LAHORE, June 6: Mr Ijaz Hussain Batalvi was the best teacher at the University Law College, session 1967-69. There was never any doubt on that score. His 45-minute lecture seemed to be over in five minutes.

He did not deliver a lecture; he gave a performance. He viewed the teacher as the "principal actor in a one-act play." During one of his remarkable lectures on torts, Aftab Gul and I spontaneously responded with wah wah.

Mr Batalvi without a pause remarked: "Oey Mele Te Aaye O; but thank you for the appreciation" and carried on with his mesmerising discourse. One of our look-good-do-good classmates, always carried a load of books under his armpits.

Mr Batalvi reminded him in his own inimitable style that modern science had not yet developed a technique for passing knowledge through the human armpit and it would be useful if he carried fewer books but attempted to read them.

A well-known heckler would waive his hand vigorously in every class with cries of 'Sarr Sarr. Important Swal 'Yes, my boy' Mr Batalvi would yield. "Sarr, if my next door neighbour's sister is named Yasmin and I called my house Yasmin Cottage, can her brother take me to court and sue me for damages"?

"My boy, he may not take you to court but would certainly take out your front teeth, with the blessings of the entire neighbourhood." Mr Batalvi bought a new blue colour Ford Cortina. On Aftab Gul's daring (so I still claim), I climbed on its roof to perform the 'twist' amidst loud clapping.

As I looked up, Batalvi Sahib, looking down from the first floor verandah, was visibly unamused but made no complaint to Principal Sheikh Imtiaz Ali nor ever expressed his annoyance nor ever mentioned that incident.

When a cracker exploded in Mr Mahmood's classroom, while he was delivering a lecture on the Pakistan Penal Code, different punishments were extended to the prime suspects.

Aftab Gul was transferred to the evening section and fined. I was transferred to section B. Many teachers were eager for us to be expelled. Though neither Aftab Gul nor I had placed the cracker under our teacher's table, half the class knew it was there and who had placed it.

Mr Batalvi was curious about two issues only. "Are Mahmood's lectures boring enough to warrant a bomb? What was used as a fuse to delay the explosion of the firecracker?"

Even after 36 years, Mr Batalvi's manner and method of teaching is vividly remembered by most people privileged enough to be present in his class. I finished the FEL torts final examination paper in 35 minutes.

As I came out, Aftab Gul was already through. Not only did the subject come alive, the concepts were understood and assimilated. He taught in English, gave examples in Punjabi and laced them with anecdotes in Urdu. It was wah wah all the way.

Mr Batalvi was not a 'general legal practitioner' as many lawyers were and are. His expertise was criminal law. He was the most sought-after attorney, at the appellate level in the High Court and Supreme Court.

With a bemused expression and a hint of a smile, he was eloquent beyond description. Always incisive and precise, his sense of humour would be evident in the most solemn proceedings.

In a case of bail which Mr Ijaz Hussain Batalvi was opposing, a very eminent attorney, while persuading the court to agree that the persons seeking bail would not abscond if allowed bail nor would interfere with the prosecution, vehemently urged.

"My Lords, my clients are not 'deperados" (he meant desperados, i.e. desperate men). Mr Batalvi, without pointing out the error, gravely concurred, "I entirely agree with my learned friend. His clients are not Deperados from El Dorado."

While arguing an appeal again conviction in a murder case, he was taking the court through an inconsistency in the statement of a key prosecution witness. "My Lords, this is not a discrepancy. It is a discrepensa." It was not inappropriate, because discrepensa is the Punjabi equivalent for a major discrepancy.

Mr Batalvi's appearances in constitutional cases were few and he was never really comfortable in that field. He was Rafiq Tarar's counsel in the rejection of his nomination papers' case.

On an evening that I went to visit Mr Batalvi, Rafiq Tarar had just left. On my persistent queries as to how Mr Tarar would fare as president, Mr Batalvi with his twinkle summed it up "Koddey, I have given only one piece of advice to the president. Do not become Nawaz Sharif's Baccha Jamoora."

When Mr Manzoor Wattoo and his family were being prosecuted and hounded, Mr.Batalvi's response when consulted was: 'Politicians reap what they sow. Wattoo Sahib, Haunsla Wakhao."

In an extradition issue, Mr Batalvi's opinion was sought. Since I was one of the attorneys in the case, I was instructed to meet Mr Batalvi. "My dear boy, let me see what you have learnt.

Write the opinion as if Ijaz Batalewala is writing it." The first four drafts were rejected. When the fifth draft reached him, he asked whether it was the best that could be done by me.

When I responded with an emphatic 'yes', he read it slowly and signed it, observing "Reads like my opinion now. That is why I have signed it without a change, Koddey. I am complimenting you."

Mr Batalvi was an astute observer. At a reference for a departing chief justice, the courtroom was packed, so I stood behind Mr Batalvi and Aftab Gul way back in the court.

When a senior attorney inched forward, Mr Batalvi observed: "Koddey, he is going to stare at a junior lawyer occupying a front seat till that lawyer quivers and offers him the seat.

He will then sit and make sure he is photographed." Sure enough, it happened. As we were going for tea in the high court lawns, Mr Batalvi stopped the senior lawyer and asked: "Yar, what do you want to become when you grow up?"

After the government of Mian Nawaz Sharif was restored, Mr Batalvi told chief justice Dr Nasim Hassan Shah: "Doctor, have you no faith in me? Even before I could applaud you have yourself gone hoarse proclaiming "Historical judgment, historical judgment. Will it stand the test of history?"

At my request to come to the City Law College and talk to the students, he put a condition. I had to visit a site with him. After his speech, he took me to a place near the Mental Hospital off the Jail Road where a large number of gypsies were encamped.

"Koddey, Yeh Bhi Pakistan Heh. Talk about them on television. Make a documentary. Tell the people, there are many like them, who are awaiting the realization of the dream that was supposed to be Pakistan."

As my appearances on television became more frequent, Mr Batalvi chided: "That day is not far, Koddey, when before a child is circumcised, the father or in your case the mother, will invite you to interview the child before the loss of his foreskin."

On another evening at the residence of Justice Ataullah Sajjad (retired), a servant came in and said: "Ijaz-i-Bewafaa wants to come in." Judge Sahib was quite perplexed at the name Mr Batalvi walked in.

"Sheikh Sahib, my efforts to become Ijaz-i-Bawafaa have failed. But here I am." On seeing me, he beamed "Koddey, how does it feel to be famous? Do you look at the mirror while shaving and remind yourself that you are a 'celebrity'? Do you strut in front of your wife and thump your chest "Me, Naeem Bokhari, famous TV personality."

My reply that television fame merely made people curious and was no different from the curiosity people have while looking at monkeys in a zoo, was totally unacceptable to him. "Koddey, bevkoof na bana apne waddian noo."

Mr Batalvi believed he was destined to play an important role in Pakistan. He did, but not in the manner he believed he would. Mr Batalvi's first love was radio, yet he refused to be interviewed on television.

Mr Batalvi was qualified, by every conceivable yardstick to be the President of the high or Supreme Court Bar associations, but did not come forward because, as he put it "Koddey if I stand for election, they (the lawyers) will relish the opportunity to take my pants off. I take them off when I feel like and only when it is absolutely necessary."

In his last years, he developed a stoop and walked with the hint of a shuffle. "Oey Koddey" had become "My Son." Mr Ijaz Hussain Batalvi was a class act, in and out of the class. To remember him only as the prosecutor in Zulfikar Ali Bhutto case would be a great disservice to this great man.