It was Agha Bashir. He was no criminal or terrorist. He had no feuds with anyone. He was an asset to this country.
KARACHI: He was man of short stature. He probably had a very limited wardrobe, so we found him in the same attire most of the time. Dress pants of brownish or greyish colour and a white dress shirt with some unimpressive lines. Old school. His eyes were gentle and dark brown. He had a funny walk and would often come to class in slippers. It is funny to see someone wearing a formal attire, but not formal shoes.
He discouraged any discussion of religion in class. Farhad and I saw him as more of a Sufi. When we first became his students, he would start the classes with a most pleasant routine. He had a diary. He would never open it without reading Bismillah. Then would select out a couplet of his liking and would write it on the board, as we would stand in awe of the Persian language. And upon finally seeing the words, begot several hundred years ago by Hafiz, Rumi, or Saadi, we would quickly write them down with great discomfort as the script would be known but the words would be unfamiliar. He would help us read. We would be struck and amazed by the beauty.
He was not the best teacher. He was not good at following course outlines or explaining points of grammar. But he was still great at what he did. That’s because he would help us see what we needed to look for as students of a foreign language. He would say to the anxious ones in class, “Why do you worry about exams? Just learn Persian!”
He had poor Urdu. He would not be able to say a sentence in Urdu without repeated use of the phrase, “kya hai keh”. He also couldn’t pronounce the nun ghunnah. Instead he made a distinct, throaty flat sound for all first, second and third person auxiliary verbs in Urdu. It made us feel like he was a foreigner. He was a native Persian speaker. Yet he was Pakistani. He left no doubt in our mind about this last fact. That’s because he would use pronouns such as ‘us’ and ‘we’ when talking of Pakistan. I didn’t know he was from Baltistan until after I was told.
My heart is breaking as I write about him in the past tense. He was shot dead, along with his brother, whilst they were on a motorbike. Once when chatting till late outside the institute, we friends saw him come out, greet us and urge us to talk in Persian. Soon his brother came to pick him up and they zoomed off on a motorbike as the winter dusk of Karachi grew darker.
He would always welcome students in to have a conversation even if we had no administrative work. I have had a few very good conversations with him. Once his daughter was ill at the same time my son was and we would inquire of their health. He was surprised to know I had a son. I was surprised both the children were of the same age. Once I spoke to him about my grandparents. And this was in Persian.
But one conversation, most of which I have forgotten now, haunts me right now. In my typical country-bashing mode I must have been complaining about something that happened or saying that I want to leave this place, when he said in perfect confidence and belief, “Don’t say this. Everything will become okay.” How ironic that a man as positive as him, as deep as him, as kind and sweet as him, should be murdered. Shot. And not just once; his body was ruined. His two daughters would behold their father’s body torn apart by pieces of metal.
I am writing this today to add a human to a number. Every day we read some number of people killed the day before in the newspaper. But we don’t know these people. They aren’t human, really. They are not our friends.
Think of the airport incident this week. I was upset about the airport incident but what I wasn’t upset about was those five guards who were killed in the first go. I don’t know them. They don’t matter. And as the same day as this national tragedy I learnt of Agha Bashir’s untimely death.
We knew Agha Bashir. He introduced us to the beauty of Persian. We knew of his family and his love for poetry. We couldn’t imagine the hallways without him. They weren’t just two men shot on a motorbike. It was Agha Bashir. He was no criminal or terrorist. He had no feuds with anyone. He was an asset to this country. He was one of those few in Pakistan who did their job to the best of their ability, who knew right from wrong, who read and thought and wouldn’t hurt anyone. One wonders who are the beasts who would want to hurt someone like Agha Bashir.
Zohaib Zuby
Published in The Express Tribune, June 13th, 2014.
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