My Abijan, Noon Meem Rashed was born in Alipur Chattha in the province of Punjab on August 1, 1910.  He did his BA (honors) in Persian and MA in Economics from Government College Lahore.  During this period he was also the editor of the College magazine, the Ravi.  His first job was as a clerk in the Commissioner’s Office in Multan; in the meantime he got married to his cousin, and had children.  He was not at all happy at the Commissioner’s office, so he joined All-India Radio and later was appointed as public relations officer with the Inter Service Public Relations Directorate.  During this appointment, he travelled as Captain with the Indian Army to Tehran, Baghdad, Basra, Cairo, Jerusalem and Colombo.  After partition, he was appointed briefly in Peshawar, Karachi and then Peshawar again with Radio Pakistan.  In the early 50’s the UN was recruiting citizens of different countries so my father resigned from Radio and  joined the United Nations Headquarters in N.Y. and from 1952 to his retirement in 1973 he served the UN in different capacities and in different countries.

As far as his poetry is concerned, he introduced blank verse to Urdu poetry and is known as the father of the blank verse.  In the beginning his poetry dealt with politics and love, but later on, it became more symbolic and philosophical. His diction was largely Persianized and his style was out of the ordinary; the common man always found it difficult to understand him.  He was constantly after new ideas and his mind was always working.  When I look back at all the things he has written in Urdu, Persian and English I can see a very busy man, even though he had a very busy career as well.  His passion for reading and seeking knowledge came from an early age.  The shelves in my grandfather’s house in Lahore were full of rare and interesting books in Urdu, Persian and English.

Abijan was a man of progressive thinking and he wanted to move forward.  My mother told us that when he asked her to remove her burqa, at first she felt uneasy and ashamed, but within days she became confident in herself and comfortable with herself.  Many of our female relatives were unhappy with my mother for discarding her burqa, but over time, almost all of them also removed their burqas.

My memories of my father start at 49 The Mall in Peshawar when he was with the Peshawar Radio.  Here we children and Abijan became good friends, and for the first time here I met his friends Khatir Ghaznavi and Ahmed Faraz, as well as many other Radio personalities.  Abijan encouraged us to take part in different activities for our mental and physical growth.  Whenever any children’s movie came to town, he found time to come with us.  Once a week he would take us to Ferozesons to buy books.  For the children’s program on the Radio he made us participate.  I was enrolled in the first public school that Field Marshall Ayub Khan had inaugurated.  At the opening ceremony of the school I sang one of the national songs.  Abijan was sitting in the first row and I could see the pride in his face when I got loud clapping from the audience.

Abijan must have been a very popular director at the Peshawar Radio as a big crowd of people was present at the airport to say farewell to him and garland him when he was boarding the plane for New York to join the United Nations.  My father’s initial job at the UN was to read news in English and Urdu for the Southeast Asia section.  Whenever he was to appear on the radio, we all stopped whatever we were doing and gathered around the radio in our living room.  My mother would even start crying upon listening to his voice. Six months later we all left for New York and stopped in London for a couple of days.  Ejaz Batalvi was my father’s friend who received us at the London airport and showed us around town.  The next day we left for New York and after a few days A.S. Bokhari (Patras) came over to our house.  He apparently was my father’s professor at Government College, Lahore, and they seemed to have great respect and affection for each other.  Bokhari Sahib used to love gaajar ka halwa, so whenever he was to come to our house, my mother made sure there was this freshly cooked halwa.  He loved my mother’s cooking.

When we were living in New York, Abijan placed a lot of emphasis on our communicating with each other at home in Urdu.  If we ever mispronounced any word, he very gently corrected us.

After our three years in N.Y my father was posted in Indonesia with the UN Information Centre as its director, but my mother and we, the children, stayed in Lahore where I attended Queen Mary School.  After some years in Indonesia my father was posted as director at the U.N. Information Centre in Karachi so we all lived in Karachi for about three years.  Here we were exposed to his literary circle of friends.  The first Sikh gentleman, Rajinder Sing Bedi came to our house.  We had never before seen a Sikh so it was a great privilege.  We used to have lots of Mushairas and get-togethers at our house on Tariq Road.  I met Qurat-ul-ain Haider, Zehra Nigah, who had a lovely way of reciting her poetry, Dr. Aftab Ahmad, Dr. Jameel Jalibi, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Syed Zamir Jafri, Munir Niazi and of course Ghulam Abbas who was a regular chess player with my father.  These writers and poets were like an extended family to us and my father made sure he introduced us to everyone.  

Abijan was a disciplined person.  He loved going for his daily morning walk and taking his daily shower.  He would wake us up to accompany him and on the walk he would talk about interesting topics. I found him very interesting and learnt much from him.  He often had receptions to go to in the evenings and if my mother could not accompany him, then he would take one of us with him.  Once I was at one of those receptions when someone came to me and asked “Are you Noon Meem Rashed’s daughter?” and when I said yes, he said to me that I was the daughter of the greatest Urdu poet, and then he started reciting my father’s poem “Hassan Kuzagar”.  When I got in the car I mentioned all this to my father.  His reply was “Betie, it would be a bigger pleasure for me if someone came over to me one day and asked me if I was Yasmin Rashed’s father”.

Traditional poets and writers were very different in their appearance from my father.  He did not look like a poet.  He was a very Westernized man in appearance and manners, though his heart was always in the East.  His shoes used to be polished; he wore the latest cut of suits, a felt hat, and a pipe was almost always in his mouth.  He spoke perfect and flawless English as well as Urdu and Persian.  He loved Western Classical music just as much as he loved Eastern Classical music.  Even though he did not look like a poet, his habits were those of one.  If he was in the company of other poets and writers, he did not phone home to say that he would be late, which made my mother wait unnecessarily.  My mother always looked after my father’s comforts and I am sure this irresponsible habit brought her worry, but I would say she was a typical wife and a symbol of patience.

Our mother suffered from arthritis, and in 1961 at the age of 46 she died of a B-complex injection that was administered incorrectly by an incompetent doctor.  Our whole world collapsed. Three months later my father was again posted in New York.  All of us sisters and our brother were under the age of twenty, so we got admitted into schools in N.Y. except for my oldest sister, Nasrin, who was engaged to be married and stayed behind with my uncle Majed’s family in Mirpurkhas where he was the principal at Shah Abdul Latif Government College.  About two years after my mother’s death my father began taking interest in my youngest sister Tamzin’s teacher at the U.N. International School.  He told us that he would marry her only if we all approved of her.  All of us reacted strongly, except my youngest sister, Tamzin, who was of course excited that Miss Sheila Angelini would be coming to live in our house.  Initially we were adamant, but after talking to the wives of our father’s close friends, we softened a bit.  During all this time our father kept on assuring us that he still loved us and there would be no change in our relationship.  So in September 1963 my father married Sheila Angelini; we all accepted this union only half-heartedly.  The greatest advantage of this union was that we all learnt to be independent and confident.  My brother Shahryar was enrolled at Drew University in New Jersey and this experience made him mature into a very confident young man.  He later left for Pakistan where after writing his exam he joined the Foreign Service and travelled to several countries in different capacities.

After retirement from the UN in 1973 Abijan wanted to live in Islamabad. He had even purchased a plot of land near the Margalla Hills.  But Sheila did not want to live in Pakistan.  Her choice was Cheltenham near London but I think my father was not happy living in an English town where he had no literary company or audience.  He died of a heart attack on October 9, 1975.  My father was a loving father who cared for his children till the very end.

Nazar Muhammad Rashed (1910 – 1975) – نذرِ مُحَمَّد راشِد‎
Nazar Muhammad Rashid (1910 – 1975) commonly known as Noon Meem Rashid (ن۔ م۔ راشد) or N.M. Rashed, was born as Nazar Muhammad Janjua at Alipur Chatha District Gujranwala, Punjab, Pakistan. He was an influential Pakistani poet of modern Urdu poetry. Along with Miraji, N M Rashid is considered as father of modernism or free verse in Urdu poetry.