



Retired mathematics professor Dr Nazir Khan has always found strength in numbers. Only a few months short of 90, he appears to have been well-served by his passion for arithmetic.





“Mathematics is a game of numbers,” he says. “I’ve been playing this game for a very long time.”The nonagenarian has maintained a long-standing commitment to academia and accumulated a great deal of experience.Khan was born in November 1925 in Punjab. Although his family hailed from Galla village of Swabi, they had settled in a small town between Lahore and Kasur where his father worked in the Public Works Department.Academic brilliance came easily to him. In 1942, he managed to get a distinction in his matriculation exams even though his father had passed away and the family moved back to Swabi. Khan was determined to excel and went back to take his exams. He subsequently returned to his native village in Swabi for a short period of time before he secured admission at Islamia College University (ICU) in Peshawar.“At first my mother was reluctant to let me move to Peshawar,” he explains. Nonetheless, Khan managed to persuade her to let him attend ICU where he completed his intermediate, undergraduate and postgraduate education.After he completed his education, Khan contemplated the possibility of changing gears and exploring new career prospects. In 1950, he was selected for the Pakistan Air Force. However, this proved to be a short-lived distraction as academia eventually drew him back into its fold when Khan was offered a job as a lecturer at Edwardes College.A year later, he quit his job and joined the education corps of Pakistan Army in Kakul. However, Khan was soon disenchanted by his life in Kakul and resigned.It was during his time in Kakul that Khan met an official who worked at the German Embassy who inspired him to pursue his true calling. “During my years at ICU, I always wanted to pursue a PhD at the University of Gottingen in Germany,” he says. “When I met the German official many years later, the desire to do my PhD began to resurface.”The German official advised Khan to join a university faculty as it would become easier for him to be admitted to the University of Gottingen. “In order to fulfil my ambitions, I decided to become a lecturer at University of Peshawar (UoP),” he says.This was the beginning of a new chapter in his life which gave him the opportunity to broaden his horizons. Khan earned a scholarship to study in Germany and subsequently completed his doctorate.“After completing my PhD in 1957, I decided to return to UoP and serve my country,” he explains with pride.Still young, he took charge of the administrative responsibilities of the university’s mathematics department. In 1974, he was appointed chairman of the department.Khan’s passion for mathematics took him to different parts of the world. It was during his travels that he met the woman who would become his second wife.“I was in Sweden and was staying with a family,” he explains. “One of their daughters sent me a marriage proposal,” he explains. “At the time, I refused because I had a wife and children.” Many years later, Khan lost his first wife and felt a deep void in his life. Fortunately, he was spared from spending his twilight years in sheer loneliness.“I returned to Sweden and reconnected with the woman who had proposed to me,” Khan says, with a smile. “We decided to get married and settled in Sweden.”Khan continues to find solace in mathematical equations. At times, it is the anchor the 90-year-old moors himself with as it never fails to disappoint him or leave him feeling short-changed.Published in The Express Tribune, May 3, 2015.