Tributes, especially when they are showered upon one after his or her death, tend to appear clichéd. But with the passing of veteran editor Arif Nizami, who wore far too many hats in this industry to be easily contained in even the most liberal obituary, it can very safely be said that a great era of independent, impartial journalism in the country has truly come to an end. He was perhaps the last remnant of the time when the editor of a leading newspaper himself needed to be an institution, whose day job of putting the spotlight on society’s numerous problems and keeping the government always on its toes made him a household name; right up there with the presidents, prime ministers and chief ministers of the day.Arif sahib, which is how everybody who had worked with him addressed him, had seen it all. From predicting which day a sitting government would fall or who would lead the run for the spoils to behind the scenes machinations of administrations as well as personal leanings of leading politicians (which could and did have a profound impact on their politics), Arif sahib set the bar for everything a proud journalist and editor should achieve in his career a long time ago. And nobody in the industry would deny it that all the way to the very end, till days before he was incapacitated by illness, he was as much a working journalist as he was forty years ago when he was forced to learn the ropes very early because of the untimely death of his father, Hameed Nizami, founder of the Nawa i Waqt group and a legend of a journalist in his own right. Yet perhaps an even bigger contribution to journalism than everything he achieved in his illustrious career was mentoring at least two generations of astute and grateful reporters, writers and editors. Most of today’s leading journalists and editors came of age under his watch. And for the longest time most Pakistani journalists working in big publications abroad, especially in the UK and Gulf countries, came from the paper that he founded in the 1980s in Lahore, The Nation; which led to it being referred to as The Nation Academy outside the country because it trained so many workers that stood out for their professionalism even in other environments. People like Arif Nizami never really die because the work they did and the institutions they created carry on. But the world is very much poorer without him. This paper, like all other publications, salutes Arif Nizami for his work, his distinguished career, all that he achieved, and the spark that he lit and left behind. Rest in peace! *