The first word Aitzaz Ahsan learned was a catchphrase of political protest. He was an infant in 1946, when his mother was among a group of political activists imprisoned for opposing a British-appointed administrator in what was then colonial India. In defiance of their jailers, the prisoners kept up their call-and-response sloganeering. Somebody would shout out, “Khizr wazirat” (“Minister Khizr’s rule”). The rest would respond, “Tordo!” (“Break it!”). Soon little Ahsan was joining in with the chorus. Long after the independence of Pakistan and India in 1947, Ahsan’s quavering “Tordo!” echoed through the family home, a parlor trick guaranteed to amuse the guests. Aryn Baker (’01) reports for TIME.

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