We, the Rizvi family and the community, has always called the violent and the insane group by the name Daesh
This is not about how the New Year was supposed to begin. The attack in Istanbul was just like any other terror attack in the already violent world.
My initial reaction to the strike, by an insane man donning the attire of Santa Claus—who blindly fired at people celebrating the arrival of 2017, was of sorrow.
It turned into shock when External Affairs Minister Sushma Sawaraj tweeted on Sunday evening that one of the victims was Abis Rizvi, a close relative of mine. The Daesh (Islamic State) has struck our family.
We never imagined, not even in the wildest of our dreams, that Daesh, an ideology filled with filth and nothing else, would strike so close. We, the Rizvi family and the community, has always called the violent and the insane group by the name Daesh. It sounds similar to Arabic word Dahes, which means sowers of discord or Daes (one who crushes underfoot)—the very reason why the terrorists hate being called so and all the more reason why we should call it so.
It was a shocker more so that (uncle) Abis was young and doing so well in his life. His career in real estate development—heading the Rizvi Builders group—was only soaring.
As a film producer, too, he came out with innovative and out of the box projects.
His maiden film Roar, a conflict between tiger and man, was a mature idea and was executed with impressive VFX effects done by Hollywood technicians.
The two projects in the pipeline were Puneet Issar-directed He Man, on a father-son relationship, and T for Tajmahal, a film based on education, with Raveena Tandon playing a cameo.
At 49, he was a philanthropist like his father Dr Akhtar Hasan Rizvi, a former Rajya Sabha MP, who believes in promoting education.
Abis was involved in charity and was firm in his belief that while donating money or helping out, it should be done discreetly. The adage in Hindi that translates into "your left hand shouldn't know what your right hand is doing," was his guiding principle.
A patriot to the core, Abis ran a Voting Awareness Campaign—stressing on the importance of exercising the franchise—among youth at the Rizvi Education Society in Mumbai before the 2014 general elections.
He furthered the Rizvi tradition of being sports enthusiasts with gusto. Ask anyone in the Mumbai maidans and they will tell you how much he was involved in promoting cricket at the grassroots level. That Rizvi Springfield and Rizvi College are the top sides in school and college cricket stand testimony to his efforts.
And it wasn't cricket alone. He donated an electronic scoreboard to Mumbai Hockey Association Ltd Stadium. The association officials were struggling to get one and Abis didn't had to think twice before signing a cheque.
For all these reasons, Abis' passing away is mourned by the society as well.
As for Daesh and its backers, they have always been the enemy of the mankind. Our hatred for the group has only grown stronger.
That Daesh hasn't entered India, the credit goes to the government and its agencies. As far as dealing with the terror outfit is concerned, it is their ideology that needs to be crushed and for that the whole world has to come together and fight it.
One last thing, I would like to thank Sushmaji for arranging visas for Abis's parents, so that they could bring his body back. Something we will be indebted for.
As for Abis Rizvi, you were gem of a person. It will be impossible to erase the memories of a person whose smile was as infectious as his congeniality. RIP, Abis.
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