By: Farzana Ali Khan
Its back again. Yes, today is the fifth death aniversary of Dr Adeel Khan a top leveled journalist and human being.The name Adeel Khan might remind people a journalist turned academician but i recall him for having multiple relations with himHe was my real elder brother but beside that he acted as my mentor my Godfather my friend who listened to me whatever i felt like talking to him. He fulfilled most of my all demands/wishes same as a father does for his children. The kind of frankness between us never made me feel that he was my elder brother since i used to call him Uncle while for him i was Chacho. Being the very first female member of my family i have gone beyond graduation and have done my masters in three diffetent fields English, Business Administration and Law and all this couldnt be possible without my brother’s financial and moral support.
Dr Adeel Khan had started his journalistic career in 80’s by joining an english news paper The Muslim owned by Mushahid Hussain. Later He worked with Frontier Post and finally reached to Daily Dawn.Dr. Adeel Khan, a former assistant editor of Dawn ended his jounalistic career by saying good bye to Dawn and moved to Australia in mid-1993 with a view to pursuing higher education and a scholarly academic career. He completed a two years’ masters by research degree from University of Canberra in 1996 with a highly commended thesis titled “The politics of Islam in a post-colonial state: Pakistan”. This led to an offer of a fully-funded PhD scholarship from three different Australian universities and he chose to undertake his PhD with Prof Stephen Castles at the University of Wollongong.
He later joined University of New England in Armidale where he taught religions like Islam, Christianity and Hinduism After that he undertook further research and published a book “Ethnic of Identity: Ethnic Nationalism and the State in Pakistan” in 2005. The book got excellent reviews. Dipesh Chakrabarty of Chicago University labelled it as ‘a provocative, passionate and stimulating new interpretation of ethnic nationalism’.People who hate hypocrisy are often abrupt. He was one such person even in is death. His secular humanist views had made him a very sensitive person who would get upset over what has been happening in his motherland — Pakistan.
He was an honest and candid man who would be your sincere friend if he liked you, and if he didn’t he would tell you so.One of the best quality which i had always liked about him is his interest in reading literature and philosophy, a quality which is seldom found among the working journalists. Adeel was a consummate reader of books on philosophy, world history and literature and had a large collection of books, some of which had travelled more airline miles than he had — as did a framed copy of a portrait of Mozart by Andy Warhol which always got the choicest spot in the house. He had a vast collection of western classical music, old Indian songs and foreign films and often interspersed his conversation with quotes from Foucault to one-liners from Woody Allen to a couplet from Ghalib. That was a long way on even at youth when his friends of his age would have fun, my brother would be busy with his accuanintances, his seniors imcluding lecturers and professors. He worked under the able guidance of editor Dawn late Ahmed Ali Khan who he admired a lot, and would not stop talking about him.
As i have mentioned earlier, In between he also did a short stint with the Frontier Post Adeel Khan was a lecturer at the School of Health. He was program director of the Hong Kong Health Services Management and Gerontology.He received a Bachelor of Arts from Peshawar University, a Master of Arts (Communication) from the University of Canberra and a PhD (Sociology) from the University of Wollongong.Dr. Adeel Khan was a political and health sociologist, with special interest in social theory and critical thinking.
His teaching included Sociology of Health and Illness, International Health, Public Health, Community Health and Health Management.He had been given numerous papers at national and international conferences and guest lectures at various universities. He had published in various international scholarly journals. His book the “Politics of Identity” was published by Sage Publications and is available from January 2005.Dr. Adeel’s research projects at the time of death included the socio-economic roots of health inequalities and understanding male perception of violence against women in Pakistan. He was an Affiliate Fellow of the UNE Asia Centre.Recalling his professional achievrments it would be unfair not to call him a genius, scholar and an intellectual.Despite being a successful and well knowledged man his personality had an other side too i.e. being a family man and loving human being.
Though he was very blunt, outspoken and a bit aggressive by nature but at the same time he was a very caring person especially in case of his family.He loved kids too much but as his wife was not serious about that and only gave preference to her studies and career rather than to get treatment and have a child. Seeing her senseless ness Adeel stopped expecting a child from her.
Though I have always found him saying that all his wishes had been fulfilled still the vacume of being childless couldnt complete him.And this was the reason that he loved we all very much especially the Bacha Party of our family..Besides, my brother was a very broad minded from his youth.
And it was he who instilled this much confidence in me and to never considering myself a girl but a human being only.I owe him a gratitude for all his support, care and love.Sadly he died unexpectedly while holidaying in Istanbul in 2016 His interest prior to his untimely death was learning French, which he loved to practise but life dint give him the chance.Dear Uncle we all miss you alot and i hope that you must be feeling good being with mom, dad, uncles and our brother in laws on the other galaxy. I am proud of you for being my brother!