Farewell to an inspiration

We all seek champions in our lives, ones who would help bring out the best in us. Most of those who knew him will agree that the students of Brac University lost one of their foremost champions with the passing away of Professor Piash Karim last Monday, October 13.

They will remember him as a champion because, while many whose main jobs were to stand up for the students failed to fulfil their roles, he was the one who never stopped being not only an inspiration, but also a great support for the young minds. He spoke for students’ rights and vehemently supported them in their plight to be recognised as the bearers of tomorrow’s responsibility, and encouraged them when they started their journey to become the future guardians of our society.

He was a teacher of sociology at the Department of Economics and Social Sciences of Brac University, and was one in the truest sense of the word. His mission was not to merely complete the syllabi for the sake of a job, but to ensure that the next generation of leaders, lawyers, journalists, parents, spouses, and decision-makers were ready to take on the world a little more prepared and with a greater sense of responsibility towards their country.

It was a common scenario at Brac University that students from other disciplines, not necessarily enrolled in the courses he’d take, would attend his classes, sitting unobtrusively in the back benches just to listen to his lectures that had a free flow style of sorts; the discussions would traverse across topics such as racism, religion, freedom, sexuality, family, so on and so forth, always seeking to broaden the learner’s perspective, but never swaying off-track from the course content, always remaining relevant.

Over the years, Professor Piash Karim had become renowned across Bangladesh for his style of speaking and his discussion on topics relevant to every Bangladeshi. That specific gift of fearless public speaking was very tangible at Brac University. Students and other members of the institution would rush to any event where he was the speaker, touching on topics such as globalisation, Western foreign policies, economics, and current global affairs.

Once one of these events would conclude, a palpable realisation would be had that every attendee was totally involved in the presence of this individual, who could see beyond personal prejudices, and that they would all be going home with their minds having been greased for thinking over issues relevant to our advancement as a species.

Dr Karim was a strong believer in freedom, and more importantly, he advocated peace. In his last memorable appearance in front of students at Brac University, Dr Piash Karim was one of the keynote speakers during the Unesco Club of Brac University’s event “Seminar on International Day for Peace” where he spoke alongside the Unesco Dhaka Office Program Specialist Mr Oyasu Kiichi.

In his speech, Dr Karim remarked on how important it was for the young individuals of this generation to believe in peace as a necessity for survival and to ingrain that belief into their very beings, so that future generations would not have to witness the horrors brought about by the incessant human conflicts of the past 100 years.

He stressed that the onus of building a world centred on peace was on every young individual sitting in the auditorium and “out there” because the world was getting smaller by the day, and every global citizen would have a say in how their world was shaped.

The familiar sight of a man carrying a mug of coffee from class to class, to the streets, then again to another class, will always be recalled by anyone who knew Professor Piash Karim at Brac University as a pleasant sight, and one of bemusement to whoever came across him for the first time, but his presence would always touch people around him in some way or the other.

Dr Karim was that image of an ideal white-haired eccentric, soft-spoken yet self-assured philosophical genius that every university student imagines of encountering, but Brac University is one of the few places where that had actually come true.