I have written hundreds of news stories, articles and blogs during my journalistic career spanning over two decades, but never thought of such painful time when I will have to write in the memory of my beloved friend.
It’s been a year now that my dearest friend, Tariq Mehmood Malik, left for his heavenly abode. A dedicated journalist, an educationist and a great mentor, Tariq was a gem of a person.
Tariq was among few blessed with extra-ordinary qualities. A content and cool tempered pure soul with a pleasant disposition. Always in deficit financially, but full of positive energy, he never failed to admire everyone with his levelheadedness.
His professional strengths were as praiseworthy as his personal attributes. He worked for most of the leading media organizations of Pakistan-Jang, ARY, 92 News, Sama TV, News One, Waqt News and HUM News channels are prominent among them.
Meager salaries in the media industry; and these too mostly paid late, this self-made man had been teaching Media Sciences in different universities, anchoring events and conducting trainings to survive financially.
Here too, he was not only part of academia but a career counselor and a fatherly figure to hundreds of students and fellow professors.
He might have been an ordinary reporter for the media houses he worked for, but for the journalists’ community, he was a mentor of dozens of senior and budding journalists. There are many prominent names, whom he introduced in the media industry and there are many others whom he groomed.
Equally good in script writing, production and post-production, he would always be on the phone, helping the fellow journalists either in their story ideas or proof reading their scripts for “packages” (the short video reports aired during news bulletins).
I have witnessed him approaching his friends and acquaintances for internships and jobs of his students. Left jobless many times, he knew the pain of those kicked out with one stroke of pen by the management of media houses.
He would be there to listen to their grievances for hours when they called or he would make them long calls. “Irfan Sahib, I know the agony of a jobless person”, he would say to me when I would ask him not to waste time on such long calls.
Listening to someone and trying to help them, might be mundane to us but Tariq dedicated hundreds of hours, to his students and colleagues only for listening to them and in an effort to resolve their issues. He used to do everything in his capacity to help them all.
He was doing all this selflessly, along with the two to three laborious jobs. His day used to start at 7 am and finished at mid-night.
There would be hardly few minutes interval when his phone would not be ringing. He would always say, “TV reporter kabi apna phone band nahi rakh sakta” (A TV reporter cannot keep his phone off).
Tariq had travelled inside and outside the country extensively for coverage of events of national and international significance and had availed many prestigious fellowships abroad. He would always be ready to utilize those experiences in his professional work and would be teaching others with great alacrity.
Every moment I spent with him, has a mellifluous memory. There is not a single incident throughout our association where I ever felt hurt by any of his actions. We can hardly find such a soul around us!
Everyone who knew him, Tariq is and will always be someone special to them.
My question is, “Why do we always wait till their departure for valuing the people around us?”
To be Continued……..
He was genius person. Words are short to describe him what I have observed in a very less time.