Contributed By: Dr. Equbal Wajid
Malika Rehana [the Lecturer of History] had prepared variety of programmes to stage for the Governor, one of them I still remember. It was a tableau, 8 to 10 girls aged between 12 to 14 were set to appear upon the stage dressed like birds. They were looking so good and beautiful that it went deep into the memories. These girls came up on the stage and pretended as they are about to fly in the sky. From the back ground the voice of Malika Rehana thrilled the souls of the audience:
“PANCHI BANEGE …..BANCHI BANEGE …… DO DO PANKH LAGA KE
HUM PUNCHI BANEGE” [ We shall become birds ….we shall become birds…. Getting a pair of feather…..we shall become birds…..]
Malika Rehana [Lecturer of History] was a real artist. She had learned to play HARMONIUM and singing songs. Although she never made it her carrier, rather than it was her hobby. This tableau prepared by her denotes a profound and deep desire of the mankind, a desire to fly which consequently appears in the deep of our soul because of somewhere in the life we like to emerge as a flying object. When we see our imagination in a visual effect our soul thrills. On its every step, and in its each line the tableau gave the message that the desire of the mankind is unlimited and that it is impossible to fill all of them.
When the Governor was called upon the stage it was quite silence. The audience were silent. Dr. Syed Hasan came on the mike. He gave a brief history of the inception of the School and recalled that the Governor was a senior to Dr.Syed Hasan in Jamaia Milliya Islamia, then he called him to the stage. An small model of an wooden wheel made by the carpenters of Village Chakla, and packed with glass from all sides was presented to the Governor as a memory of Kishanganj. He was told that the wooden wheels of carts made of Chakla is a famous product in Kishanganj as it is said that the wheels of Chakla had been brought to England in the British rule.
The Governor spoke for 40 minutes. The security personals said that the His Excellency the Governor has never spoke for 40 minutes in any of his programme in Patna, since he is sworn in as a Governor. He greeted the people of Kishanganj, the teachers, the students and all of them including Syed Hasan on the successful establishment of a quality standard Institution.
He said in his speech:
[Gandhi Ji ne Primary Education per zor diya tha, Gandhi Ji ki Primary Education ki theory ko aage barha ya Dr.Zakir Husain ne Basic Education ki surat me, aur mujhe khushi hai ke Dr.Syed Hasan ne Dr.Zakir Husaain ki theory ko amli jama pahnaya Insan School ki shakal mien.] “ Mahatma Gandhi’s theory of Primary Education, was brought up by Dr. Zakir Hussain [ The President of India] in the name of Basic Education, and I am glad to see that Dr. Syed Hasan, in the shape of Insan School, brought up the theories of Dr. Zakir Hussein into practice.”
The Governor said :
“MUJHE AFSOS HAI KE MAIEN NE QAUM KI KHIDMAT KI WO RAAH CHOR DI AUR DOOSRI RAH IKHEYAR KI, MAGAR IS RAH MIEN MUJHE NOUJAWANO KI SLAHIYATON KE SMAJHNE KA MAUQA MILA” [I regret that I left the way of ‘Service to the Nation’ taught by Jamia MIlliya Islamia and acquired another way, in which I learned to understand the qualities of youths.]
He told this because he had been the Chairman of the Union Public Commission for several years. The next day the Governor left for Patna.
After a month or two of the Governor’s visit, Dr. Syed Hasan was asked to submit his Bio-Data to the DM Kishanganj. Then the Bio-Data was sent to the Governor officially through the DM Kishanganj. Later on we came to know that his name was recommended for the Padamshree award form Bihar and after some time we came to know that Dr. Syed Hasan was awarded the Padamshree award. The award was given to him by the President of India in the Rastrapati Bhawan, New Delhi.
When the Governor left the institution, Dr. Syed Hasan told us that now our next target is the President of India. The President of India will be the next VIP to attend Insan School. Why Dr. Syed Hasan told us that the President of India shall be the nest VIP to attend Insan School, because the teachers may not regard the Governor’s Visit as a climax . Naturally after the climax the interest gets down, so he liked us always to be in the future, and look for the other climax.
The year the Governor visited the Insan School a huge fire broke at night and burnt each and every thing in the high school Campus. In my life span I had never seen such a fire break. We were in deep sleep at College Campus. We awoke with some strange sounds. As we come out our room we saw the sky burning. The east horizon was full of flame. We rushed to the fire and then saw that the High School Campus is burning. The flames were talking to the sky. We were just waiting in the ground to see what happens next. Nobody was able get the fire off. There was no question to get the fire under control, until it gets off automatically. Although the students and teachers were trying to through water through buckets on the fire but it was least to get it off.
A teacher of Mathematics and a virtual Sufi [ mystic] Taqi Bhai, threw water up on the roaring flames with a cup. He threw some fists of dust upon the fire saying loudly “ALLAH O AKBER”. Although the students were laughing upon him the next day, but he was true because he did it with his religious conviction. When the campus was burning the students and teachers were trying just to stop the fire to spread, so they demolished and smashed downed some more huts in the row which could come in its way. The fire cooled down. I remember the fire-fighters came late. When it was nothing to save. The biggest problem was to see whether some students came under the fire or not. The students of the hostel were called and when the teachers took the attendance they were glad that here was no loss of life.
Nobody can say what was the reason of the fire break. But there were some assumptions that enemies of the humanity may have done this shameful work. The loss of three hostels shaken the school, but the unshakable man, the hero of the Institution never wanted to change his strategy of running the institution in bamboos huts. Next day morning he arranged the classes up on the ashes and remains of the burnt hostels. The students read and the teachers taught them up on the ruins of the huts.
Even after a big warning the educational guru expanded the whole institution into more bamboos huts. As if he could have become fond of it. He always looked for the beauty and simplicity coming out of the bamboos huts and ignored the risk factors which were laying side by side. As a result after 25 or 30 years the bamboos huts destroyed and they left the huge land behind them. The land up on which the Insan College run for years, the land up on which the hostel was get made . The land up on which separate class wise campuses were run they all turned into school’s agricultural lands. Who can undermine the importance of agriculture? So if the College and School extended campuses are turned into agricultural lands it doesn’t matter in the success of the School and College. Dr. Syed Hasan succeeded 100% because the Bamboos huts were destroyed not the land, so most wisely he used the land for agriculture which is the biggest source of the Indian Economy.(to be continued)
In Part 18 of his posts Equbal Bhai has made a mention of the fire which consumed the better part of the High School campus 28 years ago (such long time! umr-e-rawaan thahr zara....).
ReplyDeleteIt was an accidental fire which started from the bed of a student in the hostel Peace House whose warden was Naim Bhai. The monstrous ferocity of the blaze quickly spread to completely reduce to ashes the hostels Iqbal Manzil and Seva Sadan too (what beautiful names :-) above all, it was an aesthetic joy to live in that campus).
It so happened that a boy, who was tel (oil) monitor (i.e., the one who rationed the kerosene amongst the inmates of the hostel), had remained engrossed in some smutty literature till about the midnight hour. He became drowsy and dozed off without removing the kerosene lamp from his pillow side. As he stirred in sleep , the burning lamp tumbled over, spilling kerosene on bed. The bed sheet caught fire. The hem of the the mosquito net which, i guess, was hanging down from the edge of the cot, carried the fire under the bed where a canister brimming with kerosene embraced the flames...and thus began the inferno which gutted the entire High School campus except the hostel Dar-us-Salam which was situated a bit away from the direction in which the fire spread.
Now, how that cursed canister found its way under the bed of that boy? Well, as i said earlier, he was the tel monitor--the one who rationed kerosene amongst us. He has been indulging in the petty mischief of hoarding the kerosene. His room was always better lit than ours.
As it raged and roared, most of us stood frozen in awe of the fury of fire. Some of us were able to shake themselves from the daze of helplessness and threw buckets of water on the leaping tongues of flame. Some were wise enough to raze to ground the huts in the forward location of the line of fire in order to block its seemingly unstoppable march.
The dawn which broke upon us, saw us glowing in the glory of having emerged unscathed, physically and morally, from an agni pariksha. We strutted around with an air of un-put-down-ability. I must add, the atmosphere acquired a tinge of celebration. (After all, marg e anboh jashne daarad!).
Later in the morning when we retrospected, the heated environment ignited our imaginations into flaring fantasies. Burning tales were woven. Theories of conspiracies and sabotage abounded amongst the people. The falmboyant weavers of tales and raconteurs of stories had a field day as the credulous lent them eager ears.
There was a senior of ours by name Ramakant. He had an irrepressible panache for telling tales. He conjured up one of the most plausible figments. If i may paraphrase him his stories ran something like this....when he went out to micturate at about 11:30 or so, his sharp eyes saw the shadowy silhouette of a suspicious figure lurking in darkness at some distance. Not only that, his nostrils, as sensitive as his eyes were sharp, caught a whiff of kerosene in the air too....and so on and so forth.
I vividly remember, when a room-mate of mine pulled my quilt to shake me from sleep as he rushed out of the room, I sprang up from the bed not knowing what hit us. As i too rushed out of the room, i saw the boy from whose bed the fire started pulling out his burning chaadar and toshak out of the room. (We lived in the same hut which had three compartments cum rooms.) We too pulled out our little belongings and dumped them in the courtyard. At that time the fire was limited only to that boy's bed. We did not realise it would become so big, so soon. The time was about 12:30 AM of the night between 15 & 16 March 1982, exactly a month after the Governor's visit to the school.
Why am i telling all this now? Well, my sense of history compels me to do so. Digar daana e raaz aayad ke naayad :-)
Najmul Hoda (1980-85)