Public figures are constantly battling between their actually
personality and their projected public image. Add the terms ex-American army
and mixed martial arts (MMA), add your fair share of Hollywood imagery and you
have your stereotypical image of Bashir Ahmad.
However, rest assured that the godfather of MMA in Pakistan
is anything but the type caste martial arts athlete. His fighting career has
been well documented but here we get to see the other side of his personality.
Bashir was raised in the United States of America in an expat
Pakistani family and the culture was an integral part of his upbringing. There
has always been an emotional connection and his frequent trips also helped
further cement the bond. His earliest memory of the country is of his first
trip at the age of six when he stayed with his extended family for a month or
two and when his mother informed him that it was time to go back home, he ran
under his nani’s bed and cried his eyes out.
“When I am here I don’t really miss the United States, I do
think about my family and home for but not the country as such. However, when I
am in the U.S or anywhere else I do miss Pakistan.”
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| Copy rights WWF-Pakistan |
From an early stage he knew that he would be doing something
for the country, even though it was not clear how it was going to happen. Deep
down he believed that destiny was going to bring him here, someway of the
other. In the end MMA because the source of his journey, but becoming a
professional athlete was never on his cards, it just happened.
During his elementary school days, one day the kids were
asked to come dressed up as what they wanted to become when they grow up and
Bashir went geared up as a zoologist, with his tranquilizer gun!
So when he recently, signed up as a Goodwill Ambassador for
WWF-Pakistan, for many this might have come as a surprise, but for Bashir this
was not a decision that he needed to think about. His interest in environment
and wildlife has been quite intrinsic as far as his earliest childhood memories
go. He has been reading up on global wildlife and issues faced by planet earth,
be it our deteriorating natural resources or the impacts of over population.
His passion for environment and wildlife conservation is not something that he
got from his parents or anyone else, it has always been a part of who he is.
So how did a zoologist aspirant ended up becoming a
professional MMA fighter?
When he got to high school Bashir ended up in the group of
students whom the teachers always complained about, of not living up to his
potential. He graduated with a very low GPA but still managed to get into a
college. At college he took an army recruitment class. Someone who had always
wondered as to what life would be like in the military, Bashir decided to sign
up for some five to six years, instead of looking back and wishing he had not
passed on the opportunity. Joining the American forces turned out to be a very
positive change for him. In his own word, “The military straightened me out.”
Someone with a very low GPA, he ended up being at the top of his class and
maintained this when he left the forces and went back to complete his
education. He completed his bachelor’s degree in political science from George
Mason University and then went on to do his Masters in exercise sciences from
California University.
A great part of military training is about defending yourself
in various situations and that is how MMA first entered the picture. Someone
who always likes to go in the details of whatever he does, Bashir started
reading up on it and started training as a hobby. This hobby soon turned into
an obsession and two years into it he thought of starting to compete in MMA
competitions to help improve his martial arts skills and nothing more. However,
his journey led him to become a professional fighter and as they say rest is
history.
“I ended up in Pakistan through MMA, by using martial arts to
better people. As I think that Martial arts is a sport and way of life that can
help people physically, mentally and spiritually.”
MMA ended up becoming the source that fulfilled his destiny
of giving back to Pakistan. After coming back he opened a gym in the upscale
area of Defense in Lahore by the name of Synergy. This establishment can be
referred to as his main gym, a more commercial venture which has now developed
a good enough reputation for itself. As already mentioned moving back to
Pakistan was never about just following a business opportunity and what
exemplifies his vision and passion and the reason for his presences here; is
his second gym which he has established in a poor neighborhood in Chararpind
known as the Shaheen Gym.
Bashir aims to have a positive impact on the youth and
believes that if in his life time he can help change the course of life of even
only three or four kids; help them become better human beings and change their
destinies that would be a success story for him. We all live knowing and
working for our and our families’ happiness and prosperity but to be able to do
that for a handful of other people, is Bashir’s definition of a big
accomplishment.
Like the majority of us, the godfather of MMA has a love hate
relation with Pakistan. While he is passionate about his home, culture and
soil; he is quite upfront in recognizing the plethora of problems that are part
of our reality. In fact he is of the opinion that this mixed reality is what
keeps many here, especially the ones who have the choice and opportunity to
just pack and leave.
“To know that there are problems and instead of doing
something about them and just leaving for me in my heart, feels like a big
betrayal.”
Athletes have a set career scale and one can’t be an active
one for their entire life and Bashir sees this as a stepping stone for a higher
calling in life. For now he is simultaneously adopting the role of a teacher
for his students in his gyms; where along with training them in mixed martial
arts he wants to inculcate in them an awareness about the importance of environment
conservation and educate them on what positive role they can play as
individuals. This additional grooming is a combination of his own interest in
the subject and the fact that Pakistan is one of the top three countries most
effected by climate change at both macro and micro level.
The article was originally written for Newsline Magazine. This blog post is the unedited version.
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