By Stephanie
I first met Daddy (my father-in-law) at five a.m. on an August day in 1980 in Islamabad, Pakistan after a 70+ hour trip, with a flight from Vienna to Karachi, an un-airconditioned bus ride (in Ramzan) of 1,400 kilometers from Karachi to Rawalpindi, a wagon ride to the United Bakery in Islamabad, and lastly a taxi ride to Daddy and Amma’s house. Their cook, Fazaldin, paid the taxi driver because by that time my husband-to-be and I were flat broke. Also extremely dirty and no doubt smelly. Despite this, Daddy and I hit it off right away.
Major-General Mohammad Rafi Khan (Daddy), born in Dehradun, India, belonged to a family that fled Kandahar, Afghanistan, possibly in connection with the Second Anglo-Afghan War, which ended in 1880. As handsome as a French movie-star, in his earlier days he appreciated a cigarette with an occasional chota peg of whiskey, but he was a Pathan through and through, and a quietly devout Muslim, who spoke Urdu, Pashto, Dari, Punjabi, and English.
Daddy served in the Indian Army during the British occupation of India and fought in WW II’s great Allied push up Italy. On leave briefly in Rome, he went sightseeing in the Vatican, where Pope Pius XII came up behind him and, laying his beneficent papal hands on his head, blessed him. Whether this helped him survive the war, we don’t know, but survive he did,
Stephanie sited between Daddy and Amma in front row
Daddy married Amma on May 16, 1947, which by pure coincidence is my husband's and my wedding anniversary as well. After their honeymoon at Dal Lake in Kashmir, Daddy’s family and Amma’s family moved to Pakistan, Amma’s to Lahore, and Daddy’s to Karachi. Now part of the Pakistani Army, Daddy spent August and fall of 1947 in Pakistani Sindh overseeing the protection of civilians on the move following independence from Britain in August 1947.
One of his first postings was in the Gilgit headquarters of Pakistan’s Northern Areas, where as Commander of the Gilgit Scouts he traveled throughout the remote region on horseback. He served at the Pakistan Military Academy twice, including in 1959 as Commandant until 1964, a tenure that made him by a considerable stretch the longest serving Commandant at the Academy.
Based on what he originally told me, I believed Daddy was born in 1917, the same year as my mother. Very late in life, though, he claimed to be able to remember WWI clearly, so we estimated his age accordingly; if correct, he died at 100 years old in 2012.
I had lost my own father at age 12, and the Commandant (Daddy) commandeered his place in my heart from the outset, where he has remained forever.
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