Adieu Nawab Lala!

A thousand times we needed you.
A thousand times we cried.
If love alone could have saved you,
You never would have died.

Today, Friday the 20th, May 2022, we bid farewell to our loving family elder, Muhammad Nawab Khattak at our village Adamzai. He passed away in the wee hours of the morning, peacefully in his sleep, at age 94, without any serious complications.

Many recall him as Engineer Muhammad Nawab Khattak being from the select group of engineers having played a pioneering role in the electrification of the country, in consolidating WAPDA in its nascent days as he was a graduate of the famous Maclegan College of Engineering, the current UET Lahore in early 50s.

Straight after graduation, he joined the electrical department as Assistant Engineer in the then West Pakistan which was later merged with WAPDA.

Muhammad Nawab Khattak remained the SDO, Nowshera, Xen, Nowshera, XEN Mardan, XEN Peshawar, SE Mardan and Peshawar and was promoted as the Chairman of Area Electricity Board, Peshawar, becoming the chief engineer of KP, the current equivalent of PESCO. He also headed the Faisalabad Area Board and earlier the Multan Board, a unique honour bestowed on him for his sterling performance. Later, he was Chief Engineer, Grid System Operation as well as GM at the Wapda House – finally retiring and relocating to Adamzai where he enjoyed farming and connected to the roots.

One of the most amiable personalities endowed with a brilliant mind, he could guide and coach his grandsons of Cambridge and Engineering levels with solutions to complex mathematical problems, measuring everything on the scale of logic and always helping nurture and professed critical thinking and problem-solving.

Till his last days, he remained an avid reader, one would always find a novel or a magazine by his side; was well versed in Urdu, Persian, and Pushtu poetry, enjoyed TV Urdu plays and the news, discussions, and was surprisingly, at his ripe age, a keen follower of English Premier League.

We, his family members, as indeed his kids will miss this great personality, a vacuum that will be very difficult to fill.

RIP!

(Contributed by Najeeburehman Khan, Adamzai)