It’s a special privilege when people send you condolence messages or call, trying to share your grief, when they know we are all in it together. How can one man mean so much to so many, is a question raised by the death of IA Rehman. There is another one: do we mourn a death or celebrate a life? We will do both, perhaps. Mourn first and celebrate later, as Farhatullah Babar said at one of the memorial meetings.

It is amazing to see how a simple man, leading a simple life, became such a formidable presence that everyone who had met him started believing he would live forever. Aren’t gods supposed to be immortal?

He drew the quintessence of many epochs and made it a part of his being in a way that turned him into a perfect man. Perhaps we need a new language or a new arrangement of words to capture the spirit of IA Rehman. Chances are that a part of him will still elude the worn words of a tested language. Then there are clichés that fit him so appropriately that they stop being clichés — yes, he was larger than life; he was a legend.

So how does one even attempt to write about this giant of a man we knew as Rehman Sahib. One does not wait is what he taught us; one just sits and writes because there is a deadline to meet. That was my one introduction to him. I had this special opportunity of commissioning articles to him during my long stint at this paper. Of course, he would always deliver his articles in time but, after some time, I realised that he was actually excited by the possibility that writing for a magazine offered. He enjoyed writing longish pieces, sometimes on offbeat subjects, away from the relatively strict boundaries of his weekly op-ed. “Achhi baat”, “Kar dain gay”, was how he would reply. He was a man of few words.

Writing was a lifeline for him; so was reading, because no writing was possible otherwise. Other than these short conversations on the phone, we were learning about Rehman Sahib vicariously, through his son Asha’ar Rehman who was my editor at The News on Sunday for ten years. Culture, refinement, professionalism, integrity and wit ran in the family. He was really fond of travelling. It lifted his mood, Asha’ar would tell us.

Over the last twenty-five years, I saw and met him at his home where he was a generous host; in seminars, conferences, festivals and protests. I read him, interviewed him, travelled with him, and was always thrilled to see his stoic resolve, composure, warmth and sense of humour. What struck me most, both in his writing and in public appearances, was his ability to get to the crux of the matter. Scholarship, historical perspective, attention to facts and experience came together to shape his views that were always uttered in low pitch. He was not interested in winning an argument by raising his voice or becoming angry.

Rehman Sahib has been praised as a human rights activist. To me, he was foremost a journalist who believed in human rights, parliamentary democracy, supremacy of constitution, freedom of expression and personal freedoms. He was picked by Asma Jahangir to become a part of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan because he believed in these causes, and journalism back then had suddenly made editors like him and Aziz Siddiqi and Hussain Naqi irrelevant. In a way, human rights work in Pakistan was an extension of journalism. Together, these three heavyweights built a human rights movement along the same foundations, exposing the highhandedness and brutality of the powerful segments of state and society.

Fact-finding missions at the HRCP borrowed a lot from journalism, to get all sides of the story and ascertaining facts. Rehman Sahib never severed his ties with journalism and kept writing regularly for newspapers, because he saw it as a collective struggle. Over time, he became the most powerful and definitive voice for human rights in the country.

There is regret for not having spent more time with him, and then there are memories to cherish. About two months back, on February 17, we had a chance to travel together from Islamabad to Lahore. We were together at a workshop and Rehman Sahib had to leave a day earlier. I found an excuse to be with him in the same car. We had to wait for two hours at the Islamabad Toll Plaza because there was fog on the motorway. We decided to take the GT Road. It took us about eight and a half hours to get to Lahore but there wasn’t a hint or word of agitation from him. On the contrary, he exuded a calm energy that I could only exult in. In the evening, he sent me a note of thanks. Don’t know for what. That was Rehman Sahib!

The writer is a senior   journalist and the director of HRCP