The lyrical qazi

Family and friends of India’s first Covid-19 casualty remember him as a kind, forgiving and generous soul

- MINI P. THOMAS

A writer, a caring husband, a devoted father and a doting grandfather—Wajeed Haseeb was all this and more when he was alive. In death though, his identity was reduced to a letter and a digit—P6. Haseeb, 76, was India’s first COVID-19 casualty. He died on March 10, nearly 10 days after his return from Saudi Arabia.

In Haseeb’s room in a four-bedroom house in Kalaburagi in north Karnataka, books and files are neatly stacked on wooden shelves as in a library. A typewriter sits forlorn, missing its companion. The most enduring image Dr. Abdul has of his father is of him typing away at his desk. “He took great delight in writing, and brought out a collection of Urdu poems written by my grandfather,” says Abdul, Haseeb’s younger son who works as a dentist in Saudi Arabia. “He was no poet, but he was into poetry, and had a shayari for every situation. He published nonfiction books, too, on subjects ranging from Islamic law to the history of qazis (magistrates under Sharia law).”