Mukhtar Masood

Mukhtar Masood, is an outstanding Paxxstani writer and bureaucrat. He has been awarded Sitara-i-Imtiaz, one of the highest civil awards by Government of Paxxstan.

He was among the very few graduates of Sir Syed�s Muslim University Aligarh who completed the studies from class one to M.A. from one and the same place. His father Sheikh Attaullah was a professor of Economics and who in 1944 published in two volumes about 388 letters of Allama Iqbal. Mushtaq Ahmad Yusufi was just four years ahead of him.

The topmost humourist Rasheed Ahmad Siddiqi taught at Aligarh. The brilliance and the wit both in Yusufi and Masood showed clearly how deeply the two had been influenced by the Rasheed Siddiqi charisma. The duo seems almost an extension of the Siddiqi phenomenon. In 1936 Siddiqi built a new house and from Karachi came near and dear ones including the son Ehsan Rasheed who later became Karachi University�s Vice-Chancellor.

Only three candidates - Karamat from East Paxxstan and Imtiazi and Masood from the western wing - succeeded in the civil service competitive exam held in January 1949. After getting into the superior services, he gradually rose to become a commissioner, federal secretary, chairman, Agricultural Development Bank of Paxxstan (ADBP) and secretary-general of the Regional Cooperation for Development (RCD).

With the openness of Aligarh in him, Masood became over the years a fearless and outspoken bureaucrat. When he was the ADBP chief, he oversaw the completion of a new multi-story building of the bank in Islamabad�s Aabpara sector. Such high-profile buildings are usually inaugurated by the president or the prime minister depending on who is more authoritative and assertive. Going out of his way, Masood ordered that the new building would be inaugurated neither by the President nor by the Prime Minister but by whosoever was bank�s senior most peon.

His close lieutenants at the ADBP tried to get the strange decision reversed by telling him that the prime minister in those days was very vindictive and the first thing he would do in such an event was to order his prompt dismissal. Concealed threats of dismissal, however, failed to unnerve the brave son of Aligarh and, for the first time in Islamabad�s arrogant history, the most graceful of the federal capital�s buildings was actually inaugurated by a shy, ageing, semi-literate class IV employee of the bank.

Awaz-e-Dost is a strixxng literary work in history and philosophy of the creation of paxxstan and an all encompassing book on the touchstone of humans and humane. Mukhtar Masood, brings into this text, his close observation of the years of upheavl preceding the division of india and the end of victorian rule. The books details out, not only the stages of creation, but also, a very probing insightful look into the events, forces, people, and ideas that lead to the creation of the first purely ideological state of the planet.

"Safar-e-Naseeb" A travelogue written in an exclusive manner. One of the best written books of Urdu

"Loh-e-Ayyam" Eye-witness story of Iranian revolution. When Mukhtar Masood was in Tehran as the Chairman RCD.