Sorry Sir I was too late..My Last Respects to Mr. Sohail Muzaffar

 

Today I am deeply saddened and lost for words at the passing away of Mr. Sohail Muzaffar. Although my teacher, my mentor and a wonderful soul Mr. Sohail left us for his heavenly abode in February 2021. The most painful thing is that I just came to know about his news few days ago when I tried to call him for some advice. He wasn’t picking up the phone so I checked his facebook to contact him and from there I came to know of his passing away. Every day I thought about calling him but one thing or the other happened and I kept postponing my call; for almost a year I have not even looked at my facebook account.

Yet I always found solace from the very thought that he will be fine and some fine day I will call him or probably pay him a surprise visit at his office and then we will gossip about the latest happenings over a cup of coffee. All these plans only remained in my mind, for years I made plans but never acted on them. Today I am at lost for any words, I wish I would have called him or just checked on him. 

After my pupillage I was desperately trying to find a good law firm to work. Well as it happened, nobody was excited to employ me. The law firms I wanted to work had no vacancy and the firms which offered me employment were not my favourites.

I went to see my principle Barrister Khurshid Hashmi and almost cried in his office for all the consistent rejections I was receiving, he promised to find a suitable position for me- on a condition that I have to prove my consistency and dedication by reaching the High Court by 8:00 am and learning from the court proceedings until he talk to a very senior advocate and convince him to employ me.

It was a third day, I was sitting in the court doing my tasbeeh praying in my heart desperately that this senior lawyer would agree. Tea break was about to end and there walked in a very tall lawyer with greyish-white hair with his associate. They both looked at me, discussed something for a second and then this tall gentleman walked to Prof Hashmi. They both chatted like good old friends for few seconds, and then Sir Hashmi reaches to my bench and says: “Sonya beta, the person I was talking to is a very good lawyer, his name is Sohail Muzaffar. He has offered you to work as his assistant lawyer from 25 March.” I could clearly see that Sir Hashmi was far more happy and excited for me than I was for myself. After all this is how great teachers feel for their students.  

Me: “Really. I mean really he wants to hire me. He will teach me. Yes sir I saw him many times during my internship we have been also briefly introduced by Mrs. Navin Merchant. Sir he also helped me when Justice Sarwana shb suddenly made me argue a case.”

Sir Sohail spoke while I was blabbering: “By the way, I will also give you proper salary- don’t worry.” After saying this both he and his associate lawyer Fouzia Rashid (who is my first real lawyer friend, confidant and mentor) quietly walked out of the court.

For few seconds, I was stunned. I mean who are these people, where they have come from, are they my angels? They are definitely sent by Allah as an answer to my prayers which I have been saying for months.. That day I started to believe in miracles.

Sohail shb gave me the solo responsibility to handle couple of his cases, I was new had zero idea of the courts but he trusted me completely. He told me: “dear you are allowed to make mistakes because that’s how will learn but don’t create any silly legal mess for me to clean up.”

It was Sohail sahib who gave me the platform to rise and shine. Now it was up to my hard work, dedication and sincerity that sky will be the limit- as sir said.

I never asked him whether he was happy with my progress or how should I improve.

We humans always think that someday we will do this or that, or we will talk to him/her or we will make amends with our friends or family member. But then life gets to us, it keeps us busy in little and big things and we always believe that we have tomorrow. I mean that is the job of life- to keep us stuck and busy. It is always us becoming lazy and postponing our wishes, our friendships, our families and our dreams only to find out that we are too late.

All of my sincerest duas for maghfirat of Sir Sohail Muzaffar and for the peace of his family and loved ones.

Respectfully

Sonya Syed.