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Shafiqa Fikree, icon of St Joseph’s Convent High School, leaves this world

By Mahim Maher

KARACHI: In the corridors of St Joseph’s Convent High School she was referred to as Senior or ‘Bari’ Fikree in order to prevent confusion with her niece Fauzia or Junior Fikree. In the staff room, she was Shafiqa or Miss Fikree, depending on whether she had taught you or not. At home, she was Essie - SE - short for Shafiqa Ebrahim. In high-heeled shoes she was barely five feet tall, but as hundreds of women, young and old, will testify today, the demise of this legendary teacher has left us a legacy that is immeasurable and indescribable.

At about 4:15 am Monday, Shafiqa Fikree passed away at the age of 76 after a brief illness which doctors believe was pneumonia that culminated in a heart attack. It was extremely unexpected for many because she was in school just a few days earlier. Indeed this was a double tragedy for her family, as her sister, Miss Fauzia Fikree’s mother Umahani, had died barely two months ago.

Miss Fikree was born in Aden in 1933. Her father Ebrahim Mohammad Aqeel Fikree was a businessman who traded in coffee. Ebrahim and his wife Shaharaban hailed from Bastak and Lingah, small towns on the southern coast of Iran. In addition to one son, the couple had six daughters - Gulzar, Ruqaiya, Fatima, Hafsa, Umahani and Shafiqa. When Miss Fikree was six years old, the family moved to Karachi upon the outbreak of WWII. Her father had feared that the Germans would overrun Aden as it was a British colony.

While the family was conservative, Miss Fikree, who joined St Joseph’s Convent High School in 1962 as a Geography teacher, became famous for her cancan skirts with stiff petticoats. Colleagues Faiza Kazi and Nina Sethna recalled her “Scarlett O’Hara” waist clinched in belts with a handkerchief tucked in the side. She wore her hair short in a bouffant bob and her nails were always painted. It was only much later that she started wearing shalwar kameez, but even they were sleeveless. And no living St. Joseph’s student will have ever seen a hair out of place or her immaculately pinned chiffon dupattas creased.

This attention to detail and ironclad discipline was not just limited to her person, it pervaded every other aspect of her life. No one could telephone the house between 6 pm and 7 pm because she was on her walk, which she took without fail right up to her last days. She was also extremely careful about her diet and maintained her hourglass figure to the end.

Weddings were a “waste of time” and she would grumble when she attended them. Most of her spare time was spent preparing for class. She would sit at the tile-topped kitchen table, put on her favourite Hallmark channel and spread out her papers. Tests were always held, come hail or high water, and she never rose her voice above 50 decibels.

She adored dark chocolate but rationed herself. She took an immense liking to green tea, but gave up sugar in it. And she read and read and read, even starting up a small, heavily guarded library for the senior section.

Former principal Sr Zinia Pinto, who joined the staff room in the same year as her, made Miss Fikree headmistress of the Cambridge section precisely because of these traits. “She never stooped on a principle,” said Sr Zinia. “She was simple and very eager to learn. In her, I met an ideal teacher.” The two became deeply close over the five decades and it was with a lump in her throat on Monday that Sr Zinia said she had lost “a good friend”.

The Cambridge section teachers are now wondering how they are going to go back to the staff room without Miss Fikree in it. Many of them, such as Muna Kazi Pathan, were her students themselves, and learnt their trade from her. “There was dew this morning,” said Muna, who models her Literature classes on Miss Fikree’s method. “And I couldn’t help but think of her. You couldn’t hear about any geographical thing without thinking of her - whether it was a ‘westerly wind’ or a ‘depression’.”

According to student Durriya Kazi, Miss Fikree would come to class with a plastic orange ball with a knitting needle driven through it. That was her geography globe. She would whip out her handkerchief to use as an aid to draw perfect circles on the blackboard. “I feel as if a whole section of that building has crumbled with her,” said Durriya, who now heads the Visual Studies department at the University of Karachi.

When asked how school will be without Miss Fikree, Mrs Nina Sethna brought her hand close up to her face, pressed her thumb and finger together and squinted: “She was the safety pin that held us all together.”

Indeed, it is difficult to imagine who could ever fill her shoes. And it will be nigh impossible to find anyone with the same devotion. While her first salary was 500 rupees, which was a handsome amount in 1962, everyone knows the teachers at St Joseph’s do not work for the money today. Miss Fikree was so devoted, however, that, as her niece Fauzia Fikree recalled, “she wanted to teach even if it was a holiday.”

As one of her students, Zeevar Scheik put it, her demise is the end of an era but not of her legacy.

Mahim Maher is a St Joseph’s alumni and a former city editor for Daily Times, Karachi

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