A FRIEND’S TALE: FROM BALA’S DUSTY ROADS TO OXFORD’S GRAND HALLS

From a modest beginning in southern Punjab to postdoctoral research at one of the world’s most prestigious universities, Dr Muhammad Iqbal Hajana’s journey is a story of perseverance, friendship and an unyielding hunger for knowledge

Mahtab Bashir
03335363248
mahtabbashir@gmail.com
ISLAMABAD

Some journeys are planned around destinations. Others are forged slowly, painfully and patiently until the destination itself becomes a consequence of perseverance. Dr Muhammad Iqbal Hajana’s journey belongs to the latter kind.

Catching up with Iqbal, talking about life, memories and how far we’ve come.

From Jampur in Rajanpur, a relatively remote city of southern Punjab, to the distinguished corridors of the University of Oxford, his story is not merely about academic degrees, professional positions or scholarships. It is about refusing to accept circumstances as a verdict.

It is about a young man who arrived in Islamabad with little more than ambition, discipline and an unspoken conviction that his life could become larger than the geographical boundaries from which he had emerged.

I met that youngster in 2003, in the Computer Sciences Department of Quaid-i-Azam University. Back then, he was simply Iqbal. Many of his friends called him Bala.

There was nothing ostentatious about him. He was quiet, somewhat shy and rarely the loudest voice in a room. But there was something unmistakable beneath that reserved personality: determination.

I had been born and raised in Islamabad, so I had seen countless young people arrive in the capital carrying dreams of education, employment and a better future.

But Iqbal was different.

He did not merely arrive in Islamabad. He gradually conquered the challenges it placed before him. From Jampur to Quaid-i-Azam University

Iqbal came to Islamabad in 2001, shortly after completing his graduation.

Some classmates and teachers encouraged him to consider Quaid-i-Azam University, then, and probably still, one of Pakistan’s most formidable centres of higher learning.

For a young man coming from Jampur, the transition was considerable. But Iqbal did not regard Islamabad as an escape from his past. He regarded it as an opening to his future.

In 2003, he completed his M.Sc in Earth Sciences from QAU. Yet one degree was not enough. He enrolled in the Computer Certificate Programme at QAU’s Department of Computer Sciences. That was where we met, where our paths first crossed, and where fate would eventually bring us together again.

We spent roughly six months in the department together.

I remember Iqbal as hardworking, disciplined and intensely focused. His ambitions were never noisy. They were visible in his conduct. Then came the class elections.

Iqbal was elected Class Representative, while Nazia, another mature and brilliant student from the Anthropology Department, was elected Girls’ Representative.

The choices reflected something simple but important: people trusted them.

Iqbal subsequently entered the M.Phil programme in Earth Sciences, continuing to build the academic foundation that would eventually take him far beyond the boundaries of Pakistan.

A motorbike, a challan and Lahore

Friendship, however, is not built from degrees. It is built from ordinary days. Iqbal and I once travelled from Islamabad to Rawalpindi on a motorbike. On that journey, a traffic warden handed me a challan.

It may have been the first, and perhaps the last, traffic ticket I ever received in Rawalpindi.

The story became even more complicated when I handed the voucher to a colleague, a Daily Times reporter in Rawalpindi, hoping he could help me retrieve my driving licence. He lost the voucher. I eventually stopped pursuing the matter until my licence expired and I had to apply for a new one.

Years later, I still remember that episode more fondly than I remember many serious events of that period.

Life was moving. So were we.

At one point, wedding invitations began arriving from the very people with whom we had once shared classrooms and examinations. The Class Representative and Girls’ Representative were getting married.

Two friends and a dream in Lahore

Iqbal and I also travelled to Lahore to appear in Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC) examinations.

Those two weeks remain among the more colourful memories of our younger years. We would sit the examinations at Fortress Stadium and then wander through Lahore. We explored its streets, visited its landmarks and sampled its food.

One day, as candidates emerged from the examination centre, we noticed a reporter interviewing them. Iqbal was late. So, I spoke to the journalist and shared my aspirations. The next morning, we bought the newspapers. There it was: “Over 11,000 Youth to Fight for 20 Vacant Posts under PPSC.” I have somehow managed to preserve that newspaper to this day.

When Iqbal finally emerged from the examination centre, I told him about the interview. Then I shared another little incident. “While I was coming out,” I told him, “I heard one candidate ask his friend, what you have written in reply to a question, whether Iqbal was a better Shair (poet) or Hakeem (a healer).” His friend prompted: “Nothing, my friend. I have only just discovered that Iqbal was also a Hakeem.” We laughed. It was a tiny episode in the vast story of our lives.

But decades later, I still remember it.

Perhaps that is the strange mathematics of friendship: some moments become more valuable with age.

The professional world could not contain him

During his M.Phil studies, Iqbal joined Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL). The professional world opened another door for him.

He gained practical experience in the energy sector, learned the demands of professional life and established himself beyond academia. But professional stability did not silence his academic hunger.

Instead, it seemed to sharpen it.

He eventually secured a Higher Education Commission scholarship and proceeded to Cardiff University, UK for advanced studies. For someone who had begun in Jampur, Cardiff represented another formidable leap.

But by then, perhaps Iqbal had stopped measuring his dreams by distance.

After returning to Pakistan, he joined Weatherford, a multinational oilfield services company. Later, his professional journey took him through OGDCL, OGTI in I-9 and Weatherford in I-10.

Our meetings continued. Sometimes we would sit over tea. Sometimes over a meal. We would revisit old memories, discuss our respective careers and wonder how quickly the years were disappearing.

Our professions had taken us in different directions. Our friendship had not.

From industry to the classroom

Eventually, Iqbal made another significant decision.

He moved from the corporate oil and gas sector into academia and joined Bahria University Islamabad as a member of its teaching faculty. It was more than a career transition. It seemed to reflect something fundamental about him.

For Iqbal, education was never simply a collection of certificates to be displayed on a wall or degrees to be added to a curriculum vitae.

Knowledge was a lifelong pursuit. He wanted to learn more. Then he wanted to teach. And after teaching, he wanted to discover more. That restlessness eventually took him back to the pursuit of advanced research.

And then came Oxford

Years after leaving Jampur, Iqbal secured another HEC scholarship. This time, the destination was the University of Oxford. Today, he is undertaking postdoctoral research in Earth Sciences at Oxford.

The distance between those two points is difficult to measure merely in kilometres. Jampur to Oxford is not simply a geographical journey. It is a journey across circumstances. Across uncertainty. Across financial and social limitations. Across countless moments when it would have been easier to settle. But Iqbal kept moving.
“Iqbal, do you remember?”

When he recently returned from Oxford during a break, he called me. We met over tea at Super Market in F-6, the very sector where I was born and raised.

As we sat together, the years seemed to collapse. I looked at him and, for a moment, I could almost see the young Iqbal of 2003 sitting before me.

The Earth Sciences Department, The Computer Sciences Department. The class elections. The motorbike. The Rawalpindi challan. The Lahore examinations. The newspaper. The laughter. The dreams.

“Iqbal, do you remember those days?” I asked. Of course, he did. Some memories do not require photographs. They remain preserved somewhere deeper.

The teacher became a mentor

Today, Iqbal’s contribution extends beyond his own academic journey.

He has supervised two PhD students and several MPhil students, while contributing numerous research papers to national and international academic journals.

The young man who once sat beside us in a university department has himself become a mentor to a new generation of scholars.

That, perhaps, is a more profound measure of achievement than any title. Knowledge becomes meaningful when it is passed forward.

A life built together

Iqbal’s personal journey has also been intertwined with academia. He married one of his university colleagues (yeah, GR), who herself is a PhD scholar and faculty member at a reputable public-sector university. Together, they have three children and are currently residing in the UK.

Over the years, he has achieved many of the material comforts associated with professional stability, a home, luxury vehicle(s) and a secure life.

But when I look at his journey, these things appear almost incidental.

The greater achievement is intangible. It is the respect he has earned. It is the students he has inspired. It is the knowledge he continues to create. And it is the distance he has travelled without forgetting where he began.

What Jampur gave him

Iqbal’s story is particularly significant because of where it began.

Jampur did not offer him the same concentration of opportunities available in Pakistan’s major urban centres.

Yet he never treated his birthplace as a limitation. He carried Jampur with him. Then he added Islamabad. QAU. Cardiff. The corporate world. Academia. And finally, Oxford. Each place became another chapter rather than a replacement for the previous one.

That is perhaps the most beautiful aspect of his journey. He did not erase his origins to reach Oxford. He carried them there.

The only missing link 

Amid his many achievements, Iqbal feels the absence of his parents, who are no longer here to celebrate the milestones they helped him reach.

He remembers them with deep affection and gratitude and repeatedly acknowledges that whatever he has become is inseparable from their sacrifices, prayers and upbringing.

For all the universities he has attended, all the scholarships he has won and all the professional milestones he has crossed, there remains a part of the journey that belongs entirely to them.

Perhaps every achievement of his carries an invisible dedication. To his mother. To his father. To the people who believed in him before the world had any reason to do so.

Geography decides where you begin, not where you end

As someone born and raised in Islamabad, I have seen many talented young people come to the capital in search of opportunity.

Some found it. Some lost their way. Some achieved what they came for. Iqbal did something different. He kept expanding the boundaries of what was possible for himself. His journey offers a powerful lesson to young people growing up in smaller cities and less privileged environments:

From Iqbal to Dr Iqbal

When I first met him in 2003, he was simply Iqbal. A shy young man. A hardworking student. A friend. Today, he is Dr Muhammad Iqbal Hajana, an academic, researcher, mentor and postdoctoral scholar at Oxford. Yet, sitting across from him over tea in F-6, I did not see only the scholar. I saw the old friend.

The young man from Jampur who came to Islamabad carrying a dream that was probably larger than he could explain at the time. Perhaps that is why his story touches me personally. Because I witnessed a small part of the beginning.

I watched the journey unfold. And now, from Jampur to Oxford, I can see just how far that quiet determination carried him.

His journey is not over. Perhaps Oxford is not the destination either.

Perhaps it is simply another milestone on a road that began in Jampur and continues wherever his curiosity, scholarship and determination take him.

And if I were to ask him one final question today, sitting across that cup of tea, it would be simple: “Mr. Bala, oh sorry Dr. sb, how far do you think you can still go?” Knowing him, I suspect he would smile quietly, and keep walking.

“TEA IS FANTASTIC” ABHINANDAN’S NEW ANNOUNCEMENT MAY COME FROM AN ATR

IAF fighter pilot moves from the MiG-21 cockpit to a local ATR, leaving behind the dogfight, the Vir Chakra and a famous cup of Pakistani tea.

Mahtab Bashir
0333 53 63 248
mahtabbashir@gmail.com
ISLAMABAD

Once celebrated as the moustachioed face of Indian air force, Group Captain Abhinandan Varthaman is now preparing for a very different kind of flight, training to operate an ATR for Indian regional airline FLY91.

One cannot help wondering: is India's celebrated fighter pilot not capable enough to fly an ATR yet? Perhaps he is. And perhaps that is precisely why he needs the training. After all, the last time he ejected, landed on the Pakistani side and was captured.

He flew a fighter jet into an encounter with Pakistani aircraft, his MiG-21 came down. So, after the MiG-21 chapter, comes the ATR chapter.

Abhinandan sipping tea during captivity in Pakistan

From supersonic fighter sorties to regional passenger flights, from chasing aircraft to chasing schedules, it is certainly an unusual career transition for a man whom India's political and media establishment once turned into a symbol of military heroism.

And somewhere in this curious aviation story, one sentence continues to hover above everything: “Tea is fantastic.”

Those three words, uttered by Abhinandan while in Pakistani custody in 2019, became an unlikely cultural phenomenon in India. The captured pilot, visibly injured but composed, was shown drinking tea and answering questions without revealing information.

But Indian media soon did what Indian media does best when presented with a dramatic television moment: it turned a cup of tea into a national epic.

The man whose aircraft had been shot down and who had subsequently been captured was transformed into a heroic symbol. His moustache became iconic, his photographs appeared everywhere and his name became embedded in India's political rhetoric.

Then came the Vir Chakra.

Abhinandan was decorated with India's third-highest wartime gallantry award, while the episode was increasingly packaged as a story of “extraordinary Indian military valour”.

And that is where the story deserves a little less Bollywood and a little more reality.

There is no question that maintaining composure while injured and in enemy custody is difficult. But composure in captivity and victory in aerial combat are two very different things.

Yet somehow, in the Indian telling of the story, the distinction became rather conveniently blurred.

The fighter went down.
The pilot was captured.
The tea was fantastic.
And the hero was born.

Now, seven years later, the same hero is reportedly preparing to fly an ATR in India's regional aviation sector.

The symbolism is almost too perfect.

The MiG-21 was built for combat. The ATR is built to carry passengers between cities.

One carries weapons. The other carries luggage.

One produces the sort of noise that makes people look up nervously.

The other produces the sort of announcement that makes passengers check whether their flight is delayed.

For Abhinandan, therefore, the aviation vocabulary is about to change dramatically.

“Target acquired” may become “boarding completed.”

“Enemy aircraft detected” may become “cabin crew, prepare for take-off.”

And instead of wondering whether the opposing aircraft has locked on, passengers will presumably be wondering whether their checked baggage has made it onto the plane.

But perhaps the biggest irony lies in the fact that Varthaman's most internationally remembered words came not from a successful fighter sortie, but from his time after that sortie had ended rather abruptly.

“The tea is fantastic.”

It was a remarkable public-relations victory for Pakistan. A captured Indian fighter pilot sitting in Pakistani custody, calmly drinking tea and praising it, became one of the most replayed moments of the confrontation.

India, meanwhile, had a different response: instead of allowing the episode to remain an uncomfortable military episode, it elevated the man at its centre into a national icon.

The medal helped.
The television coverage helped.
The moustache certainly helped.
And the tea? The tea became legendary.

Now imagine the next stage.

A passenger boards an ATR. He looks toward the cockpit. Perhaps he notices the pilot's name.

“Abhinandan Varthaman?”

The passenger might reasonably wonder whether this is the same man whose photograph once dominated television screens across India.

And then comes the announcement:

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard.”

No Pakistani jets.
No dramatic dogfight.
No ejection seat.
No international crisis.
Just an ATR heading toward its destination.

That, perhaps, is the most amusing part of the entire saga.

War propaganda thrives on drama. Commercial aviation thrives on routine.

The first requires enemies, headlines, medals and patriotic speeches.

The second requires punctuality, discipline, navigation and passengers who have remembered to switch their phones to flight mode.

The Vir Chakra cannot help with turbulence.
A patriotic slogan cannot land an aircraft.
And a famous moustache is no substitute for an aviation licence.

Perhaps this is why the ATR chapter is so revealing. It strips away the political theatre and returns aviation to what it actually is: a profession in which performance matters far more than mythology.

If Abhinandan successfully completes his training and begins flying commercially, he will simply become another professional pilot responsible for getting passengers safely from one airport to another.

No national anthem required.
No heroic soundtrack necessary.
And certainly no need to remind anyone about the tea.

Although, given the extraordinary afterlife of those three words, one suspects that whenever Abhinandan is offered a cup of tea before a flight, somebody somewhere will remember:

“Tea is fantastic.”
What a journey.
From the cockpit of a MiG-21 to the cockpit of an ATR.
From aerial combat to domestic routes.
From fighter pilot to commercial trainee.

And from a captured pilot's famous cup of tea to a career where the real test is no longer how convincingly one can appear heroic on television, but whether one can safely land the aircraft.

Perhaps that is the final irony.

The Indian establishment spent years turning a three-day captivity into a legend.

Now aviation may reduce the legend to something wonderfully ordinary:

Captain, passengers are waiting. The aircraft is ready. Please fly.

The writer is a journalist who completed MPhil thesis titled “U.S. Pro Israel Policy: The Rise of Anti American Rhetoric in Pakistan" from Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.