I first saw Father Todd while I was enrolled in first grade at St Bonaventure’s High School. Father JB Todd was the Vice Principal of the school, while a Dutch priest was the Principal.
Attired in white, fully ironed Franciscan robes, sporting well-combed hair, Father Todd’s hallmark was the surprise inspections that he would carry out. While I was looking at the teacher in front of the class, I would occasionally see students turning their heads toward the windows. Standing there was a tall man looking into the classroom.
It was Father Todd making his rounds, ensuring that the students and their teacher were absorbed in their studies, not chit-chatting to pass the time. He wore rubber-soled shoes, so the surprise element was always there. But he also wore perfume, which would sometimes give us a hint of his presence.
In 1962, we moved to Sukkur, and I was admitted into sixth grade at St Mary’s High School. Unlike St Bonaventure’s, this was a co-educational institution. Coincidentally, Father Todd was transferred to St Mary’s as the Principal at the same time.
I completed my sixth, seventh and eighth grades there and got to know him a little better. He remained a strict disciplinarian, but always came across as a kind and polite man. I remember when he and a couple of other priests showed up unannounced at a picnic that my troop of Cub Scouts led by Sir Sardar were having on an island in the Indus River, adjacent to the Ayub and Lansdowne Bridges. We had taken a boat to get there, which for most of us was the first boat ride in our lives. Father Todd and the other priests joined us for lunch. We were honoured and delighted.
Then came that day in late November 1963 when some of us were chatting in the compound during the recess break. A student came running with the news that President John F Kennedy had been shot and killed in Dallas, Texas. Someone suggested that the PAF send a fighter jet to the US and take it over.
He wore rubber-soled shoes, so the surprise element was always there. But he also wore perfume, which would sometimes give us a hint of his presence
I was stunned. Why would we want to do that? In any case, one plane would not suffice to take over the US, which was a very big country that was located very far away for us. Just at that moment, Father Todd spotted us and called out my name: “Ahmad, you and your friends need to get back to your class. The bell has sounded.” So, off we went back to class. To this day, I wonder as to what became of my friend who had wanted to dispatch a fighter jet to the US. Did he join the PAF?
I learned a lot from Father Todd without ever taking a single class from him, since he only taught students in the ninth and tenth grades. He had a huge impact on my life, with his sense of discipline and deep knowledge not only of the English language but also of several things that make the world go round.
In 1965, we moved to Karachi just a few months before the war with India broke out. I joined St Patrick’s High School and completed my ninth and tenth grades there. Father Raymond was the principal. When President-General Pervez Musharraf published his memoir, In the Line of Fire, I came to know that he had also studied at that school, and during that time, Father Todd had been there. Later, I came to know that Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz had also studied under him.
In 2015, my sister, who lives in London, was visiting Karachi when she found out where Father Todd lived. She was able to visit him with a cousin who lived in Karachi and who had also studied under Father Todd at St Bonaventure’s.
She sent me a picture of the distinguished educator, who was now 94 years old. He was smiling and wearing plain clothes. That was the first time I had seen him wearing anything other than the Franciscan robes.
I got his phone number from her and tried calling him but never got through. A few years later, the news came that he was ill and had been hospitalised. I immediately sent him a Get-Well card.
The days passed with no response. Has my card reached him? Did he read it?
I began to worry about his health. One day, when I reached inside my mailbox, I found my card to Father Todd sitting there. My heart sank. On the back was a cryptic, handwritten message in Urdu: “The man whose name is on the letter has died.”
It was not clear who had written it. Was it his clerk? A friend? Just the mailman? Later, I read that he had passed away on the 4th of December 2017, at the age of 96. I was heartbroken.
He was born on 30 November 1921, in Karachi. He studied at St Patrick’s High School in Karachi and at the University of Bombay. After that, he decided to join the Franciscan Order of Friars Minor and entered the Portiuncula Friary in Karachi. He was ordained a priest in 1948.
In addition to being a teacher and a principal, he was also a band master. I did not know the behind-the-scenes skills he must have used to lead the teaching staff at the schools where I studied. Ultimately, it was those leadership skills of his which contributed to making these three schools among the best learning institutions in the country.
There is little doubt that Father Todd educated hundreds if not thousands of students in his career, of whom many rose to high positions in Pakistan and abroad. However, because he was a humble man, despite his many accomplishments, he did not get much press coverage in his life.
The Reverend was one of those larger-than-life figures that one rarely encounters in life. I was privileged to have known him from 1958-65.