Real heroes are heroes of every one. They are not controversial. Nations love them more than anything. Major Aziz Bhatti Shaheed is among those real-time heroes of 1965 War, who not only stood firm to face the enemy aggression but also repulsed it with his unprecedented courage. He gave his life while defending the frontiers of motherland but never let the enemy succeed in its nefarious designs. The proud nation awarded him with ‘Nishan-i-Haider’, the biggest gallantry award of the country. Now that more than 54 years have passed, since he embraced Shahadat, he continues to live in the hearts of each and every Pakistani. Aziz Bhatti is remembered with love and affection. Nation observes his Yaum-e-Shahadat on 12th of September in a befitting manner.
This year was significant in a sense that his younger brother Sardar Ahmed Bhatti (95 years old now) presented this nation a book named ‘Aziz Bhatti Shaheed My Brother My Hero’. This book is classic and unique in a way that it unearths many hidden aspects of Aziz Bhatti Shaheed’s life, especially his childhood. It tells us how intelligent child Aziz was and how sensible and sober young man he developed into himself. Had this book not been published, people could have known only about the war account of the hero. The book really throws light on Major Raja Aziz Bhatti’s early life, his birthplace, his parents, brothers and sisters and so on.
The author has dedicated this book to the soldiers and citizens who laid down their lives while defending the motherland. Sardar Ahmed Bhatti also dedicates the book to his parents - Muhammad Abdullah Bhatti, the revered father, and Amina Bibi, the exalted mother.
He tells as to how, out of sheer love, his mother used to call Aziz as ‘Raja’, which became part of his name, especially after his martyrdom. Sardar Ahmed Bhatti shares many of the precious anecdotes of his life. Being the youngest in the family, Aziz and Sardar used to share the same bed; and the author tells how on one day Aziz started insisting to sleep up over the mosquito net canopy (machhar-dani), which his elder sister told wasn’t possible to perch on. The book reveals that before the partition their father Abdullah Bhatti was in police department and was posted in Hong Kong. But the man left that lucrative job and switched over to the teaching profession. Maybe that was the reason Abdullah Bhatti’s son Sardar Ahmed Bhatti returned to his ancestral village, Ladian (district Gujrat), when he was 84 years old (about 11 years ago) and established a girls’ college there to impart the women of the area education to the graduation level. In short, this is how the services of the Aziz Bhatti family are going on and on.
The book ‘My Brother My Hero’ also narrates how Aziz and his brothers helped the family doing various jobs to meet the economic needs during the World War-II when his father and elder brother lost their jobs. In 1947, Aziz Bhatti got the Commission in the Air Force, but he was sent to Pakistan Military Academy soon after Pakistan came into being on 14th of August 1947. At PMA, he won the coveted Sword of Honor. He did his Staff Course from Canada, and embraced martyrdom during the 1965 War while defending the motherland.
Sardar Ahmed Bhatti tells in the book how when Aziz Bhatti was Captain in Pakistan Army helped his brother to purchase a plot and even did physical work during the construction of the house. That shows the element of kindness and care for the family and obviously for the rest of the people. So much so he didn’t care when it came to defending the frontiers of homeland. In short, the book is a must read; it is worth being part of the libraries and bookshelves, so to apprise the coming generations about the rich profile of our national hero.
The editor of the book, Dr Shaheena Ayub Bhatti, the daughter of Sardar Ahmed Bhatti happens to be eminent educationist. In the ‘Preface’, she writes: “This book is a labour of love; since it is written by the Shaheed’s younger brother the one who probably knew him the best in his boyhood years, as also in his youth”.
The book is published by Daastan Publishers and is available from the book stalls of the Islamabad metropolitan and elsewhere in the country.
— Book review by Yousaf Alamgirian