It’s been a week that Obaid Siddiqi, India’s molecular biology genius, passed away in a freak accident on July 26, 2013. Tributes have been pouring in from far and wide and we are overwhelmed by responses from our readers, fellow scientists and colleagues wanting to express their love, admiration and respect for the man variously called ‘Renaissance Man’ and the ‘Catalyst of a culture of creativity‘. We compiled some of this outpouring in the Nature India feature “India mourns loss of ‘aristrocratic’ & gutsy molecular biology guru“.
We also heard from science film maker Matiur Rahman, who has been tracking Siddiqi’s life sine 1983. He sent us some rare pictures of Siddiqi which we featured in a guest blog piece “An ace biologist through the eyes of a lenseman“.
In this series of tributes, today we got to hear about Obaid Siddiqi from another unique perspective — from someone who hero-worshiped him as a child and who’s family ties with Siddiqi go back ages. Our guest blogger today is an ace scientist himself, inspired hugely by Siddiqi. He is Shahid Jameel, group leader of Virology at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), New Delhi. He recently took over as CEO of the Wellcome Trust-DBT India Alliance.
Shahid told me he wasn’t going to give an account of the scientist — everyone is aware of Siddiqi’s scientific genius. So here’s Shahid’s touching tribute to the extraordinary human that Obaid Siddiqi was:
The Gentle Genius: my childhood hero
One sign of getting old(er) is to see the heroes of your youth leave this mortal world. I lost three in 2011 – my father in August, cricketing legend ‘Tiger” Pataudi in September and the evergreen actor Dev Anand in December. Last week I lost another – Professor Obaid Siddiqi, or simply Obaid.
© Matiur Rahman
Obaid was popular with three generations of my family. Being related to my maternal grandfather through his mother, Obaid shared with him the common bonds of leftist ideology and progressive Urdu literature. He and my father had the same last name and were contemporaries at the Aligarh Muslim University, having done MSc in the same year in Botany and Chemistry respectively. Both returned to India in 1962 to establish a career in teaching and research.
While growing up in Aligarh, I do not recall meeting Obaid; he made short visits to see his parents. But there was always talk of his genius and even as kids we knew that he was an important scientist. I was friendly with his father, who we called Qadeer Nana. He came frequently to the AMU Lawn Tennis Courts where Obaid’s nephews – Salman and Chotu, and I played. There were many tips on the game, admonition for bad shots and endless stories in his inimitable style.
My first interaction with Obaid was in1978 when I was selected as a National Science Talent Summer Fellow in his lab at TIFR. This was my first taste of laboratory research and it was so much fun. We rarely left the lab and many nights were spent sleeping on the seminar library table. I worked directly with Krishnan (who is as kind now as he was then), and Obaid appeared occasionally to enquire if all was well. He was quiet but there was an aura around him that made people respect him and be comfortable at the same time.
Much through the 80s, I was in US and lost touch but reconnected again when I returned to India. Obaid was starting NCBS and proudly gave me a personal tour of the interim laboratories on the Indian Institute of Science campus. For the past 25 years, we were in constant touch and developed a bond that cannot be described, only felt.
Over the past few years, our link has been Abu, who Obaid took on as a PhD student on my recommendation. Abu graduated from rearing flies to taking care of Obaid, while trying to understand the biochemical and genetic basis of olfactory memory. Obaid sent him to my lab to use biochemical methods for identifying proteins associated with olfactory learning in Drosophila. Having been in a completely different field of research, this was my chance to fulfill a life-long dream to publish a paper with Obaid. But fate had other plans. The paper will be written up, but there will be no Obaid to celebrate it.
Though I never worked with Obaid after that summer in 1978, I have benefited both professionally and personally from his visionary thinking for Indian science. Around the turn of the century, he played a big role in the Wellcome Trust’s decision to start a special International Senior Research Fellowship competition for Indian scientists. In the few years that it ran, the ISRF selected 30 odd Fellows; many are now in leadership positions in the country. I was lucky to be one of the Fellows. He also catalyzed the Wellcome Trust-DBT India Alliance, a visionary partnership between the British charity and Government of India that was set up in 2008. I recently started looking after the India Alliance and hope it will produce the next generation of biomedical research leaders for the country. That will be my tribute to Obaid. In his silent and unassuming ways he has done more for Indian science than many of his vociferous peers.
Dhoondhogey hamein mulkon-mulkon / Milney key naheen, naayaab hain hum! (You may look for me around the world but in vain. For, I am rare).
I admired Obaid for many things but one of them stands out — his confidence in the next generation. Many people in leadership positions claim to do this, but become large trees under which very little can grow. Obaid, however, was different. He conceived and set up NCBS, but then let his younger colleagues manage it. And they have done full justice to the confidence he reposed in them to make NCBS a world-class institution. This is a legacy we must celebrate and nurture as our best tribute to this visionary.
A few months back Obaid had fallen down at home and had hurt himself. I went to see him in June, 2013 and was pleasantly surprised to see how well he had bounced back. He made me a cup of tea and insisted that I also ate the biscuits. We chatted for over an hour. Little did I know this was to be our last meeting.
I want to remember this gentle genius for the special bond we had. To his family and to his numerous friends and admirers at NCBS, TIFR, in Aligarh and elsewhere, I can only say –
Ujaale apni yadon ke humare saath rehne do / Na jaane kis gali mein zindagi ki shaam ho jaye (Let the light of your memories remain with us. Who can tell when the twilight of life comes by?)
Till we meet again!
(Shahid Jameel can be reached at shahid@icgeb.res.in or shahid.jameel@wellcomedbt.org)