When Saeed returned to Cambridge University after his long convalescence following his kidney-removal operation, there was more change in store as he was soon informed that his PhD supervisor, Dr A P French, was leaving for the US. Saeed was instead taken under the wing of Denys Wilkinson, whom he describes as “a scintillating and charismatic, tall, slim, handsome Yorkshireman”. Wilkinson, then 30, was only five years older than Saeed and insisted on being called by his first name, which was another culture shock for Saeed. But Denys was “a very good supervisor”, who held regular Tuesday-night discussion sessions with coffee and biscuits that Saeed would later copy when active at the University of Birmingham later in his own career. This section of the memoirs includes Saeed’s famous remark to Denys at his house as to whether some music playing on the radio was by “the Bolshoi Ballet”. Denys’s reaction was to ask another student, George Chadwick, “to hit him on the head”.
My time at Cambridge part 2
Posted by matindurrani on March 22, 2014
https://saeed-durrani-memoirs.net/2014/03/22/my-time-at-cambridge-part-2/
My operation and new life
In this section of Saeed’s memoirs, he recounts the serious operation he had in January 1955, which involved the removal of one of his kidneys that had probably been infected with TB. He then recalls the long period of convalescence that followed. The period he spent in hospital was significant too as it gave Saeed new insights into the English way of life and it made him realise who his “real” friends were. Saeed’s illness also proved to be a wake-up call and he “came back to Cambridge, in June 1955, a changed man”.
Posted by matindurrani on March 22, 2014
https://saeed-durrani-memoirs.net/2014/03/22/my-operation-and-new-life/
European adventures
Relive Saeed’s trips to the Lake District in England and his lavish “5 countries in 16 days coach tour” that he went on “to get a bird’s-eye-view of Europe”. Costing the-then enormous sum of £59 in 1950s money, he recalls that “it was mad for two impecunious students to choose such an expensive tour”.
Posted by matindurrani on March 22, 2014
https://saeed-durrani-memoirs.net/2014/03/22/european-adventures/
My time at Cambridge: part 1
After shining as a physics student in Lahore, Saeed’s time at Cambridge University was markedly different – suddenly he was one of many top students, not the only one. In this part of his memoirs, he describes life at Cambridge, including his “quite stupid approach” to research, which included being too “idiotic” to admit he didn’t know how particular experimental equipment worked, turning up in the lab at 3pm after spending hours at night on advanced mathematics in his room with the gas fire blazing, and feeling “embarrassed and ashamed” after getting pump oil into a cyclotron, which a technician then had to spend a full day and a half repairing.
Posted by matindurrani on December 14, 2013
https://saeed-durrani-memoirs.net/2013/12/14/my-time-at-cambridge-part-1/
Tales of Coincidences
What are the chances of you going on holiday to Madrid, seeing a stranger in a crowded street, deciding to strike up a conversation with that person, only to find out you go to the same university, that you live on the same street and that you in fact are living in their very room while they are away for the summer? It sounds an unlikely tale, but this is precisely what happened to Saeed in the summer of 1956 – in fact he puts the chances of it taking place as small as one in a billion billion. However, it is only one of several strange coincidences during Saeed’s like, which you can read about here. Others include bumping into an old friend, Zafar Ismail at a restaurant in London, and coming across another buddy, Raheel, in a street in Munich.
Posted by matindurrani on December 14, 2013
https://saeed-durrani-memoirs.net/2013/12/14/tales-of-coincidences/
Journey from Karachi to England
When Saeed Durrani left Pakistan for England in 1953, he travelled as most people did at the time, which was by cruise ship from Karachi to Liverpool. These days international travel is a rather humdrum experience, but back then a three-week sea journey was full of adventure, fun and amusement as you can find out from this extract from the memoirs. Of particular note is the story concerning Saeed’s notoriously request-happy Uncle Nisar, who was then based at the Pakistani embassy in Cairo. As the ship was due to call at the Egyptian port, Uncle Nisar wrote to his sister (Saeed’s mother) instructing him to bring “a few things”, which included a sewing machine, a couple of canisters of ghee, a sack of Panjabi rice, three sacks of dhal, and a heap of other odds and ends. This section of the memoirs also includes an account of Saeed’s various embarassing social faux-pas during the cruise’s fancy-dress ball.
Posted by matindurrani on December 14, 2013
https://saeed-durrani-memoirs.net/2013/12/14/journey-from-karachi-to-england/
Leaving Government College Lahore
The year 1951, which was Saeed’s final year as a master’s student at Government College Lahore, saw the college’s distinguished former student Abdus Salam return from Cambridge. Salam went on to share the 1979 Nobel Prize for Physics and became without doubt Pakistan’s most eminent (and famous) scientist. In this part of the memoirs, Saeed describes his early memories of the great man — in fact their paths were to cross several times later in their lives. As for Saeed himself, he was at a crossroads: whether to pursue his love of literature or science, or somehow both. Eventually, he applied for — and won — a scholarship to do a PhD at Cambridge, being recommended by his tutor Rafi Chaudhari to the Cambridge Nobel laureate James Chadwick as “the most brilliant student he had come across in his 25 years of teaching”. The boat for England was due to leave on 14 September 1953 — which gave Saeed just enough time to go on a trek of the Himalayas with his friends.
Click below to read more.
Posted by matindurrani on September 27, 2013
https://saeed-durrani-memoirs.net/2013/09/27/leaving-government-college-lahore/
Live at Government College Lahore: part 3
The period Saeed spent at Government College Lahore betwen 1946 and 1953 were, he says, “some of the happiest of my life” and also “very formative”. This section of Saeed’s memoirs looks at some of the close friends he made there, including Arshad Ali Tour, Inamul Haq and Zafar Ismail, who — like Saeed — was to later study physics at Cambridge.
Click the link below to read more.
Posted by matindurrani on September 27, 2013
https://saeed-durrani-memoirs.net/2013/09/27/live-at-government-college-lahore-part-3/
Memories of the Sondhi Translation Society
When Saeed entered Government College Lahore, he took over from his brother Sajjad as secretary of the Sondhi Translation Society, being particularly interested in translating Chekov’s short stories into Urdu. But the experience meant more than enjoying prose and poetry – the organizational skills Saeed picked up also helped him in his later career, for example, as a faculty member at the University of Birmingham.
Click the link below to read more.
Posted by matindurrani on September 27, 2013
https://saeed-durrani-memoirs.net/2013/09/27/memories-of-the-sondhi-translation-society/
Life at Government College Lahore: part 2
Following the difficult time that accompanied the creation of Pakistan in 1947, life settled down somewhat for Saeed Durrani as he continued with his studies at Government College Lahore. This section from his memoirs recalls some of his teachers, including Khwaja Manzoor Hosain — an English teacher who was “a true scholar and a gentleman through and through: always dressed immaculately in a shirwani and tight-fitting Indian legwear” — as well as the physicist Rafi Muhammad Chaudhri. The latter was a “tea-drinking egg-head” who would walk five miles to work every day across Lawrence Gardens in Lahore and via the Mall Road, arriving at 7.30 am, an hour-and-a-half or so before everyone else.
Read more by clicking on the link below.
Posted by matindurrani on September 20, 2013
https://saeed-durrani-memoirs.net/2013/09/20/life-at-government-college-lahore-part-2/
Saeed Durrani (1929-2018) 