He was also one of the people who brought a very wildly publicised discussion of feminism to a campus.
KARACHI: I met Shahzaib Bajwa as the only other member of a book club meeting on Nabokov’s Lolita, back when we were both at LUMS. Once we realised that no one else was going to show up, we started talking about the book, school, the trials of changing your major halfway through the year and undergraduate life in general. I walked out of the meeting promising him I would come back the next time, with no doubt in my mind that there would be a next time. Shahzaib didn’t seem like the type of person to be discouraged by only one other person showing up to talk about a book. He was also one of the people who brought a very wildly publicised discussion of feminism to a campus where one of the default pastimes was sitting on a bench in front of the cafeteria and checking out the girls walking by. Sometime afterwards, he responded to a problem I had faced at the university with the following Facebook message:
“I am so sorry that you had to go through something like this. I wish I could do more. We won’t stop; today was just a beginning.”
Shahzaib is a person who many have the privilege and honour of calling a friend. Many others, such as myself, have the distinct privilege of simply having met him. I feel like the image I have of Shahzaib is one not far removed from reality: of a boy sitting alone in an auditorium with a book in his hands and a smile on his face, his enthusiasm unwavering in the face of poor attendance; of a man who stood up to a friend because it was the right thing to do.
His family has reached out to friends, acquaintances and strangers for help and requires financial assistance for long-term care in the wake of his accident in the US. He has been in a coma in a hospital in Minnesota for three months and counting, with the exact damage to his brain unknown until he wakes up, and the possibility of a very changed and difficult life ahead of him. Sharing my experiences is meant to offer the readers a glimpse into the life of someone the Huffington Post has simply referred to as a “coma patient” and an anthropology and sociology major. Shahzaib was so much more, and for all those reasons and a million others that can’t be expressed in words, he needs our help.
If you wish to donate, please log on to: http://www.gofundme.com/6t9bq8
If you wish to help in any other way, please share his story and help get the word out.
Zareera Bukhari
Published in The Express Tribune, February 16th, 2014.
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