Multan: Where even masons and mechanics play billiards skilfully
By Qaiser Mohammad Ali
(Indo-Asian News Service)
Multan (Pakistan), February 17, 2006: Muhammad Sarfraz works as a mason during the day and then plays billiards on one of the many tables placed on dusty footpaths -- an amazing sight in this town of Sufi saints.
Sarfraz is one of hundreds of peasants and daily wagers who play the elite game of billiards, displaying the same passion with which people play carrom or kabaddi in Indian villages and small towns.
Sarfraz had a further surprise in store when he said that there were "five-six" tables in his small village, about 30 km away where he started playing the game.
"I got hooked to billiards about one and a half years ago after reading about it in my village, Attahrah Puli," Sarfraz, still wearing his work clothes, told me even as he took the aim for his next shot.
Like a majority of the people here, Sarfraz watched the fourth India-Pakistan one-day international here Thursday - and then switched to his favourite sport and passion.
Sadly, most of the 150-odd cue sport clubs here are in a dilapidated state: walls with peeling plaster, and no chairs. Many of them have their tables on the sidewalks of dusty, busy roads.
Muhammad Saleem could be one of the craziest of people that one can possibly come across here. He has two tiny rooms and two cots to sit on in his parlour. Saleem, who makes air coolers in summer, bought two second-hand billiards tables last July after his workers "pestered" him to buy the tables - for Rs. 21,000.
Saleem, who is also a big cricket fan, thus became an "owner" of a club that has no resources or space to keep their tables. He is, however, so enthusiastic about the game that he has occupied the footpath on the main road of the Gujjar Khanda area to make up for lack of space.
"There are many clubs like mine, in Liaquatabad, Qasim Bela, old Shujabad Road and Mazoorabad where people play billiards on the footpath, unmindful of the traffic and other distractions," Saleem, a Yuvraj Singh fan, said, sitting on the cot.
Apart from the daily wagers, motor mechanics and students also visit his club daily. "On an average, 30-40 people come here every day to play."
Surprisingly, despite the craze for the sport, there are no official local championships.
"No tournament is played in Multan and there is no city association either," said Rana Qaiser while playing a game at the elite Multan Cricket Club, barely 100 metres from Saleem's parlour.
"There is no club membership here. Anyone can come and play on any of the three tables between 11 a.m. and 1 a.m.," said Qaiser, who has his roots in Hissar in Haryana, India.
One of the three people Qaiser played with Wednesday night was the Pakistan Cricket Board's chief curator Agha Zahid, who is in Multan for the one-dayer.
Qaiser said that the game in Pakistan got a boost about 15-20 years ago after Red & White sponsored a tournament in Karachi, and later when the Karachi-based Muhammad Yousaf won the World Amateur Snooker Championship in 1993.
But some people got hooked to the sport even without having heard Yousaf's name. Sarfraz is one of such people.
But Saleem and Qaiser said that Yousaf, the first Pakistani to win the world title, is widely credited with spreading the craze for the game of green baize in Pakistan after his historic triumph.
(This story won the 'Best of News Agencies' award of the Sports Journalists Federation of India in 2006.)
