Two Lahori photojournalists who called Peshawar home

PESHAWAR: Two photojournalists belonging to Punjab had decided to try their luck in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa not only to seek jobs but also make a name in their profession.

They passed away in the prime of their career. Both were widely mourned by the journalists’ community in Peshawar. Zubair Mir and Gulshan Aziz had made Peshawar their home after abandoning Lahore. The former died in 1999, the latter last week.

Zubair Mir, a smart man who wore paint-shirt instead of the local shalwar-kameez, spoke Urdu and Punjab as he couldn’t speak Pashto. However, he loved Peshawar and Pakhtuns and used to call himself a Kashmiri Pakhtun. He was a creative photojournalist working for The Frontier Post when this Peshawar newspaper was respected and popular. He later joined daily Mashriq Peshawar. His pictures were different than the usual ones clicked by their fellow photojournalists and that made the difference.

Zubair Mir died young due to a heart attack and was buried in Islamabad. He was in his late 30s. Tragically, his death occurred less than a month after his mother died. He left behind a young wife and three children. During this Eidul Fitr, his wife passed away in Canada.

The local journalists displayed their love for him and immortalized him by naming the main hall of the Peshawar Press Club in his memory. The Zubair Mir Hall is the most frequented part of the club as press conferences, meetings and all other events are held there.

Senior photojournalist Gulshan Aziz, who also died of heart attack, was buried in the graveyard at Gunj locality in an old part of Peshawar. He had moved from Lahore to Peshawar in 1967 when he was just 16 years old. He never went back. His only survivor in Peshawar is his ailing widow. His lone son was disabled and had died at the age of 16 in Peshawar.

His last years in life were spent in misery as he lost his job in a local Urdu daily, Mashriq, after serving for 35 long years. He lived in a rented flat and had no real savings. He fell ill about two months ago and his colleagues and friends said he had no money to pay for his treatment. His neighbours and well-wishers arranged his funeral and burial.

Always smiling and hardworking, Gulshan Aziz had won awards and organized photo exhibitions. He felt comfortable speaking his mother tongue, Punjabi, and Urdu. He understood Pashto but found it difficult to communicate in Pashto. Photojournalism has always been tough as one has to hurry up and reach the spot of an incident to be able to take pictures. Television journalism has made it even tougher for camerapersons as they are under orders from their bosses to provide footage. They take risk as every photographer and cameraperson has to go as near as possible to the site of an incident, even if it is an act of terrorism, to get good pictures.

Photojournalists are seldom rewarded for their work. They are a constant presence at events, but aren’t generally known. As some of them remarked, the media houses make it a point to get their expensive cameras and other equipment insured, but not the person behind the camera.