Haroon Ahmed

0:05:07 Born in Calcutta in 1936; my father had been posted there and three of his children were born there; he was a civil servant in the Indian Engineering Service; my mother had married at seventeen so had only just finished school; my paternal grandfather died before I was born; he was also a minor administrator, involved in dispensing justice under the guidance of the local Commissioner, usually a young Englishman; I knew my maternal grandfather well as a boy; he was a civil engineer, a very successful businessman who made a fortune building bits of New Delhi under Lutyens; he also got involved in building airfields on the Eastern border of India when the Japanese invasion was feared; they were never used and were then abandoned; later the broken concrete slabs were discovered and the story was revealed; he built himself a fine house in New Delhi where I mostly grew up until the Partition of India in 1947; my maternal grandmother died when my mother was only twelve; she was a remarkable woman because she was a photographer and also drove a car, which was an achievement at that time; I am sorry that I never met her, but maybe she influenced my mother a great deal; I suddenly remember that the car was a Chevrolet, an American car

4:07:07 I remember a very loving and caring home in my early years; I was the third child and rather pampered because the first two were girls; I am six years older than my younger brother and I suppose my earliest memories were being jealous of him; he had an ayah but I was now growing out of ayahs because I was going to school, and I greatly resented that he was staying at home; the first definitive memories were those of the Partition of India when I was eleven

5:36:09 My father had trained as an engineer and had gone to Germany between the wars, during the time of hyper-inflation in the 1930s; he had gone with a group of Indian students who were not welcome in either India or England for having participated in the non-cooperation movements; he was at Aligarh University where he got into trouble because of his involvement in political agitation; he was a very mild and unassuming man who had taken a degree of Diplom-Ingenieur in Germany which was very highly regarded there; because British qualifications were more valued in India, when he returned he became an engineer and eventually became a reasonably high-ranking civil servant; he was tolerant and did not push me, but my mother did; my maternal grandfather had to some extent supported my father's education; he realized how clever my father was when he came back from Germany, and the marriage was arranged; he was fifteen years older than my mother; that is one of the things that defines my relationship with my parents - my mother was young, my father was older; my father was calm and staid, my mother very excitable and forceful; she made us do our homework, taught us to speak English at an early age, and read a great deal herself, although mainly light fiction; she had been to good schools and had had an English governess; my mother was a strong influence on me, but stronger still was my sister; the elder of my two sisters was three years older than me and was immensely clever; I had to run to keep up with her; to be three years younger and chasing this clever person was very useful for me; I read many of her books three years before I should be reading them as I just read what she was reading; she would bring into the house a lot of things that I would never have had access to; she didn't bully me but wasn't protective either; she thought I was spoilt and sometimes hid her books from me; we are now both old but retain the happiest of friendships; my mother was always in control of my life until I was married, and would know intimate details of what I was up to; she did this with all her children and nobody would be left unaware of her views on what we were doing

10:39:06 My parents were both Muslims, but neither was strongly religious; they did not pray regularly except on Eid days, when we all conformed, like the British at Christmas; I think my father was; we obeyed the general rules on alcohol and pork, but nobody went to pray regularly; at the time of the Bengal famine I was beginning to read the newspaper; at that time I would wake up early to get hold of the newspaper before my father took it off with him; I became aware of the famine but it did not make a big impact on me as we were no longer in Bengal, but back in Delhi by then; I met Ian Stephens, the editor of 'The Statesman', here in Cambridge; he was a Kingsman and I met him in Hall; I read his book 'Horned Moon'; he lived in Chesterton and came to tea with us when my children were young; he was a nice man

13:24:22 At the time of Partition we were in Delhi; my father was given the job of helping with the partition of the assets between India and Pakistan; this made him a key target for the people who were trying to destroy the formation of Pakistan; he was attacked, his car was followed and rammed, fortunately near a police station; he telephoned from there and managed to get himself rescued; he and my uncle came to the house and we were bundled out with just what we were wearing - that memory is very clear - and then we went off to the refugee camp; camps were set up in parts of Delhi and we had a camp in the same house where my grandfather had lived; this was in a Muslim community area; the men patrolled the area with guns and the women and children were huddled into very uncomfortable spaces, and we were in this refugee camp for months; my memory is not clear because time for children is punctuated by incidents; certainly it was long enough to feel very threatened, and the memory that as an eleven year old I was being taught to fire a gun; when this refugee camp was under threat we were lucky to get a mercy flight; these were being flown between Delhi and Karachi; we went to the airport which was also frightening as we escaped in a car with my mother lying on top of us to hide the children; they were attacking cars carrying families - communal violence is the worst, ethnic cleansing as they now call it; as it appeared that there was only my father driving, we escaped through the checkpoints to the airport; then we were able to go in a Dakota; I remember there were no seats so the children sat in the middle galley way; I had been at St Columba's school in Delhi where I had had a perfectly good education, but my mother had taught us English which was a great advantage as we spoke it very well; we spoke mainly Urdu at home, we were certainly scolded in Urdu, but the children spoke in English to each other; my sisters was so much cleverer than me that they were also able to help to make sure we were getting it right; then I went to St Patrick's school in Karachi

18:24:04 I was there from the age of eleven until sixteen when I did 'O' levels; it was a Catholic missionary school with priests from all over the world, but the Principal used to be from Ireland; it was regarded as the second best school at that time in Karachi, Karachi Grammar School was the best; I think my parents would have liked me to go to the latter but I think that we weren't important enough; I think they would have found the money but they had come out destitute; my father was lucky because he was a civil servant; when the transfer of assets took place, one of the agreements was that civil servants from both sides should be retained; however, we had only the clothes we were wearing; fortunately, with the job came a house, so within a month he was getting a salary; we didn't suffer all that much; most historians are now aware that the urgency that Lord Mountbatten brought to the matter was most unwise and uncaring; there is no better truism than to say that one English officer with a dozen sepoys would hold thousands of Indians in check, but at that point the Englishman was missing from all the incidents that were taking place; the police and army tried, Mr Gandhi tried, but nobody succeeded in quelling the riots because the discipline of having British officers was no longer there; that meant that riots took place and the whole idea of a peaceful partition fell apart

22:58:06 I was playing a lot of cricket which was the love of my life; it was the main difficulty with my mother who would catch me and bring me back to study; many of my peers went on to become test cricketers; Mihir Bose's book is excellent in teasing out the love of cricket in India and Pakistan; it is partly because it can be played without physical contact - neither India nor Pakistan like games with physical contact; soccer and rugby are not played; I have always wondered about why I was so hopeless at both; they do wrestling, so contact is not always avoided; they also play hockey which is free of contact; while I was at school I only seriously played cricket which was an overwhelming obsession; we played all the year; I was captain of the cricket team and had the advantage of being able to read and do sums, so could keep abreast of the rules; I don't play anymore but cricket is still an obsession, and I watch and follow it very closely

27:09:01 I had no interest in music, didn't listen to it or have any training in it; my mother and sisters dabbled with the harmonium but I didn't; much later in life, having married a wife who is very musical, living in a musical environment, I turned towards music to find out more about it; I now enjoy it, but it has never been a passion; I listen to classical music, and whatever my wife is playing; she plays the violin in a number of informal groups and she goes to the Endellion concerts as a regular subscriber; I went once or twice but found I was not enjoying myself

28:29:24 I went to a school where the quality of teaching was very poor, despite its reputation; I was aware that I wasn't being taught very much; I also suffered from the fact that I was big and possibly looked stupid as well; in a ranked classroom they often put the big boys at the back, perhaps sensibly, but if the big boy also has bad eyesight it means that you don't see very much of the blackboard; I was short-sighted by twelve although it took my parents a little while to discover; I was fourteen when they realized I could hardly see anything; one of the advantages was that I learned to listen, and I made notes; it forced me to pay attention; the other advantage was that you understood what you were being taught and didn't have to revise it, so more time for playing cricket; I remember the maths teacher being particularly poor because I could do maths instinctively; I had no difficulty understanding concepts and I knew that he was not getting it right; the English teacher was way below the standard of my sister; the teaching was bad but other influences were very strong; my mother and sister were both good English speakers so English was coming easily and I was reading way beyond the rest; I was reading Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, my favourite book at the time was 'Treasure Island', so I was reading classical English literature; later on when I was among scientists in Cambridge I realized how much better educated I was, at least in English literature; we read anything we could get; my sister took me to the British Council and to the American Information Services, and we borrowed books; she would take me because she needed an escort; I remember the British Council woman noticing that we were back again, and asking if we had read all the books we had borrowed - we had

32:54:00 When I was in the refugee camp I asked my father why we were there and why were they trying to kill us; he told me these were riots between people of the Hindu religion and people of the Muslim religion, so the conflict was religious; I decided then as a thinking child that religion was not good for one; I abandoned it then; my mother was aware and scolded me sometimes, but my father had been completely honest with me and accepted that I would not have any religious belief after that; that has remained the case, although I have sat through many religious services; before becoming Master of Corpus Christi College I went to see the clerics in the College and talked about my lack of religious belief although strongly supported the right of others to hold them; one of them said, "Well, Master-Elect, if you are prepared to do your duty we will not hold that against you"; I was rather moved and thought that if they had that sort of trust in me I would go to Evensong; I was fortunate that I was married to a Vicar's daughter; long before I went to Corpus I had learned a great deal about the Anglican faith; her father was at Christ's and grandfather at Corpus Christi, and her great-grandfather, all became vicars, so I was very supportive of other people's religious beliefs; when I went to Evensong I didn't know the hymns but my wife knows them without even looking at the hymn book; so we went into Chapel and I read the lesson when asked to; I did it as my duty and some were constrained to say that I did it well; I was President of the Philosophical Society; I certainly don't think that religion has been destroyed by science, and I wouldn't dream of being critical about people's religious beliefs; I have a great interest in cathedrals and I look with awe at them; they started to build them in the eleventh century, and what powerful forces had moved the people who then built these marvellous buildings; if you look at their history, they were built, torn down, built again, destroyed by fire or invaders, and yet there they rise above the sky; look at the mosques in Islamic countries; what wonderful buildings are created for the love of God; I just have a strong personal view that religion is not for me, and that religion taken to any extreme is very dangerous; however, my religious beliefs were coloured by the effect of Partition and have remained with me ever since; I have brought my children up to believe that they have to be extremely tolerant, to have strong principles

39:58:15 After St Patrick's I started to do a pre-engineering degree at a college in Pakistan; just at that time my father was transferred to England; he was having great difficulty with his career and he chose to be transferred to an equivalent position at the Embassy; his job was to inspect and categorise industrial equipment for the industrialization of India and Pakistan, before purchasing it; he came to the Pakistan High Commission here and brought his family with him in 1954; I then went to Chiswick Polytechnic to do my 'A' levels; that is the first time I tried to get into Cambridge but found I needed Latin to do engineering; at that age you cannot wait a year to learn it, so I went to Imperial College instead; the polytechnic was a good experience because they were so kind to me; one of the things I can say about the British education system was how fair it was; I was tested by the maths teacher, Miss Tompkins, who said that I could do problems which were way above the ability of my class; she said that the polytechnic was for students who were not of top ability and were trying a second time at 'A' level; she gave me the books and her solutions book and left me to do the work; occasionally she would ask me if I understood everything, but she was wonderful, and pushed me way ahead of the others; the physics teacher did a similar thing as he thought I could understand physics, so he made me his assistant; I had to lay out the classroom for the experiments and help him to do them; I was extraordinarily lucky and they made a big impact on me; we had come in 1954 and in October 1955 I went to Imperial College to do electrical engineering

44:03:13 My sister and I had read a lot about England; we also shared a passion for cricket; we remember landing with BOAC at a hut that was then the terminal for overseas flights; then we got a bus to the centre of London, and I remember my sister saying that those were the dolls' houses, as they were like the dolls' houses that were made for us in England; we stayed at the Regent Palace Hotel in the centre of London for a couple of weeks while they found us accommodation; I remember my sister and I going downstairs to find a newspaper as we were used to doing at home; most of them looked rather parochial but we found 'News of the World' and marched up with it; my mother grabbed it and tore it to pieces and told us not to go down by ourselves again; the first impressions of England were not very positive; we used to go down to the restaurant and all the English food seemed terrible, so my sisters and I asked for fried eggs

46:36:01 Imperial College was full of inspiring people; I first came into contact with Dr Boothroyd later to be Professor Boothroyd, and he taught me transistors, which was just coming up then; also there was John Lamb, later to be Head of Electrical Engineering at Glasgow University, who taught me the physics of electronics; then there was Mr King who supervised my project; he had a big influence as he had been here at Clare College and was later to direct me to Cambridge; there was Dennis Gabor, later to have his Nobel Prize for holography, who wanted me to stay on and do a PhD with him; I was terrified of him and declined; I did well there; as always afterwards I kept telling people that the basis of engineering is mathematics; if you can do maths engineering is rather an easy subject, and I was good at maths at that point in my life; I got the top marks for maths in my year, and that was very helpful later in life as well; I worked very hard, particularly in my final year; my parents went back after a couple of years in England, and left me in charge of my younger brother; he was at Latymer School as he was six years younger, and we had a difficult time; Britain now has laws against racial discrimination, but didn't in those days, and we had a lot of trouble; I was twenty and he was fourteen, but looked older, and we had doors slammed in our faces when trying to find digs; my parents had left us in quite a nice place but we lost it due to an argument and the place was closed down; because of all the difficulties I didn't do much outside studying at Imperial College except a little sport, but I didn't have enough time to play in a team; I played in a club side with my brother at Gunnersbury Park; we were in Shepherd's Bush and there was a lot of racial tension there; I remember my brother and I nearly getting beaten up by teddy boys; it was actually our own fault as we had laughed at their clothes; I regard myself as British because I took British nationality in 1954 and have never had a link with Pakistan since then, so I am an immigrant, and the first immigrant to be elected Master of a Cambridge college; I am also proud of being the first immigrant from Pakistan to become a professor in this university; if I think back, the moment of sheer pleasure was when I was made a professor because it was such a struggle to get there; it was a personal Chair after nine years as a Reader; I was fortunate in that I got a grant from the SERC as it was then called, which included a secretary; it was such a large grant that it had management consequences; the secretary noticed that there was a letter addressed 'private and confidential'; I thought it was about my pension so left it for the day then found that, out of the blue, I was to be made a Reader; the readership could be assigned to any department that would have me; I had been in Engineering for twenty years, so thought I would like to go to the Cavendish; Ian Nicol, whom I regard as one of the great Secretary Generals of this University rang me and asked whether I was sure I wanted a change as not many people had done so; England is a very civilized country so everything is done in a civilized way when it can be; the two heads of department had lunch together and they agreed that I could change departments; this was in 1980; I think one of the most remarkable systems in the country is our higher education system, and how fair it is; it is totally without bias which we found in other aspects of life; as a great admirer of the system; I was put on the examining board of the Engineering Department when I was very young, and I was quite worried; while we were classing the students we came across someone who had done badly in one particular aspect of engineering but not too badly in my disciplines; he got a third in mine but failed in the others; the motion was put that this man should be failed; Sir John Fleetwood Baker was chairing it; he was very partial to me so that may be why I had been put on the board; I said that he hadn't done too badly in my subject; Sir John looked at me and said to me as a new member that our role was to do justice, that we were not to show any support for anyone unless we were sure that it would be a just decision, that if I felt that it would be doing justice to pass the man they would listen to me, otherwise not; he asked me to consider and give my opinion; I thought and replied that with marks that were so low this man could never become an engineer, so it would be unjust to pass him; I learned the lesson that there was no other way of judging but to do justice, and that advice has stood me in good stead.