‘You can kill the man, but not the hearts he has touched’

Just another day, another house, another car. Two motorcycle riders with guns take aim, fire and escape. But the man they kill is not just any other man. Shabih ul Hassan was not just a writer of over 50 books, managing director of a private group of colleges, a former teacher at Government College, Forman Christian College and Government Township College, he was the reason why many loved Urdu. Hassan was the son of renowned poet Syed Waheed ul Hassan Hashmi and had devoted his life to promoting and teaching Urdu. It was not just a subject he taught, it was his passion.
Many intellectuals, poets, critics, politicians expressed their grief over his death but those who will really suffer are the students who have not just been deprived of one Urdu professor, but of a reason to love Urdu and to appreciate its intricacies and beauty in a time when there are not many around who can do as much as speak the language properly.
“Write me a one-page-long application in Urdu and I will find ten errors in it. This is what I do for living,” he said to me on the day I met him for the first time.
By the time I had studied for two years from him, I had started reading Urdu novels, not out of any compulsion to score well in my examinations, but because I had found a reason to love the language after spending 16 years in an education system that had only succeeded in making me open my Urdu book a day before the examination.
And for me, and for many others who had the honour of studying from him no matter how briefly, this was his greatest achievement.
His father was renowned for writing marsia and he went many steps ahead and not only wrote books on marsia, but also on poetry in general, critical essays on some major literary works newspaper articles. He was also a great hockey player in his youth. Where many poets tend to be eccentric, Dr Shabih reached out to students, to his colleagues and to any and everybody who had happened to come across him in their life.
His car was stolen once, and he would crack jokes about it. Never once did a frown appear on his forehead over his loss. He never scolded or mocked and in times of trial, his characteristic smile and a glimmer in his eyes would light up his countenance.
“He was like light, one could not imagine being sad while he was around,” a student, Huma Akbar, said.
“There is nobody alive now who would tell me the difference in the pronunciation of ray and aray, Dr Shabih was much more than just a teacher. He was a friend and father too,” Raheem Ahmad said.
“Those who killed him are the enemies of humanity. They do not know how many hearts they have broken and breaking hearts is a sin in every religion,” said Sibt-e-Hasan, another student.
“He was the father of Urdu,” said Zohra Akmal, “for me, the language is now an orphan.”
Dr Shabih has been laid to rest, cases have been registered, the culprits will never be caught. Soon, people will forget all about this incident and life will move on.
What will live is the love Dr Shabih’s student had for him and because of this love, the little seedlings of love for Urdu that he planted in thousands of hearts every single day of his life, will soon grow into strong trees. Nobody can shoot this love down.
Rest in peace, my dearest teacher.