Labor Day honors Zafar Nomani, a 93‑year‑old Indian‑born professor whose quiet service taught his daughter that dignity lives in every act of care.
A Life of Service
Born in 1933 under British rule, Nomani survived the 1943 Bengal famine and arrived in the United States as a graduate student in the late 1960s.
In 1962, while teaching at Kansas State University, he witnessed his professor scrubbing cars at a church car wash, an experience that cemented his belief in the dignity of labor.
He raised his family in Morgantown, W.V., where he worked long hours as a nutrition professor, drove his children to school and opportunities, and helped his wife launch a boutique, repeatedly saying “I get to” instead of “I have to.”
His daughter, journalist Asra Nomani, recounts that his service — warming her frozen hands after a track meet, building a nursery, cooking biryani for her son — provided the foundation for her career and worldview.
After his death in August, observers note that Nomani’s life embodies the true spirit of Labor Day, highlighting the value of unpaid, invisible labor that sustains families and society.
