Obituary of Mrs. Deena M. Mistry

This is an Obituary for Mrs. Deena M. Mistry.  I wrote this for my Print Journalism teacher Mr. Jalil two years ago. Since university is over, I thought of publishing it online now.

Obituary of Mrs. Deena M. Mistry

Karachi, February 1^st , 2011:- Pakistan’s eminent educationist, Presidential Pride of Performance recipient and former Principal of Karachi’s second oldest school, BVS Parsi High School, Mrs. Deena M. Mistry, 86, died of brain cancer, on Thursday, January 27, 2011 in a local hospital in Karachi.

The cause of her death was a brain infarction, which afflicted her on Tuesday. A few hours later she slipped into a coma and could not come out of it.

Mrs.Mistry had been suffering from postural hypotension for the last few months and often had spells of dizziness, which once resulted in the breaking of her left arm.

Mrs. Mistry was born on February 29, 1924 in Karachi. She was the grand daughter of Seth Shapurji Soparivala who founded the ‘Bai Virbaijee Soparivala Parsi High School’ in 1859.

Mrs. Mistri was a member of the Zoroastrian Community. She was married to Pestonji, an architect, for 57 years who survives. They had two sons Farhad and Afshad who were present in her funeral which was held on Saturday, 29^th January, 2011.

She graduated with a BA (Honours) from Bombay University in 1945. In 1962, she was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and obtained her Diploma in Education.

Mrs. Mistry was the principal of Bai Virbaijee Soparivala Parsi High School for over 64 years. Under her tenure B.V.S. Parsi High School was rated as the "The Best Private Boys School for the Millennium" in Sindh , Pakistan.

At the time of her death, Mistri was Chairperson of Westminster School and College, Karachi and a consultant at The Accel School, Karachi.

In 1992, Mistri successfully fought her battle with breast cancer.

She was awarded the "Pride of Performance" by the President of Pakistan - General Pervez Musharraf on 23rd March 2002 for the invaluable contribution she has rendered towards providing quality education in Pakistan.

Known for her strict disciplinarian ways, Mistry will be fondly remembered as ‘Iron Lady’ by her former students.

Her focus was on being punctual to school, involvement of parents by checking the report cards and signing them for weekly tests and monthly report cards.

'Being an excellent teacher herself, she always emphasized on being grammatically correct than speaking wrong English with an accent. There would be occasional caning for students while a tight slap was easy to receive. Such was her fear that even after having graduated, I would dare not pass in front of her room when visiting BVS', says one of her students.

She had a large number of students who were very fond of her. Their long list included Dr Feroz Ismail who was always at her beck and call. She developed warm and cordial relations with the parents of her students as well and never failed to inquire about them every time she met her pupils.

The school was initially a co-education school for Parsi population of Karachi. In 1919, BVS became a boys only school with Mama Parsi School being separated for girls.

With the independence of Pakistan and upon Quaid-e-Azam’s request, BVS began accepting Muslim students, a trait of openness always displayed by the small but industrious Parsi community.

 Mrs. Mistry began teaching at BVS in 1950 and became the principal in 1972. Her time was the golden period for the school, which churned out future leaders in their fields like medicine, engineering, business and politics.

Situated on prime property in the middle of Saddar, Mrs. Mistry turned down many an offer to move the school away to areas like Clifton and Defence.

She also stayed away from overly commercializing BVS, keeping the school morning shift only and retaining only the matriculation system instead of having dual standards of matriculation and Cambridge.

She simply used to respond to demands of parents to the need of Cambridge system by saying “I can’t have class difference within one boundary wall”. I am a proud graduate of BVS staying there from 1986 to 1996.

'One can also imagine the middle-class friendly nature of the school as my monthly fee started from Rs. 150 and ended at Rs. 520 in 1996. Until last year, the school’s fee was around Rs. 1800, which is far less than majority of the 'leading school systems'', told a graduate of BVS.

She had been diagnosed with cancer in 1992 and one could see her will power that she continued to be in school even though her health had deteriorated. She would tell absent students “I get sick from 1.15 pm till 7.45 am the next day, but never between 7.45 am to 1.15 pm.”

The managing committee, principal, staff members and students of the Bai Virbaiji Soparivala Parsi High School have condoled the death of Mrs. Deena Mistri, a long-serving principal of the school who devoted 60 years of her life to the cause of education, PPI reported.

Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad Khan also condoled the death of Ms Mistri.

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