Ardeshir Cowasjee was Ardeshir Cowasjee. He was a one-off model from God’s factory of procreation, and once the first one came out of the assembly line, his model was retired for good. He was kind and had a heart of gold, and his kindliness was rivalled perhaps only by the cynicism life cultivated in him. Cowsajee could be a witty, foul-mouthed, lion of a journalist, who would roar at political institutions or a saint who had more money than the charity he could dream of dispensing. Wondrous he was for he would not only give to the poor but to any that asked. Above all, he was capricious, and anything that took his fancy, he would attain without regard to what society said. If anyone knew how to live life, it was Cowasjee who made the most of it before he left. He claimed that people here did not know how to enjoy life. I believe he was right. A stout believer in the judicial system, Cowasjee was often found trotting around the courts of law, finding reason and quest in the cases of others. If he had a higher case, it was the restoration and safety of Karachi, and if he had a higher purpose, it was finding Jinnah’s lost Pakistan. “I must tell people about Jinnah’s vision of Pakistan,” he would say to his long time friend, Amina Jilani. This is exactly what he did till the end, starting one fine day in 1984, with his omnipotent pen. The pen cared, showed wisdom, and wrote of hidden knowledge, so much so that they gave its owner Dadabhai Naroji’s title (the first Indian elected to British Parliament), “The Grand Old Man of Karachi”. The Lord be my witness, if anyone deserved it, it was our Ardeshir Cowasjee. But who was he really? Cowasjee was the scion of a wealthy Zoroastrian family, which sowed the seeds of its shipping empire (East and West Steamship Company) just before this country came into existence. The eldest son of Rustom Cowasjee, Ardeshir was quick to take charge of the family business, and that he did with skill and fervour. His heart was in his ships, and the one that held his eye was the MV Ohrmazd, a vessel whose construction he had personally directed in Scotland. Two years he spent there, tailoring and designing this fine vessel, but no sooner was it brought to Pakistan that it was taken away. It was January 1, 1974 that he lost his shipping empire to his friend, Zulfiqar Bhutto, who would have none of Cowasjee saving his marriage. Yes, one fine day, during Field Marshal Ayub Khan’s tenure, cabinet minister Bhutto decided to send his wife Nusrat Bhutto packing and who would Nusrat turn to, but the most loyal friend any man could find. Cowasjee, well connected as he was, contacted Ayub Khan through Ayub’s daughter (then in Rawalpindi), and the problem stood resolved, once Ayub was done with his minister. Nusrat got her family back while Cowasjee sowed the seeds of his own loss in the moribund fields of Bhutto’s mind, one who never forgot this particular interference. The ships were gone on the waves of nationalisation and the family business shrank to a fade on the glory canvas. It must have taken years but Cowasjee had the heart to get over it. Only a very strong man could take a knock like that, billions of present value lost in one fell swoop. The test was passed but it seemed to have left scars, deep-rooted scars of cynicism that even his wife Nancy Dinshaw couldn’t do much about. “She survived with a man such as I for so long,” remembered Cowasjee on a silent April in 1992. “We married in 1953, and to the end she was my staunchest ally…freight wars, nationalisation, loss of my empire…bad weather found her on the bridge, without being called, standing by, whether I was navigating right or wrong.” When Nancy departed for the eternal shades in 1992, Cowasjee began writing some of his most vociferous columns, taking on every powerful man he could find culpable of corruption. His Sunday column became the final word, and the newspaper couldn’t boast of a finer columnist. Numerous times they threatened to kill him, but Ardeshir Cowasjee couldn’t care less. It was then that Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy, another outspoken bastion of what is right (and certainly not polemical Ansar Abbasi’s jahil) contacted Cowasjee. The Benazir government (of 1996 fame) had decided to convert a significant land portion, 300 out of 1,600 acres at the Quaid-e-Azam University, into residential property. Everyone with more than 10 years of service was promised a stake, from the driver who drove the campus buses to the sitting vice-chancellor, our then ‘king’ under the Margalla Hills. Politicians could buy in their stake too and the merry-go-round was about to take off when Hoodbhoy led a lone protest with his colleague, Dr A H Nayyar. The land belonged to the future generation of Pakistanis, and they wouldn’t have of it. The university halted for an entire semester, and Hoodbhoy looked towards his friend Cowasjee for this cause. Equally disturbed, Cowasjee joined in with his pen and clout. It was not an unqualified victory but the war was won in the end. Indeed, it was not in Cowasjee to leave his friends high and dry when they needed him. Begum Salma Ahmed was incarcerated for two weeks in a dungeon at the Karachi Central Jail (for reasons best known to her captors), after her book Cutting Free was launched. When Cowasjee heard of this, he placed one call to the Corps Commander Karachi, and Begum Ahmed found herself in a hospital with doctors examining her heart condition. At the corner of her bed stood a doctor wearing a stethoscope, who smiled at her. On closer sight, she found it was Cowasjee who had come, disguised as a doctor, to ensure that the job was done to perfection. He had saved her when she needed him the most. Another personal favourite of mine came from his photographer, Mobeen Ansari. Cowasjee took Ansari along to visit Rustom Bagh, a park Cowasjee had cultivated for the government authorities, named after his father and gifted (in thought) to denizens of the city. When their car came close, they saw a homeless man sleeping peacefully under a tree. A passerby came, woke him up and told him to move. As the poor man proceeded to do so, Cowasjee rolled down the window and called out to the poor man: “This is your garden…this is your home. Do not let anybody trample your rights. Now go back to sleep.” As the man hesitated, Cowasjee shouted, “Now.” The homeless man now wore tears of joy interspersed with an expression of pleasant shock. Then there was a mere vagabond who strolled towards him at the end of his life, seeking his company if but for once. He was living the last days of his life; Cowasjee knew that only too well. The conversation was light, an assortment of many discussions and the man seemed to have mellowed down, previously claiming that he was only too ready to meet his Creator whilst wondering if his Creator was ready to meet him. “Is there anything I can do,” Cowasjee smiled at this perfect stranger. I told him that the favour was already done. Those were his last words to me, of meant kindness and humanity. I shook his hand and left, not knowing that I would never see him again. On November 24, 2012, Ardeshir Cowasjee left for the shades, but he left us all with memories of him, memories that time can’t erode. He was a good man, a great man. The writer is studying at the Lahore University of Management Sciences and can be reached at k.alizubair@hotmail.com