In the Loving Memory of Waleed Iqbal

How strange Time is, and how queer we are! Time has really changed, and it has changed us too. It used to walk one step ahead, with an unveiled face; it alarmed us and then elated us. Yesterday, we complained about Time and trembled at its horrors. However, today we have learned to love it and revere it, for we now understand its intents, its natural disposition, its secrets and its mysteries. Yet, when grief over shadows us, we do not appreciate the natural secrets or mysteries of Time.

Five months ago, I crawled in fright like a shuddering ghost between the fears of the unknown Time and drank my water with mixed tears. Today, I choose to write of a fatality that was a nightmare and of a life that I celebrate everyday.

Seven years ago, I met the one who today stares at the sun with glazed eyes and grasps the fire with unwavering fingers; he hears the spiritual tune of eternity behind the clamorous shrieking of the blind. I met a human being who opened my eyes to wisdom and affection, and with its magical rays touched my spirit for the first time with its fiery fingers. Waleed Iqbal was the first person who awakened my spirit with his ingenious and ferocious will power of believing in me more than I believed in my self. He led me into the garden of high wisdom, profound understanding and affection, the garden where my days passed like dreams. Waleed was the one who first sang to me the poetry of real life. He taught me many things, and so forth led me to stirring success.

In the spring of 2002, I first saw him in a debating match against his college, GCU, with another college. Later, that year he coached me and a few other friends of mine for the regional debating championships. He is known in the debating fraternity of Pakistan as being one of the finest members of the Pakistan debating Society. In 2005, he went for the Worlds University Debating Championships that were held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. After completing college from GCU, Lahore, he ventured into a degree of LLB from UCL.

There were times when he would bamboozle me with his impishness, making me wonder how pompous could he get without realising how pompous I am. When I would take this up with him we both would laugh like two hoodlums. Those days with him were like the serene spring dances of the lilies. He was a friend, a mentor, a competitor and above all a human being who at his tender age of early twenties rose above all others in all his glory. I have rarely seen someone so full of life and warmth. There would be times when we would be indulged in serious discussions over the topics that I would have to debate on or write on. He would always provide me with a timely look at the issues that I would have to present in my writing and speeches, adding a dash of humour to keep me hooked.

There was such a special spark of life in him that would leave anyone who encountered him with awe. He touched the lives of many. He would lighten any room with his eminent glow, a person who put his friends forth always. The word ‘impossible’ did not even seem to exist in his dictionary. There was nothing that he did not believe that he could not do. He was a person full of surprises, a soul so beautiful and pure, and a man who aimed for success and achieved it.

The last time I spoke to Waleed, was a day prior to the untimely event that took place in Chattar Park on the 19th of July 2007, where he passed away in an accident and left all of his friends and family world over in agonising pain and shock. Though, Waleed was with us for only a short time, yet he proved to be larger than life than most of us. It was once said "Good men have the fewest years." Waleed was a good man.

All the time that he was here, seems like a beautiful dream, from which I ache never to wake up from. Yet, his last words echo in my head, “Zara, you are my Oriana Fallaci!” After months of this tremendous pain of losing him, I realised that like me, his family, friends and all his loved ones have not really lost him. For he hoped for everyone, and I carry on living to celebrate the life of the man to whom I vouched as being his Oriana Fallaci!

After all this time of him leaving all of his beloved friends and family members, I have nothing left out of that beautiful dream except memories flapping like invisible wings around me, filling the depths of my heart with sorrow, and bringing tears to my eyes; as I pray that may Waleed Iqbal’s soul rests in peace and that his family and loved ones find the true pleasure of living in his memories and keeping him alive in their hearts.

This incident taught me that life is an island in an ocean, an island whose rocks are hopes, whose trees are dreams, whose flowers are solitude, and whose brooks are thirst. Hence, Time is indeed strange and how queer we are to it! Time has taught me the significance of having a friend like Waleed in my life and while physically losing the sight of him, yet believing of not really having lost him. Maybe, these are a few secrets and mysteries of Time.

As I end this article, I will quote a prose that one of Waleed Iqbal’s dear friend, quoted in his memory:

Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still. For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is omnipresent. In this divine glass they see face to face; and their converse is free, as well as pure. This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal. – William Penn