The school’s activity room buzzes with chatter, rustling paper and clipping scissors as preparations for teacher’s day, falling this year on October 5, are in full swing.

As I help Ms Saba, a fellow staff member at our school, cut chart paper, I ruminate about an inspiring figure from my own student life.

Dr Surriya Shafi Mir was a founding member of the English Department at GIFT University, Gujranwala (formerly known as the Gujranwala Institute of Future Technology), besides being a prominent figure in the field of English language studies, linguistics and phonetics. She also served as former dean of Government College University (GCU), the Kinnaird College for Women, Virtual University, and the Forman Christian College (FCC) in Lahore.

After a career spanning five decades, she passed away on November 15, 2019.

With Teachers’ Day coming up on October 5, a young teacher recalls a teacher who made a difference in her own life

Now, a swarm of bittersweet memories engulfs me. I am among the last of the generations of students that Dr Shafi taught. From 2017-2019, I completed three graduate level courses under Dr Shafi’s tutorship. A frequent front-bencher to her classes, I sat quietly, absorbing course concepts as well as aspects of her awe-inspiring personality.

She belonged to a generation of professors who we, as the younger lot, did not fully understand. At times, we felt that her old-school rules, such as observing pin-drop silence, using hard-copy textbooks and sharpened pencils, and demonstrating rapt listening, were unnecessary. We only realised later the values she taught us.

It was difficult not to be drawn to her after a few meetings with her. Her passion for work, her dedication to teaching and learning, and her zeal for life, even in her late seventies, displayed her unwavering energy and enthusiasm. She would deliver up to three 75-minute sessions after a daily three-hour, bone-crunching commute from Lahore to Gujranwala, despite the administrative duties her deanship piled on her.

“I lived near the campus, but would rush for Dr Shafi’s 7am class,” says Sabir Hussain, who works at a career consulting agency in Gujranwala, and was her student in 2018. “She would arrive five minutes before class in rain or shine.”

Bluntness was another striking trait of hers. Dr Shafi would say exactly what was on her mind, without a worry, any hesitation or fear of judgement. She loved witty replies to match her sharp wit and sense of humour. More than her explanations of theories and principles, her students remember her articulate conversations, her satire and sharp observation about anything under the sun.

You had to be fully prepared for her fast-paced lessons, packed with intriguing concepts, or else you could lose your footing. Since Dr Shafi had a strong connection to her roots, she often chose Punjabi for her humour and sarcasm.

“Jerra twaada chacha mama betha ae academy wich, onay pass nai karana twaanu [That uncle you might think you have working in the academy is not going to help you clear this course],” she often warned us.

“Adda mulk peer ae te adda beemaar ae [Half the country comprises witch-doctors and the other half is sick]” and “Kitab nu hath lao te twaanu current maar dee ae [You’re so reluctant to touch books as though they are going to electrocute you]” were among her signature remarks to us, which kept us in tune with the Punjabi vernacular, never failed to amuse us and generated profuse laughter in her classes.

Dr Shafi mostly dressed in soft colours, knee-length qameez and white dupattas, her spectacles and her snowy bob adding grace to her petite persona. She preached and practised honesty. Rules were rules, and nothing would change her mind about bending or breaking them.

“She always valued honesty and didn’t much care about outward appearances of people,” recalls Khizer Shahzad, a CSS student from Gujranwala, who was also her student in 2018.

Behind her stern demeanour, Dr Shafi wanted young Pakistani women to grow and prosper. She advocated learning through examples and concepts and not through rote, conceiving ideas instead of copy-pasting, and moving on from understanding to creating and inventing.

“You simply must read” and “Always keep your ears and eyes open,” she would insist. “Whenever I bumped into her in the hallways, she would recommend a book or a magazine to read,” says Hira Shafique, a college teaching intern from Qila Didar Singh, Dr Shafi’s student in 2016. “‘Flip through the pictures, if you don’t have time to read, so that you know what’s going on in the world,’ she would say.”

We may have compared Dr Shafi’s classes to a military drill, cribbed about her tough exams and her authoritarian teaching style, but we all knew that, behind the steel exterior, was a kind and gentle human being. The very last encounter I had with Dr Shafi truly reflects the warmth and compassion that she had for everyone, and especially her students.

A foggy evening in 2018 found me anxiously pacing the semi-dark, freezing hallways of the university, because of the sudden news of an emergency at home.

“Sweetheart, where are your coat and socks? You’ll catch a severe cold,” a reassuring voice and a gentle hand on my arm, greeted me. I turned around to find Dr Shafi surveying me with an inquiring look, an affectionate smile playing on her face. She took me to her office and consoled me. As I bid farewell to her, little did I know that we were speaking for the last time.

Memories of that heartwarming encounter takes away some of my sadness, replacing it with a renewed passion to educate, to serve and to spread kindness. We often truly do not appreciate enough the impact a good teacher has on our lives.

The buzz of the activity room fills my ears again. I snap back and join the young students with a new enthusiasm!

The writer is an aspiring young author and can be reached at: sobiayounism@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, October 2nd, 2022