Daily Times

Ann Arbor, Dearborn and Detroit area have a special meaning for me. This is where I spent the best days of my youth. This is where I finished my studies, and this is where I got my first US job. Returning to Detroit was like homecoming.

So after many years when I landed at the Detroit airport on August 31, 2016 to attend the annual convention of the Sindhi Association of North America (SANA), I was immediately transported to the crazy old times of my student days. I reminisced how two of my closest friends, Asad and Humayun, both from Lahore, who enjoyed the extreme cold of Michigan winters, would call me late in the evening from their off-campus residence to be ready to drive them to Greek Town in Detroit for a scoop of ice cream! And I am talking about Michigan winter evenings when the sun sets before 5pm and streets are piled with knee-high snow. I was one of the few Pakistani students who owned a car, a seven-year-old Toyota Corolla, but a car nonetheless. I remembered all my good friends who after college are now living all over the world.

I also remembered my short-term roommate WC — these were the initials of his name and everyone thought he was most appropriately named since he hated cleanliness — who loved hunting. He moved out quickly since he thought that the girl he had a crush on liked me better! Like I said, those were the crazy days.

I was in Detroit to attend SANA’s 32nd annual get-together. SANA, which is termed as Sindhis’ home away from home, is the largest Sindhi diaspora organisation in the world, and is most appropriately termed by non-Sindhi community leaders — who have had the opportunity to attend the convention in the past — as the most democratic and secular of all south Asian community organisations in North America. Indeed, an organisation of Sindhi speaking people can only be termed secular and tolerant as it welcomes its guest speakers Dr Manzoor Ijaz and Kamran Shafi to speak in Punjabi, Dr Muhammad Taqi in Hindko, and Ahsan Iqbal and others in Urdu, and prides itself on allowing discussions on varying ideas.

SANA, which was founded in 1984 — during the dark days of Zia-ul-Haq’s rule — by Americans and Canadians of Sindhi descent to raise voice against human rights violations being committed by the junta in Sindh has come a long way since. Currently, the organisation is doing a great deal of social work in Sindh as well as charity and advocacy work in the US. For the last several years SANA awards 40 to 80 scholarships of $300-500 each year to meritorious students in various professional colleges and universities in Sindh through its Feroze Ahmed Memorial Educational trust fund programme.

The Sindh Skills Develops Programme has given free training to thousands of young Sindhis on various high-tech skills through its centres in various cities and towns in Sindh, and helped them in finding high-paying jobs in Pakistan, Middle East, Europe and Americas. The Sindh Schools System adopts closed/badly-run government schools in Sindh, and revives them by erecting new buildings and hiring skilled teachers paid by SANA.

The organisation has built computer labs in a number of schools in backward areas of Sindh. This year when a couple of professors from the Imperial College, London presented the idea in the convention to build a new university in Sindh to teach new technologies, SANA immediately embraced the idea. To be named University of Sustainable Sciences, it will be partly funded by SANA, and will be run in collaboration with the Imperial College, London.

SANA is also providing heavy funding in health-related projects in Sindh. It recently awarded Dr Adeeb Rizvi with the Lifetime Achievement Award and cash for his projects. SANA is also helping in building an international-standard hospital in Jacobabad.

Understanding that outside funding brings in outside influence, SANA does not accept funding from any government, agency or a non-member. Every single penny generated for SANA projects comes from donations from its members, which helps the organisation keep its independent identity.

The convention this year was very well attended. Not merely because this is the election year for SANA executive council and candidates and their supporters were there to lobby for votes but also because it was held in Detroit. The city being in the middle of everywhere is easily reachable from Chicago, Toronto, and St Louis. A large number of participants drove from Washington DC, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York and New Jersey as well as other nearby states. People like me had to fly in. A large contingent of journalists and media personalities from Pakistan also attended the convention. One of the interesting sessions was titled “Globalisation and Sindh.” The session was held live, simultaneously, in Detroit and at SZABIST in Karachi, linked via electronic media.

The best part of the convention, aside from the company of old friends, was the excellent and unending supply of the most delicious food and live folk music played by artists from different parts of Pakistan. Thank you, Dr Sattar Shaikh, and the Local Organising Committee for a memorable convention.

Before leaving Detroit, I spent the last day in Warren, Michigan, in the unforgettable hospitality of my old buddy, Pervez Hussain. As the plane levelled off above Detroit, I saw the Renaissance Towers, right besides which and underneath the Detroit River was the USA/Canada tunnel. I remembered the beautiful days when in the company of dear friends like Asad, Humayun, Raja Iqbal and others, I would drive my Corolla through the tunnel into Windsor to ease off tension caused by tests and examinations, and be back in Detroit, USA, in time to prepare for the next test.

With moist eyes I had a last look, through the porthole at Detroit, and murmured: so long, Detroit!

The writer is an independent political analyst based in the USA