PART-7: NED NOSTALGIA (1978-83)

J-1 Hostel

Hostels are usually considered as the best place for studies in peace, free from doing house chores, free from relatives, cousins and guests disturbing and devouring your studies time. So were our 4 J-blocks. They were ideally located in wide and open spaces around them and in the wind direction. Strong sea breeze would shatter windowpanes and slam room doors if left open. No dormitories but still enough space to squeeze in two students in each room; most of the time they would be classmates. This arrangement helped us study in unison. Bathrooms and toilets were not attached and were located at the far end of entire rooms wing; short wing had six rooms with toilets and bathrooms at the end while long wing had twelve rooms with toilets and bathrooms at both ends. Since overhead water tanks were not provided in the hostels separately therefore every room occupants were supposed to have a bucket full of water stored with them because direct water supply from the main large overhead water tank released water twice a day in morning and evening.

When I shifted in J-1 Hostel along with Ashok we were allotted room # 13 in the long wing on the ground floor. It was not an ideal room in terms of its location but still we were excited to be here. Best thing about it was its corridor (grilled/ mashed with cemented blocks)opening towards Karachi University direction. There was a earthen path connecting NED with Karachi University (a kind of shortcut). Many of the students both boys and girls would walk through this path during daytime to or from Karachi University every day. Our seniors would shout at them throwing jokes especially when a couple crossed through the path, like; apni baji ko kahan le jar aha hae, hum mar gaye hain kya. We too followed our seniors. 

Kazi Waheed (Civil-1981) was House Monitor. His room was in our neighborhood. Once while chatting with Kazi in the corridor my room door shut with a bang due to strong wind and I mistakenly had left keys in the room.

Don’t worry, Kazi assured me, I can open it if it is “single locked”. In case it’s “double locked” then we will have to enter through an 8-10 inch wide and 4 feet long ventilator located between the ceiling and the door beam.

Kazi tried with his own room key with some technique and I heard a click sound of lock opening. He smilingly rotated the door handle and it opened into the room.

Kazi, this means you can break into any room in J-blocks, I asked him in awe.

Yes, provided that doors are “single locked”, he replied.

Please teach me the difference between “single and double lock” and also how to open the “single lock”, I begged Kazi.

If you just push the lever of the lock from inside the room it means it’s single lock and if you rotate the lever anticlockwise after pushing the lever for single lock it would be a double lock, Kazi explained.

He demonstrated it and then asked me to have a try.

With little practice on my room door with Kazi’s key, I learned breaking the locks.

From then onwards I provided my services free of charge to all those newcomers who accidently locked their rooms with keys left inside of their rooms. In early 2^nd year someone broke into my room with the same “unlocking” technique and stole my calculator. Calculator in late 70s was a precious gadget. It was upsetting because I could not afford to buy another one immediately within paltry monthly allowance my parents used to send me. I complained to the House Monitor, Kazi about it. Kazi asked me if I had doubted somebody as a thief then we could search out his room. I named two junior students. We broke into their rooms clandestinely but in vain.

Also living in my vicinity was Jalaluddin, from Kazi’s batch. He was a thorough gentleman, softly speaking, and a fine sportsman too. His forte was cricket and Badminton. He was excellent in both games and represented NED in national tournaments. But we used to envy him on one account; girlfriends. He managed to have had plenty of girlfriends that also used to visit his room frequently.

J-1 Mess was famous for its tasty cuisine. The Kashmiri chef was best in preparing Chicken Biryani, Mutton Qorma, Dal Chaawal (Plain Rice with Pulses), Bhindi Fry (Fried Okra) and Chicken Roast. Many of the students living in other hostels has joined J-1 Mess for this purpose. The Mess accommodated more than 100 members and it always remained crowded during lunch and supper time. In order to enjoy fresh meals in comparatively clean environment and with ungreased plates we would try to get seated early at starting time of food serving; 0100 pm for lunch and 0730 pm for dinner. Ahad (Mech ‘83), Sharafat, Muhammad Ali, Nasir Jalil (Mech ‘83), Aslam Ansari and me would always be around early in the Mess. Nasir Jalil was so fond of Chicken Biryani (served at lunch) that he used to skip any kind of brunch in the canteen of NED campus so as to enjoy it fully and eat in plenty. Some people used to eat a lot. Hence, to put a check on them it was decided that members would not be served food after they had had regular plate of food plus 3 supplements. Nasir despised this rule on Biryani day.

It was customary that Mess Manager (selected every month among J-1 boarders) would be getting free meals as long as they ran the Mess. During my 2^nd year Warden and House Monitor approached me to run the Mess for a month. I expressed my reluctance on the pretext that Mess members were non-cooperative in paying advance money for their meals and it was not easy to collect such dues from them. Nevertheless, on the assurance of seniors I took over as a Mess Manager. The experience was amazing and extremely successful as everyone cooperated and paid money in advance for their meals. At the end of my tenure the balance sheet of accounts showed positive balances in respect of all members as against the negatives in case of my predecessors.

Tahir Nisar, Ahsan and Ramesh had a room allotted in J-1 hostel and would join us here in exam season. Ramesh used to be their teacher. Tahir was a first class cricketer and an amazing painter drawing pencil sketches and ballpoint pen portraits. He would draw a girl’s photo on his thigh (while putting on shorts) or arm biceps and them move his muscles in a way that the painted girl would dance on his arm or thigh. Some “Tharky” boarders would get the girl painted in bikini on their arms in order to have fun with it.

Cricket was in blood of every NEDian. We would play cricket in the hostel every afternoon come what may. Tahir was a good addition. He was good at hitting long sixes even with a tapped tennis ball. I was a fairly good medium paced bowler but an excellent fielder with catching. I would love to field deep in mid-off or mid-on when Tahir batted. Muhammad Ali was another power hitter. Ahad would immediately take a position of wicketkeeper or first slip when I bowled fast deliveries. He wouldn’t drop catches in these positions.

Soon after shifting into J-I Hostel I came to learn that arranging and showing Indian movies (sometimes with addition of XXX movies) was a regular weekly feature of J-Blocks, MBQ Blocks and IBA (Karachi University) Hostel. Some senior students would arrange it in the common hall at or after midnight at a paltry ticket of 10 rupees each. It was highly exciting for a moviegoer like me and I watched quite a lot of movies in these hostels.

Foreign students of NED, mostly from Arabian countries and Iran, used to live in hostels in abundance. I remember some Iranians, Syrians and Jordanians used to live in J-1 Hostel. Mr. Munaim, a Jordanian was a member of Akhwan-ul-Muslmeen organization, a fundamentalist kind of Islamic group. He would dread to go back to his country and used to say that he would be put in jail as soon as he put step on his home soil. He was our Imam in many of our Namaz (salah) that we offered in the prayers room of J-1 Hostel. He was totally against watching movies in hostels. Every time we did hold such program we would avoid facing him for some days. Another foreigner, a Burmese used to live in J-2. He was pretty senior and people used to say that he’ been living in the hostels for nearly a decade. He could speak Urdu to some extent but his love for gardening was praiseworthy. He was a pioneer in converting J-2 Hostel dried lawns into lush-green areas with flowers planted everywhere. Emulating him, Kazi in J-1 and others started making their respective hostels look greener.

Though I came from a poor background, still my father would manage to send me 400 rupees through bank every month for meeting my living expenses. It was hard to manage a breakeven position within this paltry amount but I did through refraining from visiting the downtown city for hanging out or shopping frequently. The Elphinstone Street renamed as Zaib-un-Nissa (renamed after renowned journalist Zaib-un-Nissa Hamidullah) Street in the heart of Saddar Karachi was my favourite visiting place. It was convenient because NED Point Buses running between hostels and city would provide dropping and picking up services from adjacent Empress Market. I used to buy second-hand imported shirts at 30-40 rupees a piece from a kiosk at the intersection of Bohri Bazaar and Zaibunnisa Street, Saddar. Paying 10 rupees more on its alteration would make it a perfectly fitted shirt for use in the University. Besides, enjoying a rupee carrot juice glass at the side of Empress Market, doing window shopping in Bohri Bazaar and surroundings and sometimes having broast chicken meal at a fast food outlet or taking prawn masala at an Iranian restaurant was an ideal weekend night. Continued in Part-8: Study Tour of Pakistan