A year has passed since that day when Prof Deva bid adieu to this world.
Life is not the same now. He used to give instant solutions to all of us on any issue confronting all of us. His migration from Anantnag around forty years back clearly gives an insight into the vision of this man who was only focussed to give high education to all his daughters. He believed in giving financial independence to girls to make them self-sustainable. Never did he show even a slight impression of lamentation for only having daughters. He brought us up in an absolutely intellectual environment and gave us lessons of life which will remain with us forever. He is alive for us even today and we do not feel like orphans. A man of sophistication, impeccable integrity, an intellectual with qualities of head and heart enough to move a person, he fought tirelessly for the rights of women in an ecosystem full of biases and preferences, then and even now. He ensured that each one, me and my siblings, study and study well enough to settle down in our respective lives. He would always encourage us to exude confidence that largely emanated from the over all education he had acquired and the legacy he passed on to us by way of discipline that is imbibed in us. I feel privileged to say that confidence in being a woman is in my DNA and I take pride in it.
My father’s full name was a manifestation of the parental love that he received in abundance as a child. His full name was Khawaja Naseem Waheed-uz-Zaman Abdul Wahid Deva. He writes in his book, Tehreek-e-Ahlihadees, which describes the socio economic and political environment of Kashmir with particular reference to South Kashmir, that his mother used to call him Abdul Wahid, but his father, Khawaja Abdul Ali Deva, a renowned scholar and businessman, called him Waheed-uz-Zaman. This was not it. His teacher, Mohi-ud-Din Kak called him Naseem, as in a gentle breeze, that invigorates the entire classroom as if to infuse life to the wilted flowers.
Prof Deva, as he would become known later, belonged to a family of nobles whose ancestry is traced to Mir Syed Ali Hamdani, the saint who travelled from Central Asia to Kashmir in the 14th century. According to the family tree produced by Prof. Deva in his book our lineage is of a najeeb-ut-tarafain Syed family, but our emphasis has been, as my grandfather, Kh.Haji Abdul Ali Deva would stress, that Islam focuses on self-development as a human being rather than basking in fame or ancestral glory.
As was the custom, he started his education in a maktab to learn the Qur’an and Auradh-e-Fathieyah, and Persian books like Kareema, Nam-e-Haq, Punj Nameh, Gulistan, and Bostan from his early teacher, Pir Ghulam Mohiuddin Shah. Later, he went to a school and passed his grades with flying colours. After his Bachelor’s degree in science from SP College, Srinagar, he went to the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) where he acquired MSc in Chemistry, becoming the first Muslim from south Kashmir to have received a degree in physical sciences.
The AMU honed his interested in history, politics, social issues, Arabic, Persian, Urdu, geography, politics, and English literature. He immersed in world history, world wars, freedom struggles, and autobiographies of the people who moulded humanity through their avant-garde outlook. In his book, he shares many a nostalgic moment of his AMU days and his association with Dr. Zakir Hussain, the then Pro-Chancellor, who later rose to become the President of India.
During his AMU days, due to some political considerations, 14 Kashmiri students’ entry to Kashmir was barred. In addition to my father, they included Saif-ud-Din, Ghulam Rasool, Mirza Yaqoob Beg, Abdul Ghani Lone, Ghulam Qadir Parrey, Hamid-ul-lah Khan, Muhammed Abdullah Riyaz, Sana-ul-lah Dar, Ghulam Nabi Wani Gowher, Ghulam Rasool Bacha, and Ghulam Qadir Bacha. When they were finally allowed to return, writes my father in his book, he came to know that Hamid-ul-lah Khan and Ghulam Qadir Parrey had joined the National Conference. Upon learning this, “the enthusiasm of our student days waned and everybody got involved in looking for gainful employment”.
Professor Deva’s entry into government services was somewhat accidental. During one of his visits to his friend Prof Nisar Ghulam Nabi in Srinagar, the duo bumped into Prof. S L Raina, the then Principal S P College, Srinagar. Prof Raina inquired about his current vocation and upon learning that he had just completed his MSc. from AMU, invited him to join the teaching faculty. On 14 August,1959, he formally joined the services. For over thirty years he taught at various colleges including in his locality in Anantnag where he developed close personal bonds with work colleagues and intellectuals like Shooridah Kashmiri and Ghulam Muhammed Shad,G R Shah etc.
My father was the light of my life and my biggest inspiration. As a little girl, I remember him as a disciplinarian but he would treat everyone with respect and due consideration without any acquired communitarian bias or malice. This evoked a lot of respect from the people who interacted with him or who knew of him. He found various ways to lead us to the path of learning. I remember as a young girl, he introduced me to the 9 O’clock English news bulletin on the Radio Kashmir. It was difficult to understand at my age but he constantly encouraged me till I developed an ear for it. In a similar vein, he motivated us to read The Times of India and Gandhi Ji’s My experiments with Truth or Pandit Nehru’s Letters from a Father to his daughter , Das Capital and many more books. Non-fiction book reading was encouraged in our household and all my sisters used to read a lot. It was my mother who taught us Holy Quran.
Our household was unique in the sense that we grew up in a sisters’ only milieu. The birth of only daughters, never dimmed my father’s belief in our capacity or his passion for striving a better life for us. His wisdom, vision and constant direction made us what we are today.
During our youthful days, we would often run in and out of his study causing interruption to his reading or writing routine but he never reprimanded. Rather, he would usher us away with ideas that attracted our juvenile attention to find new and creative ways of spending our time and energies. He was all-around inspirational to us. As his eldest child, it was a privilege to participate in discussions with him and learn from his experiences. His memory of the world map and geography was sharp and accurate. He had a ready-made solution to every issue and his decision making capacity was excellent. His wish of getting us into medical profession and teaching, fulfilled through his children who are all well known in their individual positions.
My dad would always think hard before handing out a piece of advice or counsel. Yet, he believed one must not get bogged down in any situation regardless of the challenges. He would often say that “life is too short to be hunched over a desk all your life, you must go out into the world and experience its beauty and learn its mysteries”. Perhaps this was the reason that he took us out almost all Sundays without a fail to visit different places of natural beauty. In his post-retirement, he continued with full zeal. His brilliance radiated through our lives which continues to enlighten us to date including his grandchildren. His amazing sense of wisdom, intellect and knowledge would forever live and grow inside all of us and our children.