- Where have all those men gone?
A colleague recently visited Sadiq Public School. Listening to him talk about the old school; the feelings were not very different from what Ghalib’s must have been when somebody had mentioned Calcutta. It appears that a fifteen-minute journey is still considered a long one in Bahawalpur, just as it was all those years ago. Time seems to have stopped in this sense. One way in which time certainly has moved on however is the fact that not one of the teachers who taught us is there at Sadiq anymore. This came as quite a shock but in hindsight it shouldn’t have been – it has already been more than a quarter of a century since the early nineties.
As far as I am concerned it was the teachers that made Sadiq what it was. Sure, there were the laboratories, the halls, the classrooms, the football fields and the tennis courts there but institutions are about people more than anything else. So it is that when one looks back at those days, it’s not the facilities but the teachers who come to the mind. And to think that not one of them is there anymore!
What personalities they were! Where does one start? Nazir sahab, the headmaster, summoned me to his office on my very first day itself, and explained that the roll number I had initially been allotted (421) was, for obvious reasons, certain to give a field day to my fellows (those were brutal times indeed). He arranged for it to be changed to 431. Some months later, I was again in his office, this time as the spokesperson for students who wanted the prep leave for the board exams to start early. He had employed a cricketing analogy. He had said that while being fighting fit was always of the essence, it was counterproductive if the training camp for a cricket series started too early. While I wasn’t completely convinced at the time, I had ample opportunity to verify the fact for myself through my years at the UET.
Those were the days when the movement against memorization (which is probably at its zenith now) was just starting. It was beginning to get fashionable to say that understanding was everything. The proverbial pendulum had started its return from one extreme (emphasis on rote learning) to the other extreme (trying to get rid of the memory part altogether).
Mr. Shahid Hasnain used to dictate his lectures extempore, albeit in measured lines employing just the right words. He would elaborate his points too, and when he did so he would indicate clearly that that part was not to be taken down. The beauty of it was that although the narration was of necessity piecemeal – the bell would dictate when a session must end – the narrative was seamless when one read the whole thing. In fact, it read almost like a book. He probably had the book’s architecture in his head all along, which little by little got transferred to our notebooks. His love for literature (both Urdu and English) shown through no matter what subject he was teaching.
Shehzad sahab, who taught biology, was another proponent of structured teaching. Unfortunately, he never taught our batch. To say that among all the subjects, biology was my least favourite would be a gross understatement. Serendipitously, I had chanced upon notes taken down by one of his earlier students – not very accurately with this piece here and that piece there missing. However, what was there was enough to show the structure and coherence of his teaching. If biology can be taught in an interesting and systematic manner, anything can, provided enough effort and planning. In an earlier article, I have recounted Hashmi sahab’s unique way of teaching in some detail. Sadly, he passed away some years ago.
Those were the days when the movement against memorization (which is probably at its zenith now) was just starting. It was beginning to get fashionable to say that understanding was everything. The proverbial pendulum had started its return from one extreme (emphasis on rote learning) to the other extreme (trying to get rid of the memory part altogether). Habibullah sahab would have none of it. He believed, rightly, that memorization had its part – and an important one at that – to play in studies, as it has in any other domain. He would be shocked today if he encountered the type of student that struggles with the cosine of 30 without a calculator handy.
Bashir sahab had taken an early dislike to me, for which some unfortunate circumstances and I were probably equally to blame. We were never able to put the past completely behind us. But there is no denying that he was an amazing teacher. He taught physics but was not averse to making an occasional excursion into philosophy. For example, I got the first taste of Zeno’s dichotomy in his class; although, the wise instructor that he was, he made it a point not to mention the words ‘Zeno’ or ‘dichotomy’ – bless him!
Chohan sahab had this way of solving all questions in the textbook on the blackboard, which used to be black in those medieval days. He believed (rightly) that one learns mathematics by doing more and more of it. Hafiz sahab taught high schoolers what mathematical elegance was by demonstrating that the dreaded theorems could be proved using intuitive steps. Mr. Abdullah Shah was a mathematical genius whose teaching and evaluation could be described as ruthless but fair.
Majeed sahab showed the (important) place of humour in teaching. Mr. Tariq Bhatti had a way of making you think that your question was the most intelligent question anybody had ever asked. Mr. Qamaruz Zaman, my housemaster at the Abbas House, was a hard taskmaster. But nobody could be more encouraging when somebody strove for excellence in studies, sports or literary activities. He too passed away some months ago.
I have yet to know a better speech writer than Qadri sahab. His similes, his turns of phrase, his idiom laced with historical references, his quotation of just the right lines of poetry – a tour de force in fifteen minutes! Portions of some of the speeches written by him still ring in my ears after all these years.
None of these gentlemen is at Sadiq anymore. Many would have passed on too – I know some have. It has been more than a quarter of a century. It has been a blink of an eye.
