Mangalore, December 9: Even as office-bearers and scores of volunteers of the Beary Sahitya Academy are gearing up for the two-day Beary Sammelana, scheduled to begin on Saturday, the man who has been given the honour of inaugurating the conference remains focused on the “job at hand”.
The 55-year-old Harekala Hajabba wears the title of ‘Sammelana inaugurator’ with impeccable ease. But the man who created ripples by setting up a school in the remote New Padpu village near Konaje with his meager earnings from selling oranges has made sure the adulation and the media glare did not distract him from his mission. With less than 24-hours left for the big moment, Hajabba is still on his school campus overseeing some developmental work.
“I know it is a big honour. But I have become worthy of it only because of what I do here at this school. For me, this is the job at hand,” he told Coastaldigest.com over the phone from the school campus. Hajabba burst into limelight after he was named the person of the year award by Kannada Prabha daily in 2004. The award included Rs. 1 lakh cash. This was followed by a series of recognitions and awards, the most coveted being the CNN-IBN Real Heroes (2009) award, which included Rs 5 lakh. Any lesser mortal would have got swayed off by these accolades and the overnight windfall. But Hajabba was made of different stuff. He ploughed back all the money into his mission.
“I don’t know what I would have done if I was in his shoes. I should salute his wife for the great sacrifice she has made,” says Abdul Rauf Puthige, the founder chairman of the Talent Research Foundation, Mangalore, an NGO striving for the empowerment of the community through a number of initiatives such as bringing back the drop outs into schools, providing technical training to unemployed youth, imparting computer education to Maulavis. “ Hajabba is a real Auliya. He is an inspiration for all the social workers,” adds Mr. Puthige.
Vi. Ga. Nayak, veteran Kannada writer, considers Hajabba a beacon of hope in the otherwise gloomy horizon. Referring to a book written by Ismat Pajeer on Hajabba, he says, “Just make it a text book, we don’t need anything else. We will see a different tomorrow.” Hajabba, who still ekes out his living through selling fruits, remains humility personified. Remember, he has to support an ailing wife, two daughters and a son, in all five mouths to feed. He lives in a cramped house, devoid of any modern gadgets. He does not even have a proper showcase to keep the awards and medallion he has been bestowed with.
The man who has been engaged in spreading the light of literacy also has a number of problems on the domestic front. The greatest regret for him remains his inability to give his own children proper education. “It is a sad story indeed. I and my son, who is aged 18 now, toil hard to make a living. My daughter has a psychiatric problem and is presently under medication. I could not continue the education of my youngest daughter because of my wife’s ill-health,” he says. But one should salute his selflessness because he has not used a penny from the Rs. 5 lakh award money for his personal requirement, despite his difficult economic condition.
“He could have fixed the roof, which had been leaking over the last several years. No-one would have said anything if he had used the award money to construct a new house. But he was aware that the money he had received was because of the mission he had taken up. Any ordinary wife would have coaxed her husband to buy some jewelry. But look at the supreme sacrifice this family is making,” points out Mr. Nayak.
Senior writer and researcher Amruth Someshwar considers Hajabba ‘a mahanubhava’. “At a time when people are becoming narrow-minded and striving for the welfare of their own community, Hajabba has transcended the boundaries of caste and community by setting up a school in a village, the doors of which are open to children of every caste and religion,” he says.
M.B. Abdul Rehman, the president of Beary Academy, vouches for his selflessness and integrity. “I know him from three decades. I have been his customer for all these years. He used to come to my house with his orange-filled basket every morning and this acquaintance gradually took new turn later on,” he says. Mr. Rehman is also amazed by Hajabba’s foresight. “He used to bring office-bearers of different Masjids from the nearby villages to make proper documentation of Wakf properties. He was aware that the Masjid managements will have a tough time if any controversy arose about the ownership of the properties,” he says.
But why did the academy chose Hajabba, an ‘unlettered’ man, to inaugurate the Sammelana. “Suggest me a better name than Hajabba,” promptly came the reply. “He is an educationist, a role model. Can you give me an example of a person earning just 150 rupese daily donating more than Rs. 5 lakh for the cause of education?,” he asks. “There is not even a single plaque in the Newpadpu school which has his name on it. But he has made sure that the names of other donors are displayed promptly,” adds Guruvappa Balepuni, senior reporter of Hosadigantha, who has been following Hajabba's mission closely over the last decade.
The selection of Hajabba, a true karmayogi, also has a symbolic significance at a time when Beary community is facing a massive crisis due to lack of unity, dearth of dynamic leadership, vision and a pragmatic approach. Hajabba has proved in a spectacular way that even an ordinary man can create miracles with dedication and hard work. The fact that the seed of his literacy mission was sown at the madrasa building of the Newpadpu Twaha Jumma Masjid should be an eye-opener for over 1,000 Masjids that exist in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts. Will the Beary Sammelana be the harbinger of change?
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