We learnt with profound grief about sad demise of our beloved teacher Prof Harish Lal Shah on 24th April,2018 at Lucknow.
This event took my memories back when Professor Shah in 1965-66 came on promotion on newly created post of Professor of Parasitology from Mhow Veterinary College where he spent about 7-8 years in the dept of path,bact, para. Actually, parasitology was also a part of path,bact, para at Jabalpur and one of his main job was to establish the department of Parasitology ,separately at Jabalpur.
Though Parasitology is considered a very dry subject , yet he taught us it very lucidly so that students may understand the subject and soon he became darling to the students .He was considered a living legend of non academic events , particularly annual staff functions arranged in the presence of Dean DR RL Kaushal and became very popular in staff family and students due to his jokes and other items .
Soon Dr Shah left to Illinois, USA where he did his Ph.D. under the renowned scientist Dr Norman V Levine and his subject of research was coccidia species. His stay at America was not free from sorrow as he lost one of his son at Jabalpur and could not come to attend his sickness.When he came back in 1969 to Jabalpur the post of University Professor and Head was awarded to Dr SC Dutt from IVRI, Izatnagar and Dr Shah has to content with Associate Professor post of the department . Basically , he was a Protozoologist hence taught us in our post graduate programs , protozoology and related subjects. Prior getting professor post in 1977 at Jabalpur , he went to Pantanagar and separated department of Parasitology from Path,Bact, Para. Again he was very famous among undergraduate students and motivated three important UG students e.g. Dr PD Juyal,Dr KML Pathak and Dr D .Kumar who became very distinguish in their field of Parasitology..
No body knows the future events and it happened that Dr SC Dutt left Jabalpur , first for ICAR and then Prof and Head of Parasitology,PAU,Ludhiana. This paved the way of Prof Shah coming back to join Jabal;pur as Prof and Head of Parasitology. During this poistion, he brought an ICAR scheme on sarcocystosis, guided many students for their Ph.D. program ; he retired in June 1991. Here i wish to mention two basic qualities of Prof Shah
In his early life ,Prof Shah was a chain smoker but he never smoke even in post graduate classes. I still remember , this is perhaps in 1980es , one day he passes some blood in his sputum and went to consult a Doctor who advised him to leave smoking. He ,after coming from the physician, immediately throw his match box and cigarette packet and since then no one saw him smoking.
Dr Shah was very popular among fellow parasitologists and helped many of them in different ways. I have seen many papers , even manuscript of the book , sent to him for his comments which he generously provided. We are sure he was much more intelligent and would have utilized it in better way by expressing his thoughts in a book form. In fact he helped me in writing two reviews which were published with his name in two different foreign journals.
After retirement he was staying on second floor of Pavitra Apartment but due to knee pain he hired a flat on ground floor in Ankit apartment ,South civil lines, near old RTO, Jabalpur.His elder son Dr Hemant , a Gynaecologist by profession, is residing in America while younger son Mr Jayant was in Army and lost his life at an early age.Some time back, Dr Shah, on the request of Mr Jayant family went to Lucknow and was living there happily. In one sense , it was a full circle of life as he started his student life from Lucknow and went there at last of his journey.
We all know that his is the circle if life and no one can stay here for ever . Even then it gives great pain when our a near and dear left us -this college is becoming poorer day by day by losing its stalwarts. At this junction, we can pray to the Almighty to give him eternal peace and courage to the bereaved family to bear this loss.
