Shaikh Moonis Ayaz, a scion of one of the great poets of the Sindhi language after Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, has authored this book of memories reflecting the days he spent at his alma mater, the University of Edinboro, Pennsylvania, USA, in the early 1990s. The decade of the 1990s witnessed great global changes, including the collapse of a superpower — the Soviet Union — and he recalls watching the CNN transmission at the house of his close friends Nadir Shah and Munir Shah in Hartford city of the State of Connecticut, USA. The news showed reports of the arrest of the last communist president of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, by die-hard communists — an incident that proved to be the last straw on the camel’s back.
Shaikh Moonis Ayaz graduated from the University of Sindh, Jamshoro, in the 1970s, when his father, Shaikh Ayaz, was serving as its Vice Chancellor — a position entrusted to him by the then Prime Minister of Pakistan, Mr. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Regarding this, Shaikh Ayaz has written in his autobiography titled Jag Miroee Sapno (جڳ مڙوئي سپنو) that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto telephoned him and said that he wanted to give him the responsibility of the vice-chancellorship of the University of Sindh. In response, he (Ayaz) said that he had no previous experience holding such a position. To this, Mr. Bhutto replied, asking, “Had I any previous experience of holding the post of Prime Minister?”
Shaikh Moonis Ayaz has also written about the period of Shaikh Ayaz’s tenure at the University of Sindh in a series of columns for the literary magazine Kawish Dunya, which will appear in another forthcoming book.
His vast knowledge of world history, philosophy, literature and mysticism gives these memories depth and resonance
Educated in an English-medium school, Shaikh Moonis Ayaz graduated in the subject of International Relations from the University of Sindh and later proceeded to the University of Edinboro for his Master’s degree in Social Sciences during the first government of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 1990. He describes his departure from Karachi to the USA in these words: “I left the ‘Roshan Manzil’ situated in Kharadar, Karachi for higher education in February 1991. In 1952, from this house, my mother’s relative Roshan Ara Mughal had joined an agricultural delegation of Pakistan for USA.”
The author narrates how he managed to obtain his visa for the USA and how he finally arrived at his new destination. He writes that, at that time, a noted scholar and former Vice Chancellor of the University of Sindh, Jamshoro, Syed Ghulam Mustafa Shah, was serving as the Federal Education Minister and had extended his support to him. Upon his arrival in the USA, another former Vice Chancellor of the University of Sindh, Dr Nazir Mughal, received him. Dr Mughal was then in charge of International Students at Edinboro University.
An academician and distinguished intellectual of Sindh, Shaikh Moonis Ayaz, in his early life, had aspired to become a diplomat. During his youth, he acted in several Sindhi plays on PTV, but later chose the profession of teaching and joined Shah Abdul Latif University, Khairpur Mirs, as a lecturer, where he served until his retirement a few years ago. Although he has remained associated with the progressive school of thought throughout his life, his mystical reflections and his philosophical attitude towards life and society can be clearly observed in this book as well as in his other writings and speeches delivered at various personal and public gatherings.
The author also possesses vast knowledge of world history, philosophy, world literature — particularly Russian and Western literature — mysticism, religions, Greek mythology, and anthropology. This broad intellectual background has helped him render these memories both valuable and engaging for readers.
The book, titled “America Reminisced”, briefly explores the history of the USA, the State of Pennsylvania, American society, its people, politics, world literature, the American education system, and the ethnic contradictions prevailing between White and Black communities. It also touches upon Pakistani, Asian, African, and Middle Eastern students — especially Palestinians — as well as student life at the university, the activities of American White and Black students, and his friends who eventually settled in the US. The Sindhi community living in the USA also forms a part of his recollections. The Vietnam and Afghan wars, the Palestinian issue, mysticism, marriages in America, and the love of life are also briefly discussed in the book.
Writing about the ethnic contradictions in American society, Shaikh Moonis Ayaz notes that these divisions will never disappear from American life, as they are deeply rooted, and every new generation of the Black community continues to witness the persistence of White supremacy, which they cannot accept.
Interestingly, he writes that on his very first day at the University of Edinboro, he attended a lecture delivered by a professor on the subject of Marijuana. During his university days, he also visited Washington, DC, and other parts of the USA, where he discovered a restaurant named “Camel” in Hartford city, which was owned by a family related to the former King of Afghanistan, Zahir Shah.
Some sections of the book describe Chinese students who married American girls. He also recounts an amusing story about a Sindhi student who listed his nationality as Italian and fell in love with a female student at the university.
In the book, Shaikh Moonis Ayaz fondly remembers his dear friend — philosopher, former Chairperson of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Sindh, and spouse of noted journalist Nafisa Hoodbhoy — Javed Bhutto, who was tragically killed in Washington, DC, on 01 March 2019, by a mentally ill Black man.
This book presents both a concise and far-reaching view of an enlightened individual’s reflections on numerous events and themes related to the world and the USA, through which readers can perceive and understand many shades and colours of the globe.