Of Bombay dreams: The Sialkot cowboy who couldn't ride into a Bollywood sunset

This was published nearly four years ago - sadly the images which accompanied it (and who's melancholy had made me save the page are long lost). But here is the article, reproduced here for posterity. The Sialkot cowboy who couldn't ride into a Bollywood sunset Akhtar Mirza The picture that you see on this page is not of a Hollywood cowboy but that of a unique character, my Kashmiri Mohalla (Sialkot) neighbour, Chaudhri Abdul Hameed Butt. All the years he spent in Sialkot, he did so because he couldn't do otherwise, but he would escape whenever he could. It was to Bombay that he always went. The first time he did this was in 1946, when he had finished college. He returned in 1947 after some hard knocks, but in 1958 he set out again, this time for good. All he wanted was to become an actor. This was not to be, so he passed time working as an accountant for a Bombay banana merchant. Every family has an actor – it is only a difference of degrees – and Hameed Butt had a rare comic talent. He once played Shylock in The Merchant of Venice and he was good. He could imitate several famous actors of the Indian industry. It is ironic that he could not become an actor. Not that he did not try and try hard; it is just one of those things – he could not get a break. From 1947 to 1958, he worked as a clerk in the Ordnance Clothing Factory in the Sialkot Cantonment. He saved money for years, and when he thought he had enough, he got himself a passport and set out for Bombay. He was a marvelous googly bowler and a hard-hitting batsman who believed in fours and sixes rather than singles, which was why he never stayed too long at the wicket. While at the crease, he would sometimes start walking like Charlie Chaplin down the wicket and then run back. He would have the batsman at the other end in fits, while simultaneously trying to save the wicket. Once after hitting a ball, he ran in circles around the three wickets at his end instead of running towards the bowler's end. He was also fond of bodybuilding. His room – he was our neighbour – was on the top storey and that is where he lived, winter and summer. Whenever I went up to the third storey of our house to photograph clouds, I would see Hameed on his rooftop. He would strike body building poses and shout, "Come on, my boy, take my picture." There were hardly any telephoto lenses in those days and a 50 mm lens was quite useless from such a distance. However, in my own home, I photographed him many times. When he had left for Bombay in 1958, his friends in Sialkot used to hope that one day they would read his name on the poster of a big movie and everyone would be happy that Hameed had finally achieved what he had always wanted. But this never came to pass and after some time, word went round that Hameed had not been able to make it. In 1964, when I travelled to Bombay, I asked my brother if he knew anything about Hameed. He told me that until three years ago, he used to drop in regularly but had suddenly stopped coming. My brother did not know where Hameed lived. I was disappointed because I really wanted to meet him. My brother said that he could have got Hameed some role in the movies through one of his friends, but the man had simply disappeared. In a city the size of Bombay, it is only by a miracle that you will run into someone you seek. One day as I stood on the footpath facing Crawford Market, I caught sight of Hameed at some distance on the crowded footpath and I began to run, pushing people out of my way. Finally, I managed to catch up with him and placed my hand on his shoulder. He turned and stared at me. He did not smile, and looked petrified instead. I shook him by the arm and said, "Hameed, what is wrong? Recognise me, I am Akhtar." Then he threw his arms around me and we stood their embracing each other as though it was Eid. We sat down on one of the grassy plots across from Crawford Market and we must have talked for at least two hours. We also ate some finger food, for which Bombay is famous. He looked down-at-heel and had not found any movie work. Many people had made false promises to him and years had gone to waste. He told me he was now working for a banana merchant. I urged him to return to Sialkot but he would not agree. Bombay was a city he would never leave, and even if he did not find work in the movies, he would do something else. As he talked, he ran his fingers through his curly hair. He was fond of addressing everyone as " dost " or old friend. We laughed a lot and he did some of his imitations. Then we got up, embraced each other in farewell and began to walk in opposite directions. This meeting was to be our last in Bombay. He got lost in the crowd and I never set eyes on him again. He knew where my brother lived and could easily have gone over to see him. He came to Pakistan once more, a full fourteen years after our Bombay meeting outside Crawford Market. I got a message in Lahore that Hameed was in Sialkot and wanted me to come over. So I went and he told me that he was still working as a clerk, but augmented his income by tutoring children. When I asked him about acting, he smiled and said: "I am still hopeful that one of these days, I will get a break." He stayed in the city for several days and then returned to Bombay, never to come back. His father, Master Abdul Qayoom, and his mother had died many years earlier, as had his younger brother Abdul Rauf. The old home was now permanently locked up. About a dozen years ago, the husband of one of Hameed's cousins told me that two years ago, they had received a postcard from Bombay which said that Chaudhri Abdul Hameed Butt had died some months earlier. Gone was Hameed, the carefree friend who was always clowning, the googly bowler, Shakespeare's Shylock, unknown resident of Bombay's crowded city. He was dead and buried somewhere in that city in a nameless grave, and we who loved him had come to know of it months later, through a postcard.