Rafiq Khan
Rafiq Khan, my mother, is the Honorary Chair of Study House Tutoring.
A woman of great humility, Rafiq is an icon of great strength, fortitude and character. Her life is her message. She is a role model to all that have had the good fortune to have crossed paths with her in this life time.
L to R: (Late) Honourable Mr. Fawzi, Security Guard, Rafiq Khan, and Priyanka Gandhi
Rafiq has been a teacher all her life and has earned a widespread reputation for the excellence she brings to this role. Her dedication and teaching abilities are rare. During the 40 years she has spent as a Teacher she has changed lives all around the world - from West Africa to the United States to Canada. The results are always the same - phenomenal! Students around the world that have had the good fortune to be touched by her are eternally indebted to her for her involved contribution to their development.
She has gained widespread recognition for her dedication to students with the most important endorsement coming from the Prime Minister of India. In the aftermath of the 1984 assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, her son Rajiv Gandhi took the reigns of leadership. Due to security concerns his two children, Priyanka Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, had to be withdrawn from school and home-schooled. Needless to say the Prime Minister's residence launched a massive search for the very best teachers in the country to be brought on board to ensure that the children's education did not fall victim to terrorist attacks! Their search brought the Prime Minister of India and his wife Sonia Gandhi to Rafiq. Needless to say she was honored to accept this teaching position which entailed her being chauffeured in and out of the Prime Minister's residence on a daily basis for several years. Her impact on the lives of the Prime Minister's children is best observed when their eyes light up in her presence even after more than two decades have passed since she last taught them. Regardless of their stature, for Rafiq, they are always just a phone call away!
It is impossible to document fully all the billionaire industrialists, Judges, Commissioners of Police, Surgeons, and other distinguished members of society that chose Rafiq for the purpose of molding their children's lives. Once again the humility and respect with which these people would interact with Rafiq is testament to how highly they regarded her contribution to their childrens lives. The picture of Barack bowing to Emporer Akihitocomes to mind.
I would not be doing justice to Rafiq if I didn't mention her non-academic contributions. In that capacity she has earned herself the title of "Devi" or Goddess by many whose lives she touched, and rightfully so. Her distinguished career did not come on a silver platter. There was intense opposition to it, but it is not for me to elaborate on that aspect. What is important is that she transcended that opposition with all her might, peacefully, in the true spirit of Ahimsa. Her non-academic contributions include hundreds of random acts of kindness such as rushing a sick stranger to the hospital, at her own cost when in fact her own bank balance was kissing rock bottom, to raising hundreds and thousands for a child that needed life-saving cardiac surgery. People know that if they ring her door bell in their hour of need, even in the middle of the night, she will help them. And if she can't help them herself she has the clout to recruit help with just a phone call!
Thank You Rafiq for being a trail blazer and for giving future generations, particularly women, the example of your outstanding life and career.
Seema
