Abu Zafar obituary

My grandfather Abu Zafar, who has died aged 88, was an engineer, inventor and co-founder, with his wife, Hisako, of the first Asian-owned printing press in Bradford, West Yorkshire. His service to business was recognised with a British Empire Medal in 2014; Hisako received the same award the following year. They arrived in West Yorkshire in 1971 from what was then East Pakistan, where Zafar, as he was known to all, had managed the largest muslin mill in the Indian subcontinent; he was visiting Europe on a one-year UN fellowship with his wife and children when the Bangladesh war of liberation broke out and the family was stranded in the UK. Zafar began an engineering PhD at Bradford University and found work as a maths teacher. Seeing a gap in the market, in 1974 Zafar and Hisako started a small printing company, Orient Press. Demand grew and they expanded, producing print for businesses, banks, mosques, the Pakistan consulate and Bradford Cathedral, as well as wedding cards. Keen on new technology, in 1978 they bought Bradford’s first typesetting computer – ahead of the local newspaper, the Telegraph & Argus. My grandparents were active in civic life, and were original sponsors of Bradford Mela in 1988, aimed at uniting communities. Always inventing, Zafar patented a foil laminator, earning awards and global sales. He and Hisako were celebrated for donating unique gold-foiled editions of the Guru Granth Sahib, which feature still in school guides on Sikhism. Their business has continued successfully for more than 50 years, providing employment and training to people from every background. Born in Calcutta (now Kolkata) in what was then British India, into an Urdu-speaking family, Zafar was the son of Mohammed Moslem and his wife, Zakia. As a boy he was evacuated during Japan’s bombing raids on the city in the second world war and his childhood memory of the house in Madhupur, “Kunj-e-affiat” or “place of peace”, was its garden of mangoes and “every kind of fruit imaginable”. It came to symbolise a lost homeland when, during the partition of India, he became part of the biggest mass migration in history. In August 1947, at independence, Zafar met Mahatma Gandhi, who stayed in Calcutta brokering peace amid fierce communal violence. Rioting persisted after Gandhi’s assassination the following January in Delhi and Zafar’s family was forced to flee India to East Pakistan. In Dhaka, he attended St Gregory’s high school, then Dhaka College and University. Aged 21, in 1957, he won a scholarship to study engineering in Japan. Foreigners were unusual in the country then and Zafar, a gifted linguist, attracted attention, even appearing on Japanese TV. He fell in love with Japan and with my grandmother, Hisako Nakajima, whom he married in Kyoto in 1962. After Zafar was headhunted to manage the state-owned Muslin Cotton Mills in Kaliganj, East Pakistan (bringing 500 looms from Toyota in Japan), the family moved to Dhaka, from where they made the journey to the UK. Zafar never dwelt on history. Caring only about the future, with warmth and tolerance he endeavoured to build a place of peace. He is survived by Hisako, two daughters, Naz and Yasmeen, and five grandchildren, Jamie, Robbie, Zaki, Farah and me.