Even as residents of Gulberg Society debate how best to keep alive the memory of the people killed there in 2002,for the past two years in Jalna town of Aurangabad district in Maharashtra,a private school has done the same for one of its late residents,Ahsan Jafri. Moved by the Gujarat riots,Mohammed Abdul Rafik,35,gave up his job as a clerk in a private firm in Jalna to open a school in the name of Jafri in 2009. Affiliated to the Maharashtra State Education Board,the Shaheed Ahsan Jafri Memorial Urdu High School now has about 120 students in the three classes it runs,VIII,IX and X. Beginning last year,the school has been observing the death anniversary of Jafri,when the Quran is read and sweets distributed to students. The trustees and donors,who are from Jalna,distribute clothes and books to poor students on this day. The fees of some of the students are also paid by donors. We are neither related to nor know the Jafri family. We learnt about him in 2002. It hurt our feelings and those of many others, Rafik told The Indian Express over the phone. Rafik visited Gulberg Society a couple of years after 2002 with friends to get to know more about Jafri. He realised how big-hearted a soul Jafri was,fighting cases as a lawyer for the poor for free. He got in touch with Jafris son Tanveer,who lives in Surat with mother Zakia,and met him. A photo of Jafri that the family gave now hangs on the school wall. Rafik then proposed to his friends the idea of setting up a school to help educate Muslims. They initially started two primary schools,one in English medium and the other in Urdu,followed by the secondary school in the memory of Jafri. While it runs from a temporary building now,the school will soon move to a 10,000 sq ft area. The trust,which includes eight members apart from Rafik,wants a Jafri family member to lay the foundation stone. While the family is not actively associated with the running of the school,it does pitch in with donations for books and uniform for the poor. Due to my busy schedule and court visits,I could not visit the school but we have told them we will definitely come after the board results of Class X are declared, says Tanveer. In the new building,Rafik says,they will put up verses composed by Jafri on the walls. The coming generations should know Jafri and not forget the Gujarat riots, he adds. One of the verses Rafik plans to put up is from Jafris collection of poems,Qandeel: Geeton se teri zulfon ko Meera ne sanwara/Gautam ne sada di tujhe nanak ne pukara/Khusro ne kai rangon se daaman ko nikhara/Har dil me muhabbat ki ukhuwat ki lagan hai/Ye mera watan mera watan mera watan hai. Loosely translated,it means Blessed by Meera,Buddha,Khusro,and full of love,such is my country.
