His story
His story
Ishtiaq Ahmed Sagri was born in 1941 in Sagar, in the heart of India, six years before Partition. In 1947 his father, Abdul Sattar Sagri, brought the family from India to the new state of Pakistan and settled in Karachi, in a neighbourhood shared with friends who had made the same journey.
He was the eldest of eight children, three brothers and five sisters, and the responsibility for the family came to him early. The story still told at home is of a boy doing his schoolwork under a street lamp.
In 1974 he went to Saudi Arabia and worked for twenty years at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Dhahran, then two more with private companies. He returned to Pakistan in 1996 and later moved to Indianapolis in the United States, where he lived until September 2024. He lives in Germany now.
His five children went to school in Al-Khobar and to university in the USA and Germany. They are married and settled on three continents, and a large part of each year is spent visiting them. That is how a retired man from Karachi comes to know the bakeries of Dietzenbach, the farmers' markets of Wisconsin and the corniche at Al-Khobar equally well.
Since 2013 he has written a review of nearly every place worth remembering: what it is, how to find it, what it costs, and whether it is worth your time. Every review carries his own photographs. He owns no business and takes no payment from anyone he writes about.
"I am simply a tourist, a traveller, a sightseer, visiting places of interest, attractions, restaurants and historical sites."
Where life has been lived
- 1941Sagar, IndiaBorn in the heart of India, six years before Partition.
- 1947 to 1974Karachi, PakistanThe family's new home. The eldest of eight grows up here, and it is still the city with the most reviews outside Germany and the USA.
- 1974 to 1996Dhahran and Al-Khobar, Saudi ArabiaTwenty years at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, then two with private firms.
- 1996Back to PakistanLahore, Islamabad and Karachi appear in the index from here on.
- Until 2024Indianapolis, USAHome for many years, with Greenwood, Wisconsin, Houston and Chicago within reach.
- Since 2024GermanyDietzenbach and Frankfurt, the Rhein-Main towns, Hannover, the Harz and the Rhine.
Family chart
Family
Six generations: the paternal line from a chart in Abu's own hand, from Sheikh Babboo Khan down, and his own children and grandchildren. Three ways to look at it: branches you open one at a time, a circle that holds everyone at once, or a plain list. Tap any name to see who they are to Abu.
Names as written on the chart; daughters whose names were not written down are shown as unnamed. Corrections and additions are welcome.