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t was the early 1980s. On the very first day of our MA Urdu programme at Oriental College, Lahore, he stepped up to the rostrum. There was no hesitation and no dramatic flourish, only a composed presence and an air of quiet self-assurance. He began by introducing himself and outlining the course he would be teaching during our first academic year.
His voice was steady and unembellished, his words carefully measured. There was a crisp clarity to his delivery, neither overly warm nor coldly detached. It was a tone shaped by discipline, perhaps bordering on the authoritarian, but never unkind. He came across more as a custodian of intellectual order than a performer.
That was Dr Khawaja Muhammad Zakariya, chairman of the department, and one of its most pivotal figures.
This wasn’t my first encounter with Khawaja Sahab – not exactly. A couple of years before joining Oriental College, I had already begun orbiting the literary circles of Lahore, attending readings, gatherings and late-night discussions with fellow enthusiasts.
Khawaja Sahab was already a presence in the city’s literary milieu, though not in the noisy, political sense that characterised the sessions of Halqa-i-Arbab-i-Zauq. He wasn’t a literary activist, nor was he entangled in the polemics that often shaped Lahore’s cultural life. Yet he was held in high esteem as a scholar, a literary researcher of stature and a formidable teacher.
Whether he noticed me in those days, or ever recognised me as a fledgling poet among the crowd, I cannot say with certainty. But I had certainly noticed him – his quiet gravitas, his unspoken influence and the way he occupied a room without ever needing to claim it.
A few days later, while I was attending another teacher’s class, Khawaja Sahab entered unexpectedly. He exchanged a brief word with the instructor and then, to my astonishment, asked that I be excused. He gestured for me to follow him. I obeyed, though a flicker of anxiety stirred within me. Had I done something wrong? Was I being singled out for some forgotten offence?
Outside the classroom, he addressed me gently, almost casually:
“A literary scholar is delivering a lecture at the radio station. You’ll accompany him, and after the talk, you’ll ask him a couple of questions on air.”
The cloud of apprehension lifted, replaced by a startled delight. I nodded eagerly, still half-wondering why I, of all people, had been chosen.
We drove to the radio station, the scholar seated beside me in the car. Another young man was with us, someone I later learned was a protégé of the scholar, a student from another college, groomed under close academic supervision.
Before the recording began, the elderly scholar handed each of us a small chit, two neatly written questions apiece.
The session began. The other student read his question first, which the scholar answered with the weight and poise of a seasoned voice. Then came my turn.
Whether out of nervousness or instinct, I ignored the written prompt. Perhaps the moment had sparked another curiosity in me. I asked a different question, one of my own.
The scholar paused and looked at me with an expression that was part indulgent smile, part gentle rebuke.
“Check your chit,” he said warmly, with just enough of a scolding edge to remind me of my place.
Whenever I think of him, I find myself once more in that classroom, his voice still clear, his presence still alive, as if time has paused to let memory speak.
I quickly adjusted. The programme resumed. I read the intended question.
I wasn’t exactly pleased with the way things had played out, but I didn’t say a word to Khawaja Sahab afterwards. What lingered far more powerfully than the momentary unease was the realisation that, out of a class of over sixty students, and with just as many in the senior year, he had chosen me. Quietly, without fanfare, he had entrusted me with something small, yet not insignificant. It was, in a way, a secret initiation.
That said, I do not claim the episode brought me into closer contact with him, or that I became part of some inner circle, if one existed at all. I developed a deeper attachment, over time, with Baqar Sahab (Dr Sajjad Baqar Rizvi), who, during my years at Oriental College, became my literary guide, my guru.
With Khawaja Sahab, the relationship was shaped more by respect and gentle affection. His time was largely consumed by administrative responsibilities and a demanding teaching load, leaving little room for the kind of literary discussions or debates we often enjoyed with Baqar Sahab. We also had the impression that he preferred a certain formality; that he chose to maintain distance from his students.
In the years that followed, that impression proved incomplete. The reserve we had once perceived began to soften. Whenever I had the opportunity to meet him, whether in his office or, more memorably, at Pak Tea House, he seemed more at ease, more open. Over a cup of tea, he would sometimes crack a rich, layered joke, always adding with a chuckle, “After all, you’re no longer in my class, you’ve become a teacher yourself.”
Still, this familiarity never shifted the ground beneath me. On my side, the respect remained intact, anchored in that enduring reverence which places the teacher forever just above the student.
Later, he became my supervisor for the PhD, my doktorvater, as the Germans say: the “doctoral father”. My chosen topic was Kalimuddin Ahmad: Fun aur Shakhsiyat, a study of the life and critical work of the Urdu critic known for his fierce opposition to the ghazal as a literary form.
The idea for the topic came unexpectedly, not in his office, but over tea at Pak Tea House. One evening, in the easy rhythm of conversation, he mentioned Kalimuddin Ahmad. I had just finished reading two of Ahmad’s major works and was able to join the discussion with some confidence. Since Ahmad was not part of our syllabus at the time, I sensed that Khawaja Sahab was pleasantly surprised by his student’s interest in a critic rarely discussed in the classroom.
Then, just like that, he said: “Why don’t you do your doctorate on him?”
The suggestion struck deep. I began the work with dedication, and Khawaja Sahab regularly read through my drafts, offering his characteristic guidance: measured, insightful and always encouraging.
But time, as it often does, turned sharply. Circumstances forced me to leave the country before I could submit the completed dissertation. Among the regrets I carried, this remained a quiet one, not for the missed degree, but for having fallen short of a trust he had placed in me.
Years later, when he learned that I had completed my PhD in comparative literature at the University of Vienna and was already teaching there, he was not only satisfied, he was evidently pleased. In that moment, his genuine pleasure felt like a long-delayed benediction.
Khawaja Sahab later became the principal of Oriental College. After retiring from that post in 2000, he was named professor emeritus and went on to serve as chairperson of a literary foundation. In the years since, he has only quickened his pace, publishing critical work, editing volumes and returning to his first literary passion: poetry.
Now well past eighty, the physical vigour he once carried in our student days may have waned. And I, too, after two long spans of teaching, first in Pakistan and then in Europe, stand at the threshold of retirement.
It has been nearly a quarter of a century since I last saw him. Yet whenever I think of him, I find myself once more in that classroom, his voice still clear, his presence still alive, as if time has paused to let memory speak.
The author is aPakistan-born andAustria-based poet in Urdu and English. He teaches South Asianliterature and culture at Vienna University