Wise Father Bestows a Legacy of Facing Challenges An Indian-American woman cherishes the gifts her father gave her By Asra Q. Nomani My father drove us into Morgantown, West Virginia in 1975 in a green Rambler station wagon on the old U.S. 40 that winds through the Appalachian Mountains of western Maryland and southwestern Pennsylvania. We were part of the immigrant diaspora from India's "brain drain," finding homes on university campuses such as West Virginia University. Ten years old, I had to leave my Dutch rabbit Buffy Nibbles in Piscataway, New Jersey, when we moved into the faculty apartments on the Evansdale campus long before the tracks of the personal rapid transit "People Mover" ran above them. They didn't allow pets there. My father, a Ph.D. graduate from Rutgers University, had started a WVU academic career from which he nobly retires this semester as a professor of human nutrition in the division of family and consumer sciences in the Davis College of Agriculture, Forestry and Consumer Sciences. Thousands of students have crossed through his classroom door to be armed with the critical knowledge of food that makes them better nurses, dieticians, nutrition specialists, scientists and professionals from Pittsburgh to Beirut, Lebanon. My father is Mohammad Zafar Alam Nomani, "Dr. Nomani" to his students. He is "Zaf" to his friends and colleagues who will fete him tonight at a retirement celebration hosted by his department chairwoman Jan Yeager. I wish to at least attend through the testimony I can give from my unique perspective - as a lifelong student of my father, the teacher who helped me pronounce Vitamin B12's scientific name, cyanocobalamin, for a seventh-grade class presentation. _______________________ He taught me many lessons that often couldn't be found within the aisles of the Book Exchange. _______________________ "Cyanocobalamin. Cyanocobalamin. Cyanocobalamin," I repeated after my father until I got it right on my own. Although a WVU graduate, I never sat within the physical walls of my father's classroom at Allen Hall. Our classroom was our home and then later through my travels, the telephone and e-mail conversations in which he would guide me through the challenges of navigating life in this world. For the book project that I started a little over two years ago, researching spiritual philosophies, I thought maybe I would need to find a "guru," another term for "teacher." What I learned is that I had the finest teacher before me in my father. He taught me many lessons that often couldn't be found within the aisles of the Book Exchange. One of the greatest lessons he taught me was to learn when others might assume. One of the first gifts my father gave my older brother, Mustafa, and me was the leather-bound Encyclopedia Britannica set found in many a household in the 1970s. The same set of Encyclopedia Britannica sits in our home today, even if there are more hi-tech Internet encyclopedias on our computers. When I came home with a homework assignment to draw a state map for a seventh-grade West Virginia Studies class at Suncrest Junior High School (when it wasn't a middle school), he encouraged my selection, the New Jersey state map, even though it involved an intricate drawing of two Greek-like goddesses and was a far more difficult project than the straight lines and gentle curves in other classmates’ choices, like the Maryland state flag. My father taught me to take the challenging road when others might take the easy path. He told this young daughter that working at a land-grant university, such as WVU, meant fulfilling three missions: teaching, research and service. For him, service meant understanding the bulimia striking West Virginia teens and the obesity that ravaged the health of the state's adults. It was this lesson that made me realize that it was as important for me to coach children with mental retardation during the Special Olympics track meets at the Coliseum as it was for me to race for myself at meets of the Junior Olympics. He taught me to give when others might take. _______________________ The children of immigrants from India pursued two paths back then: medicine or engineering. _______________________ In the politics of academia, my father was denied tenure when I was a young teen. It was a devastating decision for this young man who sacrificed time at home with his children and wife so that he could be in the lab and fulfill the research that was a part of the three requirements for tenure at a land-grant university. He wasn't felled by the blow, however. He challenged the decision and, in an action not often repeated, the university reversed the decision and my father secured the tenure that he deserved. My father taught me to challenge when others might cower. My father encouraged my interests as a scientist. The children of immigrants from India pursued two paths back then: medicine or engineering. While many of my classmates tanned happily at the Krepp's Park swimming pool during the summer, he drove me up the U.S. 70 to the Pittsburgh airport on my 16th birthday and sent me off for a National Science Foundation summer camp at Northeastern University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, researching the potential cancer cure of a Native American remedy, Kansas Snake Root, Echinacea Angustifolia. He taught me to work hard when others might play. I came home that summer an inquiring mind honing its skills. When I brought home fruit flies, scientifically called drosophila melanogaster, my mother, Sajida, patiently accepted the occasional invasion into her kitchen, while my father taught me the importance of getting the statistically significant sample surveys from which I could draw a conclusion about the entire species of drosophila. My father taught me to survey when others accepted just one answer. He taught me statistical significance is a rule of science that also often applies to life's most difficult questions. One of the hardest lessons of life is learning how to succeed when the obstacles of reality present themselves. It was a painful day for my father when he told me that he was losing lab facilities for his research because of lack of funding. He didn't let this deter him from his passion for research. My father collaborated with other WVU researchers so that he could use their lab facilities and they could borrow from his expertise. He taught me that we must create our own solutions when others might see none. As a Muslim who has long fasted during the holy month of Ramadan, my father built an international reputation as a clinical researcher of Ramadan fasting, asking the questions about which he wondered. King Hassan II of Morocco awarded him his international award for research in Ramadan fasting on behalf of the King Hassan II Foundation for Scientific and Medical Research on Ramadan. My father became one of the pioneers of Internet academic publishing, creating the Internet-based International Journal of Ramadan Fasting Research. My father taught me that our most interesting inquiries are often closest to home. _______________________ My father built an international reputation as a clinical researcher of Ramadan fasting. _______________________ The lessons for a real-life guru extend beyond the walls of any classroom and that is why no educator every truly retires, as will not the spirit of my father. My father taught me that if we can't teach lessons at home, how can we expect to teach the world? He pored over nutrition books with his daughter-in-law, Azeem, so that she would know the health consequences of a patient with calcium deficiency. My father taught me that we have to inspire the youngest in our world when others might discount them. I asked my eight-year-old nephew Samir what his grandfather has taught him. "He taught me that if you want to be a scientist you have to study." Diligence. What else? "He taught me not to do bad stuff." Ethics. How did he teach that? "He just taught me it," Samir answered in the simplicity of a child. And what has he taught my ten-year-old niece Safiyyah? "He taught me to tomato plant!" Love of nature? "Yeah!" What else? "Science! He's good at science!" What else? "He helped me study for a science test.” Active transfer and passive transfer and stuff. And stuff. It is in this infinite category where the most valuable lessons that my father has taught me can be found. It is my father who taught me to remain calm, patient and courageous as the unforeseen obstacles of the world come my way. When I finished running a two-mile race for Morgantown High School in the cold rain drenching the Coliseum track, my father warmed my hands with his hands as tears ran down my face from the pain of the cold. _______________________ Our greatest mandate is to serve humanity without the reward of public recognition. _______________________ When two scam artists pulled a con game on me on 34th Street in midtown Manhattan, taking about $400, my father comforted his weeping daughter on the phone with a story of how he had survived a con game in India in which he lost the equivalent of about $1. Earlier this year, when I endured societal fears that often left me isolated as I tried to help find my friend kidnapped from the streets of Karachi, Pakistan, my father told me over the phone that I was fulfilling the duty of one friend for another and never told me to fear. And, as I write these words from my home in Paris, I keep them a secret from my father, for he would always tell me that our greatest mandate is to serve humanity without the reward of public recognition. It is his priceless lessons of humility, personal fortitude, moral courage and intellectual discipline that ultimately endure as my father's most lasting legacy. "Stuff," as Safiyyah eloquently expressed it. This article first appeared in The Dominion Post. Asra Q. Nomani is a staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal on a leave writing a book for Harper Collins Publishers. She has, alas, forgotten how to pronounce the scientific name for Vitamin B12 but remains indebted to her father for once helping her say the tongue-twister effortlessly. You can read more of her writings at www.asranomani.com. She is the co-founder of a new organization called Muslims for Peace at www.muslimsforpeace.net. This website: Copyright © 2007 Dream World Media, LLC. / Urban Mozaik Magazine. 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