There are men who inherit privilege, and there are men who transform inheritance into responsibility. My father, Prof Waheed Uz Zaman Deva, belonged to the rare category that understood family background not as an entitlement but as moral duty.On another 3rd of June, I find myself returning not merely to memory but to a noble inheritance shaped by values, education, dignity and intellectual courage. 

In today’s Jammu and Kashmir conversations around women’s empowerment and education dominate public discourse by way of discussions, debates, commemoration of Women’s International Day, and Mother’s Day. When I take part in such debates, I immediately think of my father, a man who quietly practiced these principles decades ago when society was not prepared to accept them.We belonged to a respected and intellectually rooted family background. My grandfather was a widely respected businessman and a religious figure of South Kashmir whose word carried social credibility and moral weight. 

My father completed his Masters Degree in Chemistry from Aligarh Muslim University during the late 1950s. This itself was a remarkable academic achievement in that era being the first Muslim student with a degree in Chemical Science from south of Kashmir. On my mother’s side too, there existed a rich literary and intellectual tradition. She belonged to the distinguished Drabu family known for scholars and Persian literary refinement, with the noted Persian poet of Kashmir, M Amin Darab, being my maternal grandfather’s elder brother.

But what made my parents exceptional was not merely their lineage. It was their ability to rise above the limitations of their times despite belonging to a traditional social structure. They inherited culture but they evolved it. They preserved dignity without becoming prisoners of convention.That distinction shaped our lives. In a relatively conservative environment where daughters were........

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