PART 6: NED NOSTALGIA (1978-83)

Civil Engineering Department

Civil Engineering Department had same undeclared special status of what Tariq Road had in Karachi in 1980s. First, it was located in the front of NED campus. All civil engineering labs and workshops were located at the front. All point buses would drop the students at this location and boys would go through the aisles of civil engineering department to their respective departments i.e. Mechanical and Electrical which located at far end of the campus. A Bank Branch and Stationery store were also located here (Later, they were shifted to a new small building on NED approach road for Faculty). Similarly, Canteen, Girls Common Room, and a double storied Drawing Hall were located in the vicinity of our department. The corridor between outer wall of Girls Common Room and Drawing Hall served as point for social cum political activities. Two large notice boards, one either of IJT and PSF, were installed here where these organizations would announce their respective daily programs.

Around break time, this point will get swarmed by boys for two purposes; to watch and keep an eye on every girl entering and leaving Girls Common Room, and indulge into social cum political activities, raise slogans in favor and against their respective parties and adversaries. The amazing thing about this place was; despite getting into heated arguments, debate and raising slogans in favor and against, the boys never scuffled upon, never touched opponents’ arms or necks or threw fists at each other. However, they fought ferociously in verbal terms, hurling tantrums and criticizing policies and leaders of their opponent parties.   

The large Drawing Halls covering two floors as its name indicate were built for helping students to prepare large drawings on the flexible boards that could be lifted upwards and adjusted downwards. These Halls also served as examination centers for civil engineering students because both floors could accommodate nearly a 100 students. (From students’ point of view, it was an ideal examination center for cheating). Ground floor of Drawing Hall was also used for holding Book Fairs at the start of every new semester, thus helping the students to buy branded technical books at discounted rates. Informally, students would also use these Halls for indulging into some extracurricular activities such as experiencing their singing instincts, some would do paintings, and most of all, it also served couples to sit and chat in peace while others envied them watching through windowpanes.

If we could play cricket in the classrooms we would have definitely done that but alas! All corridors and small & large parks in front of classrooms and around were used for playing cricket by students whenever they had some free classes. Students didn’t spare even the windowpanes of the ground floor of Drawing Hall; the flying tennis ball (wrapped with adhesive tape) broke much of them within no time while playing cricket. One could also watch some good and quality cricket played regularly in the large open area surrounded by Civil Engineering Department, Canteen, Auditorium, Central Library and Administrative Block, and by the side of central Fountain.

Tahir Nisar, our classmate, was a first class cricketer and used to represent NED in the national cricket tournaments. During our free classes or while in wait for Mr. Abdul Quddus Alvi Sahib, we would go behind Civil Lecture Hall and play cricket. Tahir would hit big sixes on long on/ off position. I would prefer to field in that position for catching but his sixes were pretty long and hard to catch.

Else, still waiting for Alvi Sb in Civil Lecture Hall I would stand silently behind a group of “top” students and enjoy their chatting while they discussed course contents, preparing and appearing for TOEFL and GRE exams, and sometimes try to test English vocabulary of each other by asking meanings of difficult words.  

Civil Lecture Hall was (is) a large and wide room enough for accommodating about 200 students to attend combined classes, seminars or such lectures. Alvi Sb was fond of conducting combined classes ostensibly to save his time because he was a busy engineer doing his consultancy, official administrative matters (being head of Civil Engineering Department and Dean of Faculty later) and teaching, all along simultaneously. He was a matchless teacher. We used to attend his lectures in a pin-drop silence.

It is also an undeniable fact that we did not spend as much time in learning from Alvi sahib’s teachings as much as we wasted in waiting for him. He was irregular and would keep us wait for his class most of the times. Hence, all subjects that he taught us were hardly covered as much as 50% percent of the prescribed courses.

Once while delivering a lecture (probably in Structure Analysis) to joint A, B and C (or A & B) Sections in Civil Lecture Hall, Alvi sahib came up with mentioning three terms: Significant, Considerable, and Reasonable. He suddenly asked the class to classify these terms from lowest to highest rank.

I was baffled. Much of the class too, and hid their faces or lowered their gaze so that he wouldn’t point it out at them for reply.

Sir, Reasonable, Considerable and Significant, came a sudden and confident reply from Sohail Ghulamali.

Alvi sahib was pleased over the reply. All were relieved over it, at least I, surely.

Another unforgettable but deplorable incident; I fail to remember when it happened, may be in the third year that somehow due to Alvi Sahib’s prolonged absence from taking the classes, students reported to the higher authorities about his habit of skipping the lectures. Besides, due to Alvi Sahib’s tough, livid and inflexible attitude as well as internal political of teachers and in connivance of student union, we were brainwashed to go for a boycott of Alvi Sahib’s paper during our examination. So, all was set on the exam day. As soon as question paper was distributed among students, we, without taking a glance at the question paper, stood up and started shouting that contents of the question paper were not covered in the lectures and began chanting; out of course, out of course. Other teachers and invigilators also supported the boycotting students. Much to the embarrassment of Alvi Sahib, boycott remained successful. I regret that day.

Few words about our Faculty: Of all the teachers I learned my civil engineering from, Alvi Sb stands tall and spearheads the list followed by Makhdoomi Sb, Afaq Sb, Kidwai Sb, etc. Let me confess here that I hardly understood Khalid Sb’s Maths lectures. Kidwai Sb was much easier to comprehend to.

A funny thing about Afaq Sb’s lectures: On initiating his lecture he would draw a small member (T-beam or I-beam) on the blackboard. We would follow him by drawing the small member on our copy. As the lecture would progress he would keep on adding loads, actions, reactions, draw stresses, strains, bending moments, diagrams, etc, with coloured chalks. The initial figure and subsequent loads would intermingle in such a way that it would hardly be comprehensible on a piece of paper with one coloured ballpoint pen and if I didn’t reproduce it on a larger scale back home immediately it would never be understood.

During breaks in lectures or in the recess time we would gather around our gang leader Sharafat and Muhamamad Ali acting as his deputy, as their ardent followers. This gang was notorious in making fun of and joking with others, creating funny nicknames of other students especially girl students and hurling indirect flying jokes at them. Jinn Baba, Duck, Auntie, Chhota, Lorry Adda were some of the nicknames of some NEDian girls conceived by Sharafat and propagated and enjoyed by all. Continued in Part-7: J-1 Hostel

Part 5: NED NOSTALGIA (1978-83)

Section C

Periodic full day picnics were a regular feature of NED. I don’t remember visiting any spot during our first year of studies but in the second year after Abdullah became CR we went for a picnic to Keenjhar (Kalri) Lake and Shahjahani Mosque in Thatta, some 100 kms in North-West of Karachi on Indus Highway. For every such picnic we would arrange Chicken Biryani and Raita for lunch, especially prepared at J-1 Hostel. Some Kashmiri cooks used to prepare delicious Biryani in J-1 Hostel. While travelling through Karachi roads we would tease/ abuse unprovoked traffic police with shouting a term called “Tulla” at them. Poor traffic constables would avoid getting entangled with students because student unions were strong during that era. But sometimes they would react with anger and show a stretched five fingers hand (called Bujja in Sindhi or La’nat) at us. At times, middle finger also hurled at us.

Beside my Sindhi class fellows I had the tendency of befriending other-language speaking classmates and hostel-mates. It was because of my upbringing environment. Though I came from rural Sindh, but still, our neighbourhood in Larkana was predominantly Urdu speaking families, therefore, I felt at ease in making friends. The Iranians were also good friends of mine, perhaps because I supported their strong allegiance with Khomeini. It was a time Iranian revolution had recently put Khumeini in power and Shah of Iran had fled from Iran. Who can forget two very popular Iranian slogans (in Persian) during revolution uprising: Marg Bar Shah (Death for Shah), Durood Bar Khumeini (Prayers for Khumeini).

Adil Irani, our Parsi classmate left NED within a few months to join merchant navy. He used to crack jokes in English that we would hardly understand owing to our poor vocabulary and his typical accent that was hard to understand but we would join in laughing with him all the time. Jamsheed aka Jumpy, who used to look messy in extra-casual attire with thick dark curly but uncombed hair and unshaven most of the time, would often help Ashok and me in English writing and remained a dear friend all the rest of NED years and beyond virtually and electronically, till now.

Aftab Farooqi, on the other hand, was more a teacher than a friend, especially for Aziz Memon and me. In fact he’s a born teacher. We would travel to his home in North Nazimabad for learning during preparation leaves for exam. Babar, Ahmad Salam, Shahzad and even Sarwat would also turn up there for the same purpose. After the studies, Babar/Ahmad Salam would take us to Hydari Market for lunch, mostly Nihari.

Can’t remember all but there were many other friends who would often interact with me like Shahzad (a soft spoken and thorough gentleman), Ramesh, Mohtesham Rizvi, Tahir Nisar, Ahsan, Mehtab, Abid, Kazi Qadir, Mansoor Khan, Mansoor Gillani, Akbar Khan, Akbar (Hockey player), Jawaid Latif, Ishrat (late), Zafar Mushtaq, Shahid Jabbar, Zahid Ismail and most importantly Ahmad Ali (late). The former was a genius at studies and his handwriting was simply beautiful. Unfortunately, while in third year he became eccentric, abnormal and lost his sanity and couldn’t recover from it to complete his engineering. Some years back from now I learned that he had been chained at his home because of his unrelenting madness and he died in the same physical and mental state. Poor unlucky fellow! May he rest in Jannah. Ameen.

A good friend named Tariq Panhwar was also our classmate but he rarely appeared in the class. We would often meet him at a hostels kiosk at afternoon/ evening tea-time. He would appear with swollen eyes (just gotten up from the day long sleep). He had done his FSc. from Russia and was vying to move to the United States. Perhaps it was our second year that we heard about him leaving NED for the States. Aleem Soomro was a truly social and helping fellow. He would assist in filling and filing yearly scholarship forms, buy for us computer paper from Lunda Bazaar and prepare & distribute photocopied “notes” to the entire class. He handwriting was beautiful too (similar to Nizam).

Aslam Ansari was a genius but lethargic fellow. He would study and prepare assignments at his own convenience i.e. at the last moment. I don’t remember him refusing to teach us whenever we had gotten into trouble. Mumtaz Memon was intelligent but he had affiliations with some students from Section A residing in J-4 and MBQ-I hostels. Therefore he was a bit alien to us. Late Ishrat was also a brilliant student but since he was not a boarder therefore he was not of much help to us except for his group friends. Similarly, Aziz Memon was a Tableeghi (preacher) and would not miss an opportunity to whisper in my ears extending invitation for accompanying him to Makki Masjid on Friday night for weekly gathering of Tableeghi Jama’t. He was effective twice; once taking me to Makki Masjid and on other occasion to a 3-day congregation held in a large ground in North Nazimabad, Karachi.

Somehow I felt that Section C was a deprived class. The reason being, as I perceive, that teachers treated it as a “class of nominees” and did not exert extra efforts in teaching (often skipped taking lectures too) in comparison to Section A and B. The other big reason I found at that age was absence of girl students in it. Although a handful of girls but still I used to envy Section A for having them there. Dejected with all these factors with Section C, one fine day I wrote with a white chalk on our classroom door in big and prominent letters: Labour Room.

When Aslam Ansari saw it he burst into a laughter and asked me:

Aijaz, do you know what does it mean?

I replied confidently: Yes, a place where labourers work.

He again laughed at me and said: You fool it means a place where women undergo pregnancy pains and deliver babies.

It was high time I ignored embarrassment and concentrated at improving my poor English.

Section C lasted two years. It was wound up as we stepped into third year of civil engineering. Section C students were divided into two groups; one group of about 30 students (including me) joined Section A, while other 30 students went into Section B. I was happy on moving into Section A. In spite of this new arrangement, our friendships that reared up with our classmates in Section C didn’t diminish and remained thriving and everlasting. I hardly made any new friends in Section A because the old students of Section A were already in their friendships/ groups that were formed within first two years of our NED.

Continued in Part 6: Civil Engineering Department …..

PART-4: NED NOSTALGIA (1978-83)

Section C

Don’t remember how many of us were in Section C but I do remember from the daily class attendance that Muhammad Ali and Sharafat had starting roll numbers of 131 and 132 (or 133) respectively. Likewise, last roll number ran into 190s but I can still reminisce roll #186, belonging to Fiaz Shah. He had a peculiar voice of uttering 186 during class attendance that everyone would throw a smile or grin about it. Sharafat, the devil, would eagerly wait for such an uttering and burst into laughter while pressing his palm against his wide opened mouth.

Section C was a place of assorted group of students. It was truly an AWAMI class. Some Karachiites whose merit stood at last numbers but still making into NED, some on Sindh quota (came from Mehran Engg Univ), two on Karachi rural seats namely Ali Sher and Ghulam Muhammad, two on NED Founders quota (Jamsheed Mehta and perhaps, Adil Irani), Balochistan quota, Army parental quota (Husnain Baqar), some seats on BSc basis, others came through topping in 3-year Diplomas, and two students namely Abbas and Ghulam Hussain from Iran. It’s worth mentioning that in late 1970-80s foreign students from many countries used to come to Pakistan for higher studies, like: Iran, Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Palestine, Africa, Thailand, Nepal, and Malaysia, etc.

Two main student political parties named Islami Jamiat Tulba (IJT) and Progressive Students Federation (PSF) greeted us in the campus. IJT was a conservative organization with a signature slogan: Asia Sabz Hae (Asia is green) while PSF with three slogans: Asia Surkh Hae (Asia is red), NED for NEDians and Build a Better NED. While National Students Federation (NSF) was around for its namesake and All Pakistan Muhajir Students Association (APMSO) was in a nuptial stage. Office bearers/ workers of both mainstream parties i.e. IJT and PSF helped us in getting copies of handout-notes, previous class-notes, lists of books and syllabus and most importantly gave us an unambiguous declaration and assurance that our degree would be awarded on the basis of final year examination (last two semesters i.e. 7^th & 8^th) only. Intrinsically it meant that we could waste our time on extracurricular activities for three consecutive years and dig our face in academic books in the final year only. I partly blame them for ruining my precious three years literally.

Both IJT and PSF threw welcome parties for us. One fine evening IJT arranged it at NED old (city) campus. During the party the IJT organizers announced a contest called: Who’s the most handsome boy in the entire batch (Section C, perhaps). Some were shortlisted but Ubaid won the contest with clear margin. Ubaid was a real handsome boy; tall, white, hairy (balding too), friendly and well mannered person. Only disadvantage that broke my heart about him; he was Jamaitiya (belong to IJT)). He was wealthy Masha’Allah but never appeared or behaved like rich and snob people. Hasnain Baqar was the second smartest and handsome guy of our class after Ubaid. Once I took a short ride in Ubaid’s Mercedes air-conditioned car on campus. It was simply fabulous. Another rich, wealthy and dancing friend was Sarwat. He could fractionally speak Sindhi as well because he lived in Hyderabad and owned agriculture lands in the interior of Sindh. Nevertheless, when it comes to real good informal friends from Karachi, Babar and Ahmad Salam spearheaded my list and became instant friends.

I happen to have a keen eye at observing people and things. It still works sharply, even with fading eyesight now. I would observe every person i.e. their apparel, how they walked, spoke/ conversed, played cricket, spent time at canteen, and sat on steps in aisle in front of girls’ common room. Similarly, who wore dirty shoes, beamed about their biceps, unkempt books, wore un-pressed clothes (not jeans), would hardly brush their teeth and even stunk when breathed near you.

It confused me a lot during early days of NED as to why all of the nominees from Balochistan were not in one Section. Some influential and wealthy hailing from Quetta city were in Section A while poor coming from rural Balochistan were our classmates in Section C.

A few words about late Abdullah Rajar:

During my first week in NED as I was strolling around canteen Abdullah shouted at me:

Aray Aijaz, are you busy?

No, I said.

Have you been to Karachi University? He again asked.

No. Never.

Then let’s go there, you’ll enjoy the trip. He said.

While in his Mark-II car, he said; you seem to be a handsome boy, any girlfriends?

I shrank in the front seat and shyly uttered; no.

Have you had drinks ever? He kept asking difficult questions.

No., Never even seen in life. I again disappointed him.

Koi cigarette, soota shoota, Kuchh tu kya hoga? He started showing restlessness and annoyance.

Ji, nothing like that. I replied embarrassingly.

Yaar, your life is absolutely dull and devoid of any excitement and adventure. Do something about it, you’ll have ample opportunity here.

We went to the Arts Faculty, had soft drinks, watched and stalked girls around, chatted on boring topics and returned. That was my first and last one-to-one interaction ever with Abdullah.

Later, I learned that he hailed from a wealthy wadera family. He was a bit fat but sturdy and assertive young man. Besides, he was an interesting speaker with rich knowledge of politics, culture, religion, rural n urban lifestyles, and of course, girls. The only field where I found myself superior to him was academic studies.

Our first year Class Representative (CR) was Nasir who won on a PSF seat but later joined Mechanical Department. In second year, Abdullah contested CR election of Section C. He was popular in class due to his extracurricular activities, though he attended the class infrequently. Nevertheless, he managed to win it with a narrow margin predominantly with Sindhi vote bank and became CR.

Much later, after NED times, our common friends informed me that he had had troubled last years of his life and he would often speak of his death lurking around anytime. Eventually, he met a tragic death in June 1999 (Rest in Jannah).

Section C Continues ….

PART-3: NED NOSTALGIA (1978-83)

Katchery Road, Karachi

Katchery Road is comparatively short commercial stretch of about 300-400 meters connecting two important and busy and commercial arteries of downtown Karachi i.e. M. A. Jinnah Road on one end and Shahrah-e-Liaquat on other. It used to have shops selling tricycles and bicycles for children. In South direction, on M. A. Jinnah Road, was located a famous “Lighthouse” Cinema (must’ve been demolished and replaced by commercial plaza by now). Behind it was (is) famous Lunda Bazaar for secondhand clothing and other household stuff and equipment. Along Lunda Bazaar was (is!) a “Paper Market” from where we used to buy (in weight, units) imported computer paper rolls (available for dot matrix printers) for our classwork notes etc. It was cheaper and its quality was superior to local paper for preparing assignments and class notes. In North direction, just across Shahrah-e-Liaquat lies famous Pakistan Chowk. Old NED Campus, Mitha Ram Hostel and famous & historic D.J. Science College are all located in the vicinity of Pakistan Chowk.

Our flat was situated almost at a corner of Shahrah-e-Liaquat and Katchery Road, therefore, it suited us to catch a point bus to and from NED at any hour. The flat was kind of an office whose two rooms were interconnected in series i.e. one room opening into another, while small kitchen and a washroom were located on a side wing of building separately from the flat. On M. A. Jinnah Road, in the left direction towards Tower/ Kaemari, and just opposite the grand KMC building was located an old Hindu Temple named Sri Swaminarayan Temple. While in right direction on M. A. Jinnah Road, beyond Dow Medical College, Jinnah Cloth Market/ Urdu Bazar and Radio Pakistan buildings, near Tibat Center was our main attraction for opting to live at Katchery Road: Cinemas, a lot of cinema houses. All newly released Pakistani Urdu and Hollywood English films were shown in these cinema houses. We watched plenty of new movies during our one-month long stay at Katchery Road, especially last late-night shows on weekends. The interesting thing to share is that we would always split while reaching at Tibat Center, would go to our respective cinema houses for watching our favorite films (I preferred English action movies, Ashok was fond of Urdu films). After watching films we would gather at some predefined meeting point and return back to our residence.

During our first week of stay at Katchery Road in August 1978 the monsoon played havoc with Karachi one night. The downpour was so heavy and unprecedented that it made devastating effects with huge lives and property losses. While at Katchery Road, the fasting month of Ramazan just begun. Living with a non-fasting Bengali and Ashok, and with no arrangements for Sehr and Iftaar I didn’t find it convincing and convenient to perform fasting.

So what we usually did during Ramazan was; after returning from NED everyday in the afternoon we would run to the Temple where a small restaurant was set for fulfilling and serving the vegetarian Hindu visitors. Ashok would ask me not to identify my religion and stay silent in the queue. He would do all the talking with them and that way we used to fill our tummies at lunch. Somehow owner of the restaurant observed that he was feeding more Muslims than Hindus at lunch hours. He therefore, one day, placed a staff member on checking the identities of customers who would ask for the name of customers before allowing them to buy food. I was caught red-handed and removed from the queue. Embarrassed and shameful I returned from the Temple, more starving. Nevertheless, an hour later I was enjoying omelet with bread at the flat that I prepared myself, first time ever in my life, after buying the food items from the bakery downstairs. I never tried to visit the temple at lunchtime in Ramazan anymore. Nevertheless, I continued to have supper there after Iftaar, normally Daal Chaawal with PapaR.

We would take some time to study in the afternoons and evenings doing our class assignments, however, it was hard to comprehend and complete the homework on our own. Hence, we would often catch an afternoon point bus and visit NED hostels to learn from classmates who used to reside there. In doing so we would also have had dinner in the hostel mess as guests. Eventually we would be coming back to Katchery Road in the last point bus that used to ply at 10 pm from NED to Pakistan Chowk and it would return to NED again at 1130 pm.

As our weekend nights were fixed for watching cinemas, we used to return home at midnight. On return, we would find one of the rooms of flat occupied with Bengali boy’s friends (all hailing from Memon business community residing in the vicinity, chewing Paan and Gutka in abundance) who would play cards and make noise till wee hours of next morning.

During the first semester we found Engineering Drawings as one of the tough subjects because like our other classmates we did not learn it during our early education. Since we joined late we also missed initial classes of it, thereby basic concepts like how to draw elevations, plans and especially cutting and drawing their sections. Similarly, we missed getting information about types of drawing lines, and use of different pencils and their grades according to the hardness or softness.

We bought drawing boards, T-squares, Set Squares and other pertinent drawing related equipment from Shamsi Store located near Habib Bank Plaza and started making drawings’ assignment. My first sketch was a disaster. I drew sidelines/ boundaries of an object as centerline (combination of hyphens plus dots instead of continuous dark line). Our teacher named Mr. Iqbal Khatri (as I vaguely recall) put a big cross over my drawing with blue ballpoint pen and said: Drawing is language of an engineer. If you can’t understand ABC of drawings, you can’t move ahead in civil engineering. 

Continued in Part 4: Section C ….