THREE ATTRIBUTES I WISH I HAD LEARNT MORE OF FROM MY FATHER - Part 2

The second of the 3 attributes I wish I had learnt more of from my father was his exceptional honesty and integrity. 

My father retired as a brigadier from Pakistan Army. Those who have read Dr Ayesha Siddiqa's book "Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan's Military Economy", or have just close family ties to the army, would know that when a number of officer, though by no means most, retire from such a senior rank, they, and sometimes their next generation too, are more or less financially set for life. When my father retired, he had a 3rd floor flat, a lump sum amount, and a 800 cc car to his name. He was also allotted some land in rural Sindh which he never claimed. 

His pension used to be PKR 14,000 per month which in those days would have translated to about USD 240. Because three of his children, including me, were still in medical school and were to remain financially dependent on him for several more years, and my youngest sister was still to start studying computer engineering in a few years, he had to start working in a private hospital after retirement which he continued to do till a few months before he passed away. How he managed to look after us all with the financial resources he had is beyond me, but I never heard him complain. In fact, it was only about 10 years later after I moved to live in the UK and became financially independent and our relationship changed, that he started discussing all this with me more openly and I became more aware of it.

I remember that once when he was still in the Army, his army driver and I went to get our about 12-years old family car repaired. The driver pointed to a captain's (a very junior rank) brand new car and our car and made some comment, the crux of which was that in his opinion the difference between the two cars was the difference between the two men's characters.

A few months ago I was being paid some extra supplement for doing some additional work by my employers. When Covid hit, I was unable to continue doing it because of change in our working conditions. I wrote to my employer saying that they should stop paying me that supplement because I wasn't doing that additional work. When I mentioned it at our routine post-dinner sittings at home, my kids asked me why I had done that when my employer hadn't even brought it up. I said that I had learnt this from my father how important it was that no amount of Haraam (illegal) or even questionable amount becomes mixed with our income. I hope one day my children will learn the same from me.