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Journalism of Courage
Sabiha Hashmi was born on November 8, 1949, into a family of Indian freedom fighters and literary figures. She was married at twenty and had two sons who were classmates to my brother and me at Modern School, Vasant Vihar, in Delhi, where Mrs Hashmi taught art to middle- and senior-school students. Earlier this month, she passed away at home in Bengaluru at the young age of 72.
I first met Sabiha Hashmi when I joined Modern School in 4th grade, full of restless energy and shame brought on by the awareness of my identity as a gay boy. She found something in me curious enough to allow me entry into her classrooms, where she instructed students senior to me. It was as if Mrs Hashmi knew I was hurting inside, was lost in myself, to myself, and feeling lost to the world. And so she, who was herself an “other” in so many ways (a divorced woman in a conservative nation, a single mom, and an artist), found an opportunity to be there for another who was an oddity, one who needed an anchor and role model, who needed a haven where internal fears could find artistic expression and who needed to feel safe from the harsh treatment children inflict on those who don’t fit in.
When I became a teen Mrs Hashmi told me about how her family’s lot in life changed from a place of comfort to abject poverty when her grandfather’s furniture business was ruined during Partition. She and her siblings saw very hard days and the separation of their parents who worked jobs that had them in different cities. Mrs Hashmi also told me about her own marriage and how challenging life can become in a difficult relationship and more challenging still when there are children involved. She taught me about dealing with hardship and showed me through her own experiences the importance of making tough choices and persevering despite all the odds one might face. Time after time I saw her take on the courage of a lion though her physical frame seemed more akin to that of a much smaller animal, like a rabbit.
As I came to Class XI, I chose to study the sciences. It was at Mrs Hashmi’s behest that I presented the school and my family with my desire to take graphic arts and screen printing as well as my science courses—something unheard of then. Mrs Hashmi let me know that she would battle teachers who didn’t appreciate my unique gifts as a student, and thus allow me significant absenteeism from their classes as I fitted arts and music into my day. There were weeks in those last two years of school when I wasn’t seen in any place other than Mrs Hashmi’s art room or the music room, and there were nights I got home way past dinnertime, having stayed to finish yet another project. My fellow students envied her love for me and would tease me endlessly about being an extension of her being, and her pet. This was certainly something I didn’t always appreciate, as her love came with strict rules of engagement, tough expectations, and high standards.
Mrs Hashmi motivated me, a boy who wasn’t athletic at all, to climb rocks by saying that if I tried, she would let me show off my cooking skills to the other students. I ended up climbing the rocks and then making French fries, and my classmates were suitably impressed. Mrs Hashmi would tell me what books to borrow from the library — Alexander Pushkin and Fyodor Dostoevsky were two authors I wouldn’t have read at 15 had it not been for her. At her prodding I learnt to read and write in Urdu and took lessons in Hindi. She took me with her to plays and gallery openings; she would read my writing and poetry and return my efforts with reviews that had me striving to do better. In my end-of-school diary, where other teachers wrote flattering and congratulatory notes, she wrote, “Go jump in a well.” But the next morning she came with a most glorious recommendation letter for me to send to Sir J J School of Art in Mumbai, where I was the only student from outside of Maharashtra to get into the commercial arts programme in 1991. I have always maintained that everything good I have said, thought, done, or seen in the right way, I owe to Mrs Hashmi and Mrs Hashmi alone.
After I heard of Mrs Hashmi’s passing and shared the news in a WhatsApp message with my mother, she replied, saying, “You have lost your guru.” How astute my mother is. As the youngest of my siblings, I was born to creature comforts and a family that was whole. By opening my eyes to the world around me, Mrs Hashmi taught me to be the eyes of those without sight, the agitator for those who can’t fight back, and the voice for those who have been marginalised generationally and, thus, have neither vocabulary nor expression to even verbalise or show their suffering. Although she was stoic and reticent, I would see a childlike grin surface sometimes — but only if what was being discussed came from a place of honesty, circumspection, and consideration of the other.
Mrs Hashmi awakened humanity and empathy in me and many of my classmates and teachers who are posting online odes to her brilliance and matchless personality. She modeled caring and nurturing, both of the self and for the other. She was selfless and powerful, of meagre means and rich vision, short with lofty ideals, a single mother of two with thousands of children who looked up to her as their guide and mentor. Mrs Hashmi lives in the stories of our lives and is immortal for having blessed so many with her peerless grace, dignity, and kindhearted tutelage.
