Seafarer’s tales

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One had often wondered why a certain building in Lahore is known as Australia Building, why a mosque on the Railway Station is called Australia Mosque and why a bank on Brandreth Road was called Australasia Bank before it was nationalised in the 1970s. The common thread behind all this is one man — Mian Muhammed Buksh.

Some people have amazing stories to tell and some are even more fortunate that these amazing stories unfold like adventure tales from the past, as it takes them to a buried treasure or a gold mine. One such person, Mian Muhammed Buksh, popularly known as Australiawale, not only had fascinating stories to tell but also transformed them into a proverbial fortune hunt.

Mian Muhammed Buksh had probably penned his own biography, which was recast by his friend about 100 years ago but never got it published. The manuscript was saved from being lost to history due to his grandson Khawaja Arshad Rasheed Wayne and his great grandson Ahmed Rasheed Wayne, who made sure that it got published.

Titled, Lahore Ka Sindbad — Mian Muhammed Buksh Marhoom Australiawale — Sawaneh-Hayat Ba Zaban-e-Khud, the book reads well. The two qualities — the spirit of adventure and a resilient temperament — that every successful man has to have are embedded in the stories that the book incorporates.

Muhammed Buksh or Khwaja Mian Muhammed Buksh Wyne’s family had migrated some generation back from Kashmir like many others, either due to famine or oppression of the Dogra Raj, and took up residence in Mosoma Attawa in Gujranwala disrtrict. Then a part of the family moved to Lahore, the Walled City from where Mian Muhammed Buksh, a young man, heart broken from the treatment meted out to him by his step-mother decided to leave Lahore and be on his own.

He did not know what he wanted or where to go, except to be away from home. He had precious little, except some money that he may have stolen, and moved to Bombay, took up assignments on ships to travel all over the world, from one port to the other, eventually landing in Australia. He set up his business in Australia, which meant being a hawker, selling goods on the wheel barrow, pushing it from locality to locality, village to village, and eventually town to town, realising that he had the potential to make money. And he did just that.

 He made 11 voyages around the world, met and saw people of various nationalities, noting down their dresses, eating and living habits, especially how Indians, particularly Indian Muslims lived.

The book is rich in detailing life 150 years ago, in particular conditions in which sea journeys were undertaken. It is indeed a very harrowing story because it was tough and challenging to be a sailor on a ship. The hardest work, as Muhammed Buksh says repeatedly, was to work the boiler — the heat was intense and one could hardly afford to move away from it and relax for a few moments or to be careless in the execution of duty.

Being sick and tired of the hard work, he, with two others, decided to commit suicide by jumping into the open sea. But, as luck would have it, he was caught by the security staff of the ship after one member had already jumped into the water. There were many other adventures, like being sentenced to death for beating up the captain of the ship and walking on the plank where the wind direction saved his life and escaping certain death by pretending to be a holy man in Mecca and Madina.

He talks about the customs of the various people he visited and the brothels the sailors frequented. The man was courageous and he had his wits abut him that served him well in the rounds of adventure.

From : The News June 22, 2014