoes a quick test of the wise man. Asked what kind of jargons should be used for extracting funds from the international donors, the practitioner replies: The jargons like “inclusion”, “mainstreaming”, and “capacity building” do the trick. Then wise man asks his strategy for extracting funds from the elderly and religiously inclined people. The practitioner smiled and replied: “The promise of reward in the life hereafter has always done the trick.” In short, the book contains chapter for every person. As it the wise man deals with the issues like “mother-in-law and the governance structure of the husband reforms committee”, “the picture perfect wife”, “the imperfect husband”, “the sprinting lawyer”, “the middle-aged man with a pony tail”, “the Facebook girl and her virtual lover”, and the “digitally divided poor man,” to name a few.