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 …..
