Till 1965, I knew nothing about “ARCHIVE” the kind and the nature of work, because this subject is not taught elsewhere in Pakistan. This is an important subject in the advanced world, where museums on different topics/fields are maintained. During the September, 1965 Indo-Pak war, on Kashmir issue, I kept collecting Urdu and English dailies, foreign weeklies etc. aiming that these published photograph of the actual war will serve as an Archive, Poetry (poems) on war etc. It came to my mind that this printed material be saved in a proper way. Again a spark kindled my mind that a history can be prepared from this material. Keeping the idea of a “History” it came to my thought that photographs and historical printed material from the days of the “Pakistan Movement” if collected and added to the September 1965 war record , it will be a novel history work. I managed that with my utmost efforts in 1965-66 and in 1967; I obtained four months earned leave from my department and compiled the work in a proper way, sequence and date wise.

I, named this compilation/pasting ”A Pictorial History of Pakistan” It contains 12500 photographs, articles, narrations, and pomes etc. about Pakistan. It was in April, 1988, when, I took this archival work with me to UK. During my 7 months round the world tour. When, I was in London, Dr. Bangel the curator of the India Office Record (British Library) London invited me at his office along with the pictorial history of Pakistan. He called 4-5 professors from the Afro-Asian Studies Section of the library for discussions with me. All were so happy and pleased that they provided a micro-fish of this archival work to me. Also, they appreciated this effort of mine.

Again in September 1989, returning back from Canada, when I reached Washington, the management of the Library of Congress, also invited me and wished that the pictorial history of Pakistan, be shown to them. Here too, the Afro-Asian studies department, appreciated the work and wished to keep this in the library of Congress. Regretting this proposal, I told the library Authorities that this belonged to Pakistan and will be kept there. The second big work in the field of “ARCHIVE” that I took in hand was the bloody “Earthquake” of October 8, 2005 (R. scale 7.6) in Azad Kashmir and Hazara Division of Pakistan. Five districts in Pakistan four districts in Azad Kashmir were badly hit by this Earthquake killing as many as 80 thousand peoples, injuring about 1 lakh fifty thousand, left 30 thousand as handicapped. Over 10 lakh peoples were left with no house to live in. Five lakhs migrated to other places in Pakistan and Azad Kashmir in search of a shelters Aftershocks/tremours continued till 20th Oct, 2005. A doomsday prevailed in Balakot, Muzaffarabad, and Bagh plus adjoining areas. Having heard these news almost all NGO’s, govts, organizations and advanced whole world came out for the help including Turkey, USA, U.K, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Canada, Japan, UAE and many others. The world raised about 5.6 billion US dollars. The government of Pakistan immediately established a cell under its authority known as Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) under a serving Lt. General. In Azad Kashmir too, a similar authority namely State Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (SERRA) was notified, funds collected for the purpose, it is learnt that funds were partially shifted towards certain other projects like Banzir Income Support etc. Affected people at their huts and home as well as in commercial places Reconstruction Plans by ERRA and SERRA are not yet in sight though a period of six years has elapsed. I am hardly concerned with the issue as above, I am going to bring into your notice that from the 8th Oct, 2005 onward till 2010 mid, I kept purchasing five national dailies viz, the Nation, the News Islamabad, the daily Jang, the daily Nawa-e-waqt etc. I also I kept collecting the weekly time and News-week plus certain magazines from the modern world. So many books were published on the subject in Pakistan and Azad Kashmir. It took me six months in sorting out and printed photograph, articles, reports, editorials etc. on this Earthquake. A newspaper size register of 500 pages was used for pasting these clippings in a systematic line. About forty thousand rare photographs and printed material is now available at one place. This archive is useful for research scholars as well as people having interest in the field of geology or social sciences.

University students of Geology department, may be interested in doing MPhil or PHD in any topic under this head viz the “Earthquake”. So, my labour, interest, hardworking can be useful for researchers.

Apart from these two archival works, about 7 more works of similar nature are in my archives library like History of Kashmir, Prominent events of Pakistan etc.