By M S Nazki
Late Sardar Rafiq Hussein Khan was a gift from the almighty to the people of Mendhar!
-‘He indeed was a class act, in fact a complete package which was centred around being humane and serving humanity was his prime aim in life! Politics for him was just a staircase to serve mankind!
-‘Today is his fourth death anniversary but Sardar lives in the hearts of the people. History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days. Today the people of Mendhar would be doing that and the images of the tall lanky Sardar walking into their houses would be coming as flashbacks with tears adding a flavour of different kind!’
-‘Sardar, always referred to himself as ‘a lucky man. Well, now the people of Mendhar and all those who met him are saying that we’re the lucky ones to have known him. What a privilege it has been. Obviously it was!’
-‘ He was one of the bigger minarets of People’s Democratic Party, I often use the term the party of Lawyers. Sardar Rafiq Hussein Khan was also a lawyer as a young man. His aim in life was to help the people and he sorted out many problems free of cost. A smile on the face of his client satisfied him more than anything else. Politics came by default because he was a popular man when Mendhar was a forlorn place but now is a buzzing one’!
-‘Sardar was a great man. a wonderful intellect, a great soul of matchless courage, one of the great men born in Mendhar. Today we meet to pay a tribute of love and respect to Late Rafiq Hussein Khan because he used his matchless power for the good of man. That is the reason as to why people in Mendhar still love and respect him!’ They will keep doing so till infinity!
-‘Of all public figures and benefactors of mankind, no one is loved by history more than the literary patron. Sardar was just a lawyer and a politician. There are many in this category. But he was also a statesman who in his time ensured that the people of Mendhar were not left deprived of anything. He lived in village Harni, a frugal house and not that extravagantly built architecture. Simplicity was his forte and dynamism to do something for the masses was his energy! Till his end he wanted to do something but then one is born with the breathing time already written in God’s future diary! Everyone’s is!
Many years ago, my mother suggested to me, in reference to a splendid school-teacher who had died, that in life one came across only a few truly special people. Lots of good ones she said, plenty of fabulous folk, but only a few who are special. Sardar Rafiq, conclusively, was one of those – one of those special people. Not so much because he was so extraordinarily good at doing things in life, but because of the way in which he applied the various gifts, politics amongst them, which were given to him. Sardar was no waster not of time, not of talent nor a shirker of any situation or challenge which confronted him.
The political history of his is great. He was elected four times as a MLA to the then Jammu and Kashmir Assembly. He was a cabinet minister but had no airs about himself. Anyone could approach him anytime and if need be every time. Whatever he could do, he would do and that was a guaranteed fact. The people knew it and trust me if they are in trouble, they always look towards the Khan household. They know that they would not be disappointed. That was the aura he had created.
He maintained excellence without arrogance, earned respect without ever assuming it, and displayed confidence and self-assurance within his immense humility. For as long as perhaps the last two months before it was time to finally pack up, maybe more maybe less, he knew, deep down I think, that the game was up. But he was damned if he would let anyone know. He was such a stubborn fellow. It was as if he was more concerned about the suffering of those around him, those few intensely close friends kept by this very private man, than about the suffering he was going through himself. The qualities of thoughtfulness and caring, of courage and bravery and didn’t he so often show in his demeanour and attitude were among his finest. For all the flamboyance and bravado as a politician, Sardar was not one to over-dramatize things. He said things as they were and he resolved that his dreadful illness would be his own problem and as it escalated he would not panic others with its potential end.
And yet, most fascinatingly, amazingly really, his loss echoed all around Mendhar last year. That was because he cared. He cared about standards, about commitment to the chosen cause, about quality in all things. He wanted to go on and on and on but could not have. Sardar Rafiq Hussein Khan for me was man of joy and delight in all he did and in others around him. The endless chatter, that laughter with his head thrown skywards, those dancing happy eyes and that welcoming ripper of a smile. And the unbridled enthusiasm for a determined march on all the challenges of life didn’t matter what they were, simple things even such as a chatter with people moving on the roads, buying food for the hungry, making the poor kids smile and the respectful bow to the golden oldies were some of the features of his magnanimous personality!
A year back he was alive but now he is no more with us but his memories remain etched in the hearts of the people. Now he must be watching Mendhar and the people from the heavens and smiling. Perhaps saying, ‘wish I could be with you. Never mind if I’m invisible but I can see you all! So live a joyful life staying united and keep moving ahead in life as that is the only way out!’
