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Tragedy of a university professor
Tragedy of a university professor
City Diary (Peshawar)
By Afzal Hussain Bokhari
In the face of the biggest tragedy of his life, the eloquent professor of English literature was absolutely speechless. He looked at the dead body of his only son and wondered. The cacti and other botanical growth on the lawns of his 13 Fort Road residence wore an air of sadness like never before. Occasionally blinking away tears from their reddish eyes, the mourners tried to understand the traumatic experience their erstwhile teacher was passing through. The tragic streak in Thomas Hardy’s novels that emerged as the element of fate was partly visible to the guests.
With his Master’s in Business Administration, 35-year-old Sa’ad was Professor Abdus Samad’s only son, understandably the recipient of all his parents’ love and attention. Working in Islamabad for a non-governmental organisation (NGO), Rural Support Programme Network (RSPN), the second week of September had been unusually hectic for the young man.
On an official tour from the federal capital, he went all the way to Gilgit and then back. From Islamabad he came to his parents in Peshawar to relax. On Friday morning, he was to attend an important meeting in the main RSPN office. He borrowed his father’s Suzuki car and set out towards Islamabad. However, after a few kilometres he took a U-turn and returned to Peshawar saying he felt too sleepy to drive. He phoned a friend, who within minutes arrived with his brand new car and offered to take him to the RSPN meeting.
As the hard luck would have it, when the two friends were driving past the humming garrison town of Nowshera, their car had a head-on collision with a speeding truck. It was with the help of documents recovered from the damaged car that the people passed on the tragic news to Peshawar. The dead bodies of the two friends were brought back home. Mobile phones wailed and the friends and relatives started converging on the sprawling Fort Road residence of the familiar university academic.
Professor Abdus Samad and his wife Ulfat, who also has her Master’s in English, are apparently steel-nerved individuals but the unexpected death of a young, healthy son, coming as it did like a bolt from the blue, left them badly shaken and disoriented. To share the immense grief, the admirers of Professor Samad arrived one after the other: Basharat Ahmad, Dilshad Khan, Inyatullah, Hameedullah and others. Most of them stayed up to the time when the dead body was laid to rest in the Defence Colony graveyard on Warsak Road.
As the irony of fate would have it, Professor Samad’s daughter Sumaira who after doing her Master’s in English, cleared the Central Superior Services and joined the district management group (DMG), had just ended her vacation in Pakistan and flew back to Manila in Philippines where she was doing her doctorate. The guests grimaced in pain when they heard that the head-on collision in Nowshera and the landing in distant Manila almost coincided.
After her Master’s, Sumaira probably in an attempt to improve upon her written expression, worked briefly on the editorial page of a local English-language newspaper. One is not sure how the experience refined or ruined her expression but she conveniently cleared her competitive examination and went into the country’s coveted civil service.
In order to share the moments of grief, Professor Samad’s brother Engineer Rafi-us-Samad and a sister with a MBBS degree flew in from Karachi along with their children. Being eldest in the family, Samad had supervised the education of his brother and two sisters, one of whom (also a doctor) died in Karachi some time back.
After doing his MBA, Sa’ad for some time taught Economics at the Edwardes College, Peshawar. Later, when he was offered a better package in Islamabad, he left so to speak for greener pastures. RSPN and other NGOs in the federal capital have acquired the services of capable and energetic professionals who undertake extensive tours of the neglected places, gather the vital statistics, prepare reports and brainstorm on how to support the rural community.
An unassuming and self-respecting person, Professor Samad taught for many years at Peshawar University’s English Department. He did his Master’s from India’s Nagpur University and has a refreshingly liberal and enlightened approach towards the day-to-day affairs of life. Due to his outspoken temperament, he has made powerful friends and foes.
In Peshawar University and outside of it, you will find people who adore him for his liberal, progressive and enlightened approach. On the other hand, there is no dearth of people who dismiss him as an atheist, secular and Godless man. However, when you personally meet him and join him into a discussion of academic nature, you somehow feel that both the schools of thought have drawn their conclusions about him in a hurry.            Â
Although he has been acting as the paper-setter of various universities and the Public Service Commission yet after retirement from active university service, he has been feeling some measure of alienation and disorientation. As a remedy, he travels frequently to Karachi which in comparison to Peshawar is perhaps a more open and enlightened city of genuine scholars.
An avid reader all his life, Professor Samad has not lost his love for books even after two surgical operations of his eyes. So varied and amazing are his choices that in search of good reading and refreshing ideas he does not restrict himself to English poetry or novels. For the past few years, Stephen Hawking, for instance, has been one his most favourite writer. “Time Machine” and other books by the invalid British Physicist can be seen on Professor Samad’s shelf.
Professor Samad’s wife, Ulfat, belongs to the famous Qazi family of Peshawar. After her Master’s she also taught English in a women’s college for some time. She is a highly caring woman and personally knows all the close friends of her husband. Any visitor to her residence cannot return without being served with tea, food or cold drinks depending on the time of the visit. May God bless the Samads with the health and fortitude to bear the loss of their beloved son!