A short ride; a walk through a narrow street and I was led into a furniture workshop where several men were working. "That's your man," said my guide pointing to a skinny, boyish character squatting on the floor and diligently rubbing away with sandpaper on a piece of woodwork. The man looked up, dusted his hands and came bounding towards me in a barrage of greetings. It seemed he had just been waiting for me. Conscious that he was famous in his own way Kafeel Bhai had, in fact, been waiting for just anybody to come around.
There will be few long haul trucks in the country that do not carry the legend "Kafeel Bhai ko salaam. Mashoor-e-zamana Right arm, left arm spin bowler of Ghotki". When I first noticed this sign in the early eighties I took it as a joke but its pervasiveness was astonishing: every single cross country truck had apparently tarried long enough in Ghotki to have been struck by this "world famous" spin bowler. Having passed several times through the town and never having time enough to stop and investigate I had resolved to check my man out this time. And so it was that I was being hugged by an ebullient Kafeel Bhai who in his own words in the uncrowned king of spin bowling.
A man who can safely get into the Guiness book of World Records if for no other reason then for the speed with which words spill out of his mouth, Kafeel Bhai appears to be the man who has waited too long to tell the world what he had always wanted to tell. Sadly, he had never found it ready to listen and now I with my camera bag was his window to this world that had so far ignored this prodigy. "Tell me everything about yourself," I said. "No, no. You ask, you ask and I'll tell everything. Everything I'll tell you." The following transcript of the recording is devoid of embellishment or corrections; it is Kafeel Bhai as he sees himself and the world around him.
He was born Kafeel Ahmed Siddiqui in 1958 at Ghotki. His father a native of Jhansi (India) is a veteran Muslim Leaguer and, as I was told, a close associate of Mr Jinnah who called him Khalil Ahmed Pakistani in view of his services to the cause of the new nation. After Partition the family migrated to Ghotki where Kafeel went to school which ended with matriculation. Even as a child he possessed remarkable ability with the paint brush. But small town Pakistan was hardly the place to put this artistic talent to good use, moreso since the family was sufficiently well off for Kafeel never having to worry about a profession.
While still in school in the early 1970s Kafeel started to play cricket as a left arm spinner with the ambition from the start of getting into the national team. Jim Laker who had taken a record nineteen wickets in 1956 was his idol and for the sake of Pakistan Kafeel wanted to be the one to break this apparently unbeatable record. And so with a self painted portrait of Laker in front of him for inspiration he taught himself to spin bowl with the right arm "just like Laker". But he had the "added ability of being able to bowl with both arms and could have floored the finest batsmen with the great variety that could be offered in a single over".
The station of a true artist is at the top, therefore, Kafeel never wanted to play small time cricket: his one and only goal was the national team. He watched others play at the district and divisional level, occasionally bowling a few demonstration balls. That was all. But fortune passed him by; he was ignored by the selectors. The best playing years were wasted in the long wait and now he has given up the game because it does not become an artist like himself to play small time cricket. The man who could have turned the world on its head with his remarkable ability and won a great name for himself and country is heartbroken.
The dream of taking 20 wickets for Pakistan slowly began to recede into the distance and with it Kafeel started to lose sight of reality. At this point I asked him to demonstrate his bowling. He went home for his flannels while his colleagues told me that a team of Frenchmen arrived last summer with the request for him to paint some transport planes in France. Our man refused: whatever he will do will be for Pakistan not for some two bit country like France. His colleagues also said Kafeel had never physically touched money and is known never to have asked to be paid for his work. Shortly Kafeel arrived in his aging flannels that accentuated his spindly legs and took us to a nearby garden where he showed us his amazing ambidexterity. But since I cannot tell a googly from silly point or anything else I wasn't the best judge.
The desire to be well known was obsessive and since the selection committee for the national cricket team had passed him by he thought of another way of making himself famous, at least within the country. With his paints and brushes in a wickerwork basket he prowled the truck stands outside Ghotki which fortunately for our hero lies on the National Highway, the artery for all cross country lorries. When the truckers were not looking he moved quickly from vehicle to vehicle leaving a trail of the legend of the greatest spin bowler the world has never known.
One day the mad painter was caught in the act: short (1 m, 57 cm) and skinny (not more than 45 kg) our man was hauled in front of a jury of big, angry truckers. Not to be daunted he used his gift of the gab. He told them how their trucks would go faster if he were allowed to paint his message on them; they would consume less fuel and best of all they would look pretty. The men laughed; they thought he was crazy and Kafeel Bhai new he had made an inroad. From then on they did not mind him. Sometimes, however, there were truckers who had not heard of his fame and they got rough with him. But he was never beaten up, only pushed about a little bit. Other times he was allowed to write his message only after he had painted a typical truck scene or two on the vehicle. The fame that he had craved slowly came his way without media help: every single trucker in the country was acquainted with his name and was hauling it across the length and breadth of the land.
So is he satisfied now with the distinction he has earned? Of course, why else should "educated people like yourself come to sit at my feet? Only because I am famous and everybody wants to see me. I have defeated you and the rest of the world. I wanted to be well known and now the whole world knows the name of Kafeel Bhai." But now he does not play cricket anymore. Now he is just the artist who paints name plates and who has since the death of his brother given up painting his legend on cross country lorries.
In his heyday he would not "spare" any vehicle. Car, truck, tonga, donkey cart, bicycle. Sure enough, I was shown several donkey carts trundling about town with greetings to Kafeel Bhai. Once he was even forced by a group of outlaws to write his message on their Kalashnikovs. Some days later these men were done in in an encounter with the police who came looking for our man. His fame saved him any trouble that would surely have been the lot of a lesser mortal. "I did not even spare lotas and latrines." This was too good to be passed and so I was taken to a mosque where the latrine doors carried greetings to the greatest spin bowler of all times. Inside, the message was barely legible on the battered lotas.
Like Kafeel the cricketer who bowls with both arms, Kafeel the artist can write and paint with both hands and the script does not show any sign of awkwardness. He can write right side up and upside down or he can do a mirror image of Urdu or Sindhi script. He is good in his work yet he never asks for money. Why? "An artist is priceless and it is bad form to seek recompense for your talent. A truly great man never asks others for money." But Imran Khan who is building a hospital with donations is not a truly great man; he is great by accident. When one begs one becomes "third class". Great men do not beg. If people want to pay Kafeel for his labours he simply holds his pocket open and without touching the money takes it home to his mother.
We said our farewell in the crowded bazaar and he told me marriage for him was the last priority but before that he wanted to achieve the "height of fame". As I was leaving I asked if I could do something for him when I got home. But there was nothing to do anymore. "The time to do something for me is past." In the bazaar everybody seemed to know Kafeel Bhai. "Like rivers that fall into the great ocean they all come to me. But never the reverse will happen." Men, young and old, Hindu and Muslim, Sindhi, Punjabi and Mohajir came up to him and he greeted them one and all by kissing their hands. For the love that Kafeel has for his fellow humans there is no barrier of language, race or creed. As my tonga pulled away I saw him surrounded by a host of men and then he was lost in the milling crowd.
Salman Rashid is author of eight travel books including jhelum: City of the Vitasta and The Apricot Road to Yarkand
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