A book dedicated to an outstanding educationist

Foreign Minister Ali Sabry receiving a copy of the biography at the launch

A book on the legendary Principal of Zahira College, Matale, the late Sha Wadood, was launched at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute last week. The ceremony was presided over by Foreign Minister Ali Sabry.

The book is considered an authoritative biography of the pioneer educationist Shahul Hameed Abdul Wadood or SHAW, as he was known to his closest friends. It is also the title of the book which narrates the life and times of the man—from an intimate perspective as if penned by those closest and dearest to him, who had known him all his life.

This book aptly titled SHAW does this and more. It delves deep into the mind, manners and worldview of that great man who is still remembered by his pupils for his erudition and contribution to the field of education, including some unique teaching methods that could only be described as quintessentially “Wadoodian”.

The book captures the wonderful memories others had of him, fondly recalled even more than half a century later, if not many more. It memorialises the kind of men who lived then and the spirit of those great times, and it tells a story long forgotten but one certainly worth telling the world.

The fact is that Shaw was a man beyond his times and this book brings this out vividly. Told in a very reader-friendly narrative style, it captures the life of the great man in his various aspects, as a father, teacher, principal, socialist activist and a goodwill ambassador among many other things. One lifetime is simply not enough for men like him and putting it down after a fascinating read, one wishes that there were many more men like him walking the earth today.