This past weekend is one I
would like to forget very quickly. It took away two people I liked very much.
Prof. Obaid Siddiqi was a
celebrated biologist. He pioneered research on molecular biology, genetics and
development in India. He built institutions and trained numerous students who
will carry forward his legacy. Obaid received every possible award and
recognition one could get in India, but those did little to curb the child-like
enthusiasm he had for his own work and that of others, or to reduce his
good-natured humility even an ounce. Obaid passed away on Friday evening and we
buried him on Saturday in Bangalore.
Dr. Sabiha Saleha, or Apiya
to me, was the elder sister I never had. She was not a famous scientist, but
was equally proud of what she had achieved professionally. She was the unknown
crusader who gave up everything, including her health, to raise her children
and ensure that they get a good education and grow up to be decent human
beings. They will carry forward her name. Apiya passed away on Saturday night
and we buried her on Sunday in Aligarh.
As I reflect on these two
individuals who did not know each other and were only connected through me,
some common threads begin to emerge in my mind from the two lives and the two
deaths.
They were both educated at the Aligarh Muslim University.
Obaid was a local boy who had
his undergraduate education at AMU, excelling not just in academics but also in
leftist politics and debates (especially Urdu debates), before he left for a
job in Delhi and higher studies in UK and USA. This was the 1950s.
Apiya entered AMU immediately
after finishing her High School in Lakhimpur-Kheri in the Terai belt of UP, her
father being an erstwhile zamindar and a practicing Advocate there. Over the
next ten years or so, she came out with a PhD in Organic Chemistry. This was
pretty remarkable for a middle class Muslim girl, who was the first from her
family to achieve this distinction. This was the 1970s and early 80s.
The Aligarh Muslim University,
a hotbed of Indian Muslim intellectual activity, nurtured people as diverse as
Obaid and Apiya. It gave them a platform to express themselves and become confident
in their own ways to tackle the challenges of life. It accommodated diverse
points of view with ideological leanings being strong, yet never in the way of
personal or professional relationships. At the same time, it provided a secure
environment into which a middle class Muslim family could confidently send its
17-year old daughter. Both are as relevant today as they were then.
But these values are eroding
in times when they are needed the most, at AMU, in India and the world. Is it
not our duty to preserve them locally and apply them globally? Perhaps the
custodians of institutions as well as the self-appointed custodians of faith
and morality should ponder over this with some honesty.
They both succumbed to matters of the brain.
Obaid spent his life trying
to understand the mysteries of our nervous system, especially how we remember
smell and taste. He used the fruitfly as a model and devised simple yet
ingenious experiments to understand the genetic and molecular basis of these
processes. He was as comfortable giving a lecture on his work to accomplished
scientists as he was talking to High School and college students; I have
attended both. It is ironic that he died due to a freak head injury that
destroyed among other faculties, the same abilities he spent much of his
professional life trying to understand.
Apiya suffered from a
neurological disorder that was diagnosed about four years back. Despite all
advances in neurosciences, no two doctors from India to Saudi Arabia to USA,
agreed on her prognosis. Some called it Parkinson’s, others called it
Multisystem Atrophy and yet others thought there were iron deposits
accumulating in her brain. But all agreed that it was progressive and her
condition would deteriorate rapidly. And this did happen. When I saw her last,
about ten days back in Aligarh, her eyelids were the only body part she could move
on her own. How painful must it be to hear everything, to understand
everything, yet not be able to communicate her feelings? Yet, she had the courage
to smile, when her facial muscles allowed her to.
And they were both lucky to be surrounded by people
who loved them.
Through the five days Obaid
was in the ICU, the Bangalore Baptist Hospital witnessed a constant vigil by
his immediate family and people at all levels in the institution he created.
They were with him, hoping without hope. But they also had the moral courage
and sanity to not press charges on the 16-year old girl on a moped, who
unknowingly knocked down this giant of Indian science. What a tragedy!
Apiya required much longer
care. For over two years, her family – husband, daughters and son, tended to
her with love, often getting frustrated, sometimes losing hope, but never
really giving up on her. When the end came, her husband was there, struggling against
a condition that had progressed beyond hope. Apiya was relieved of her agony,
both physical and mental, in the wee hours of July 28.
It is said that writing can
be therapeutic. And for me it is. I will remember these two who meant so much
to me in their own ways. Expressing my association with them will hopefully
diminish some of my personal anguish.
But what about the anguish of
an institution and community in which debate and reason has taken a backseat to
guile and self-interest? Or a system that allows a 16-year old to drive without
a license? Or the anguish of a family that witnesses their loved one afflicted
by a disease that no “expert” really understands.
Can we channel our anguish
into coming together to find solutions?
