EVERYBODY in Aurangabad knows the elderly and distinguished Dawoodi Bohra gentleman Shabbir Hussain as �Josh�. That�s his nickname and it was given him in school because he was active and full of �josh�. The name has stuck, though Josh is now with grandchildren who are a handful and keep him on his toes. He is still active. Till as lately as two years ago, he was principal of the Marathwada College of Education where he taught Sociology and English. He spent 28 years with the college and is now a director on the Burhani National Education Society board in Aurangabad. He has been associated with this, too, for the last 35 years. �I came to Aurangabad from Burhanpur for studies, met my wife Sabeera here, married and settled down. I have been an educationist all my life. But now, I spend my time sitting in a medical store that we have in the city,� Josh says quietly.

Josh and Sabeera have three children, two boys, Akhtar and Fazal with their wives Tahera and Fatima, and a daughter Zainab Hassan who is married and settled with three kids of her own in the US. The Josh family is very, very Bohri. There are 320 Dawoodi Bohra families in Aurangabad out of which theirs is the oldest. The community�s population is 1,200. It has five mosques in the city and the Dawoodi Bohra spiritual leader, Dr. Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin, comes there occasionally.