Daily Times

Down the memory lane, from 1987-90s, Junaid Jamshed, needing no introduction to us all, rocketed to fame as a teenager with the patriotic song “Dil Dil Pakistan,” as the lead singer of Pakistan’s first-ever pop band, Vital Signs. Later, his solo flight of divine ecstasy and innovative excellence is uniquely marked with the rare emotional maturity of adolescent imprinting that it is not the physical age but the matured mind that makes the world go round.

Among his first outings with Dil Dil Pakistan was his enthusiastic welcome by the Locally Engaged Staff (LES) of the Canadian High Commission, Islamabad, with me as an employee in the organising and receiving protocol, as the whiz kid mesmerised Canadians and Pakistanis with their families and friends who cheered, clapped and chanted with him Dil Dil Pakistan echoing far and wide from the Margallas all over the national horizon!

So much has been witnessed and discussed in Jamshed’s life from his world of glitz and glamour to devotion and commitment to religion that needs no introduction

History repeating itself pleasantly over a couple of decades later. As an employee in the welcome party for Jamshed at the Institute of Business Management (IoBM), popularly known as its initial and brand name, College of Business Management (CBM), I recalled and he remembered with mutual cheers and smiles, his gem of a pulsating and model of a patriotic show with Dil Dil Pakistan at a Foreign Mission in Islamabad.

Like he mingled on his Dil Dil Pakistan show over two decades ago at the Canadian High Commission from the top brass of Canadian officials to Pakistani staff of officers, support staff, the non-management staff of guards, gardeners, cooks and cleaners, he was welcomed as a heartthrob of an able, noble, humble and gentle human rather than a celebrity by packed-to-capacity campus and auditorium of CBM/IoBM students, faculty, alumni, management and staff.

Being in the welcome party on both the occasions and with a knack to unearth and eye to explore, I could feel and see in Jamshed an inborn and inherent model of such emotional maturity or exemplary mindset of a positive thinker or doer that is over and above the stereotype age factor in terms of the number of years and beyond such set and standard questions as “How old are you? When were you born? What is your date of birth?….. and so on.

So much has been witnessed and discussed in Jamshed’s life from his world of glitz and glamour to devotion and commitment to religion that needs no introduction.

From pop stardom to religious enlightenment, so to say: whatever twists and turns, ups and downs, distractions and deviations in Jamshed’s life remained stable, steady and steadfast is his being a role model in simplicity, honesty, selflessness, altruism, patriotism and a passion for Pakistan.

Here are countless absorbing, revealing and thought-provoking examples how Jamshed positively, divinely and exemplarily overwhelms the hearts, minds and souls of leaders and statesmen, educational and literary circles, business or the corporate sector and in such wide and varied fields as health, medicine, environment, sports, public welfare and from the so-called elite, gentry or upper strata to the layman or the common man like:

Dragging old cart-pushers in the tight and grubby lanes of Hyderabad, labouring adolescent car-cleaners at Jinnah Super Market, Islamabad. sweating monkey and snake charmers of Lee Market, Karachi, walking tea and ‘qahva’ vendors of traditional and downtown Quetta, loading ‘qulis’ at the bustling railway junction, Lahore. labourers of Chowk Yadgar and Qissa Khawani, Peshawar, carving and engraving folks of the cottage industry of Pakistan, toiling long for livelihood maids or “masis” of the nation.

At the twilight of his life and career, Jamshed believed Allah does not change the state of people unless they made an effort to change and that if one practices the commandments of Allah, life can become paradise even in this world. While overwhelmed by his awe-inspiring personality, his countless fans and friends find it a very tough ask to alter mindsets of incomprehensible fear, mistrust, blind ego, false prestige, leg-pulling, mud-slinging, money and merry-making.

The writer is the HoD and Senior Faculty of Public Affairs, at IoBM, Karachi. He can be contacted at parvez@iobm,edu,pk