By Syed Rashid Husain
Dr. S.M.S. Zoha, fondly referred to as the
baba-e-pharmacy in Pakistan, the founding dean of the faculty of
Pharmacy, University of Karachi, revered and loved by his thousands of
students, and dreaded and despised by some of his ‘friends’ –
for his was a truly towering personality amidst the Lilliputians to be
found all around, breathed his last in Karachi on
Tuesday the 2nd of November 2010.
During the hey days of the University of Karachi,
while Dr. Isthiaque Hussain Qureshi was at the helm, Dr. Zoha was
regarded as one of the pillars of Karachi
University. Dr. Qureshi was instrumental in bringing Dr.
Zoha into the University fold. And when he moved into the University,
the salary that was on offer was one third of
what he was getting at his then job. Decades later, in 80s, I
once asked Dr. Zoha what prompted him to take up the university job at
one third his earlier salary? And the answer remains
ingrained in mind to this date: ‘I wanted to live for
posterity and indeed I may have wanted to be driven in a chauffer driven
Mercedes, yet that was not my need. My requirements could
easily have been met by a rickshaw taking me to the
University,’ the old fashioned that Dr. Zoha was said, rather
emphatically.
Before moving to the university, Dr. Zoha was
heading the Daudkhel Penicillin factory, the first antibacterial
producing factory in Asia. Dr. Zoha was asked by a UN subsidiary to
take up the assignment, of bringing Pakistan into the
coveted club of the few antibacterial producers in the world then. And
this is exactly what Dr. Zoha did.
When the first batch of penicillin was produced in
Daudkhel, he was so confident of its quality that in front of people who
had gathered there to celebrate the dawn of a new era
in Pakistan, he injected this penicillin to his eldest son
–Tariq – who was down with fever and infection then.
Dr. Zoha was proud of Daudkhel and he remained so
till his last breath. The miracle of Daudkhel was though possible due to
personal support of the Nawab of Kalabagh, Dr. Zoha used
to openly concede, for he had given ‘the doctor’ a free hand
to do whatever was required to get the miracle happen. And once the
Nawab was gone – Dr. Zoha was also ejected out of the
project and ultimately the entire project died. Had
bureaucracy allowed the project to continue and prosper under the
guidance of Dr. Zoha, Pakistan’s stature in the chemical industry
would have been different today. We were significantly ahead
of India and others in the region, Dr. Zoha kept lamenting till his
last.
When I entered the corridors of Pharmacy as a
student in 1980, the name of Dr.Zoha continued haunting the place. He
was gone for almost five years then. In the mid 70s, not
conceding to the growing muscular student politics on the
campuses of Pakistan, he became increasingly isolated. The Ishtiaque
Hussain Qureshi era was gone and a new breed was in power at
the campuses. Student politics was undergoing significant
changes. Dr Zoha did not fit into this emerging milieu.
It was during those days, while a bunch of students,
including Altaf Hussian, the current MQM supermo, staged a hunger
strike to get admission into the faculty of pharmacy.
Apparently the hunger strike was staged at behest of the
right wings students’ organisation Jamiat. Those were Shafi Naqi
(currently of BBC Urdu) days at the University. He was the
strongman, the President of Karachi University students
union and was believed to be close to Dr. Mahmood Hussain, the then Vice
Chancellor at the University of Karachi too. It is not a
hidden fact that Dr. Zoha and Dr. Mahmood Hussain were not
on the best of terms, since their University of Dacca days.
And when Dr. Zoha remained unflinching on giving
admission to the protesting students, Shafi Naqi got a letter from the
Vice Chancellor granting admission to the protesting
students. And when my dear, good, personal friend Shafi Naqi
approached Dr. Zoha with the letter, I am told that Dr. Zoha, trembling
in fury with that letter in his hand, underlined,
‘Shafi, you are not a trade union leader and I am not a
factory manager. You are a student and I am a teacher, and the
relationship stays so.’ And with this he tore apart that letter.
This was the old fashioned Dr. Zoha who was both extremely
close and purposefully aloof to his students. His era at the University
was virtually over now.
Ultimately a campaign against 3 Zs – Zoha, Zaidi and
Zain, was launched and Dr. Zoha had to leave. He even felt threatened
and unsafe. His cronies in the corridors of power wanted
him to go – for he was unbending and old fashioned. He
landed in Tripoli in Libya and again was entrusted with building and
launching the department of Pharmacy there too.
When I entered the faculty of Pharmacy, University
of Karachi in 1980, Dr. Zoha was already gone for almost five years. Yet
his presence was to be felt everywhere. To the
detriment of a few, his ghost was still haunting the
corridors of pharmacy.
And then in the early 80s he was back from Libya.
One day in the corridors of the faculty, one could recall seeing a
short, stocky figure, in his Jinnah cap, standing, surrounded
by the teachers of the faculty. It was difficult to fathom
who he was – yet one thing was clear to us – the junior most students
too – he was someone special to the faculty. And soon it
was all known; he was back and was endeavouring to resume
teaching at the faculty. That was big news. Yet he could return to
teaching at the very faculty, he almost founded singlehandedly
after surmounting stiff opposition from some of his
erstwhile colleagues – many of whom were appointed by him. Yet the
inevitable happened and this was his second homecoming – to the joy
of students like me who had until then only heard of his
name.
And during the intervening period, I had the
opportunity to get to know him personally. I wrote a letter, delineating
the role of Pharmacists in the health system in the ‘Letter
to the Editors’ column of this newspaper. Not many took
notice of that letter – but Dr. Zoha did. One day while attending
pharmaceutics lecture, one of the teachers asked; did you write
that letter? And when the answer was in affirmative, he said
that Dr. Zoha had passed on this letter to him, asking to find out who I
was. The teacher then suggested I should go and see
Dr. Zoha – who used to live then at Park View apartments
near NIPA. And in the later years, I could see that small Park View
apartment being transformed into almost pilgrimage point, a
Makkah for the students, practitioners and the teachers of
Pharmacy.
And when the news came in that a group of professors
were staging hunger strike in front of the VC’s office, so as to obtain
a pay hike, I recall seeing him in tears. ‘We the
professors, would lay out our green gowns in front of the
VC’s office and stage protest to get a few hundred bucks in crease in
our salaries. Come on, to what low level intellectually, we
the professors have stooped to.’
And during his second stint too in the university
too, he was not beyond controversies. He was the old fashioned teacher –
who wanted students to attend classes on a regular
basis. And when the final examination of the final year
students of 1984 batch was approaching, he declined to permit those with
less than the required attendance to take the exams. The
students barred from taking the paper were mostly from the
entire political spectrum active in university those days. For they were
the people who usually did not attend classes –
instead, taking care of their political activities.
This was bound to create furore and so it did. There
were mass protests – as was anticipated. Dr. Tirmizi was at the helm
then as Vice Chancellor. Dr. Zoha was a different breed.
And when the VC finally opted for a compromise owing to the
political pressures, the old, feeble Dr. Zoha stood up in one of the
Senate meetings and said, ‘Tirmizi do you know that the
position that you are in today has been graced by people
like Abba Haleem and Dr. Qureshi. What a shame that such small people
have come to occupy high positions.’ And thus by registering
his protest, Dr. Zoha stormed out of the meeting, paving way
for Dr. Tirmizi to strike a compromise with student pressure groups to
calm things down.
This was Dr. Zoha that I knew. He was not the
routine professor – he was the fatherly figure, the mentor, and the
disciplinarian, who helped carved out hundreds of gems from
amongst his students. And this he continued doing until the
last day of his life.
Some blamed Dr. Zoha to be egoistic too. This piece
is not to defend or justify him – it is just meant to be just a tribute
to a teacher from a student – that’s it and nothing
more. But aren’t empire builders tend to be somewhat
egoistic? And Dr. Zoha was truly an empire builder – one can’t deny.
