“Coming Down From the Mountain”, by Mahmood Ali Ayub* – a book review

My experience of living in a British colony made me read Mahmood Ali Ayub’s 2025 book “Coming Down from the Mountain: An Autobiography” with special interest and understanding.  It allowed me an admiration for Ayub’s achievements given the similarities of paths trodden.  The education of missionary schools, elite schools, O’ and A’ levels, British “heroic” films, school plays, and debating societies makes for a foundation of familiarity.

Born in 1948 in Alamsher in Northwestern Pakistan, Mahmood was raised in the Shia Muslim faith. His father, Mohammed Ayub Khan worked as a British civil service officer and placed high importance on education including for his daughter Amina. He joined the Pakistan Foreign Service and became the  Consul in Zaidan, Iran, for five years. Ayub’s mother Feroza, from the village of  Badama, had no formal education and married his father at 15 years of age.  They had five sons Muhammad Ali, Shaukat, Ghayur, Mahmood, and Zahid, and one sister Amina.

With education being of prime importance, Mahmood started  with an elementary education at  Presentation Convent School, and St. Mary’s High School in Peshawar; the Burn Hall Boarding School in Abbottabad; Aitchison College, in Lahore; Edward’s College in Peshawar; St. Andrews University in Scotland; Manchester University;  the Pakistan Civil Service Academy in Lahore; and Yale University where he completed his PhD in 1976.

He picked up many accolades along the way, all of which speak to his brilliant education.  I understand it when he noted that he played cricket for Burn Hill School; was Head Boy and won the Debating Cup at Aitchison College; was an actor in the play “The Rivals”, and also won the Gold Medal for topping the B. A. Examination at Edwards College; was the President of the Student Representative Council, won the Willis Blair Memorial Medal for Best Student in Economics, formed a left-wing student organization called the February Group, and elected President of the United Nations Representative Council, all at St. Andrews University.

A good autobiography should cover a career, and Ayub shares his with the World Bank and UNDP.  He  joined the World Bank as a Young Professional (YP) working first in the Development Research Center and then in the Latin America and Caribbean Region (LAC)on Jamaica and Guyana.  He then became the Country Economist for Bolivia and relocated to La Paz. On return to Washington D.C., he joined the Industrial Development Strategy and Policy Division (IDSPD) before being appointed Division Chief of the Information and Technology Division.  He then moved on to North Africa to work on Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia.

Mahmood then did a stint in the Office of the Vice President of the Africa Region before being appointed as Director, Senegal, the Gambia, Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde.   After this, he became the Director, Egypt, Yemen and Djibouti, and then as Senior Director in the Office of the Vice President, Africa Region. For several reasons, he decided to retire from the World Bank after 30 years of service and joined UNDP where Kemal Dervis was the Administrator. Mahmood started in Ankara, Turkey, and then became the Director for Central Asia based in New York.  Finally, he worked as a Visiting Professor at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). At 76 years of age, the cricket-loving Ayub correctly says, “I’m satisfied with my innings”.

Mahmood writes with passion, grace, and emotion when he describes Mansoora, the love of his life, spouse, mother of his children, adviser, and life companion in arms as they faced the world.    Mansoora was born in 1953. He met her when he visited the home of a colleague at the Pakistan Foreign Service Academy. She was his daughter and attended Pakistan’s National College of Arts, and later the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn for her master’s degree. They married in April 1977 and had three children, Alia, Miriam, and Ali.  Mansoora died in 2023 of progressive neurodegenerative disease (Lou Gehrig’s Disease).

 Ayub does not write much about the loss of his son Ali in a motorcycle crash in 2017 or Mansoora passing in 2023. He noted that he was tired of economic consultancy and  turned to Persian poetry. This led to a book “Tragedy and Defiance” which explores the lives and poetry of three female poets who faced their own challenges and misfortunes.  He also reflects that he could have spent more quality time with his children. He is happy with his  two daughters, their husbands and four grandchildren.  He advocates for women’s rights and education because he is forever moved by the memory of his illiterate mother seeking to educate herself by a tutor when they lived in Zaidan, Iran.

I liked this book very much. I understood that because Mahmood’s family was “poor” on top of the mountain, he had to come down to survive and achieve. But  he will always be “rich” on the top of the mountain because of his deep roots, tribe,  family, faith, principles and values, that were cultivated so many years earlier in the mountain.

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* Mahmood Ali Ayub is a former division chief and country director, World Bank. After taking early retirement he joined UNDP, following his former boss Kemal Dervis, who had been appointed Administrator UNDP.

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KEYWORDS   Africa, art, education, Egypt, Pakistan, women rights