My Vote, Worth a Dime!

At nearly 60 years of age I have seen almost all political/ democratic elections in Pakistan; witnessed election processes and election-days when people voted, observed winners turned rulers, their early promises during elections and post-election actions, and compared their goals versus targets achieved. The result is; Pakistan has not forwarded a yard in the direction to gaining prosperity. It still remains under-developed country. The rhetorical promises from the political leaders, as some of them listed below, remain hollow promises since ages:

·       Education for all
·       Jobs to youth
·       Women emancipation
·       Adequate salaries and minimum respectable salary
·       Health for all especially poor
·       Clean potable water
·       Housing
·       Poverty alleviation
·       Infrastructure development
·       Balance in exports and imports
·       Elevation of currency
·       Robust reserves with the central bank
·       Clean environment, and so on

None of the political parties ever promoted a culture of harmony, morality, ethics, honesty and integration of ethnic societies in the past. Rather, at times they highlighted fragmentation on the basis of language, caste, creed and religious factions to win votes of a particular section of the population in a particular area while slogans differed at other places.

The most disheartening factor being the absence of long-term policies in our political and democratic structure aimed at development of the country on a sustainable basis. Long term policies shape up the country and its direction, which may look working slow but long term goals have long lasting impacts. All those political parties who won the elections in the past on a certain manifesto of promises actually ruled with a single point agenda; to earn enough wealth (individually and collectively) through whatever means so that the same could be invested for winning the next elections. Needless to say that more money you are going to spend during the election campaign more chances are that you would emerge a winner.

At the formation of every new government after the elections, the ruling party cries of foul play with the economy and wealth of the nation by and through the hands of predecessors. They cry about empty treasury, excesses of foreign loans, dearth of funds for payment of interests on loans and repayment of principle loans. To resolve the issue of balance of payments they take more loans; at tough conditions of the loaning institutions: the vicious circle.

Even after decades in place all the major government departments are working in deficit apparently due to corruption, at every tier of service structure: Pakistan Steel Mills, PIA, Railways, GENCOs, DISCOs, SSGC, SNGC etc., with a pile up of spiteful loans and debts. The only rescue is; obtain more debts. Freeing ourselves from the chain of debts means having a new chain of loan tied to the country and to each of us. The latest figures say that every countryman owes a loan of Pak Rupees 115,000 and this figure is increasing day by day without any respite.

When it is said and generally believed that government is poor but people are rich, it makes sense because corruption is deep routed in our blood through last fifty (50) years of poor governance, dishonesty, nepotism, and filling the top positions of all big and important institutions on political grounds ignoring merit altogether. What an irony that in a population of more than 200 million, only 1.7 million people pay taxes that counts to be less than 1 percent. One of the main reasons behind this dismal position of taxpayers is peoples’ mistrust in the successive rulers. Most of the entitled people evade paying taxes and those willing to pay it don’t trust the incumbent rulers and feel that their tax money would go wasted on corruption practices.

Other important fact is the emergence of ‘’elite class’’ in the last decades that simply minted the money through illicit means and have gotten away cleanly. This club is expanding day by day. Thus this “elite class’’ has become the source of inspiration for the new generations because earning easy money (without a trace of accountability) has been tempting since long now.

Another curse that this country had to suffer badly from is money laundering. Since money earned through illegitimate means could not be declared or deposited in banks therefore it passed on to safe hands in the middle east, far east, Europe and the United States through money laundering. In no time ordinary people saw some other ordinary people becoming extremely rich, owning luxury cars and SUVs, and found buying real estate in DHAs, Bahrias, and on foreign soils.

The basic needs like clean water and sanitation, health, education and shelter are still beyond the reach of large segment of population. Law and order situation has always been questionable irrespective of pre or post 9/11 era. It is more fearsome for any citizen that a policeman intercepts them on the road than a plain-clothed individual. All the successive governments have failed to build or inculcate confidence into the population about the impartiality, honesty, bravery and swiftness of law enforcing agencies.

If an ordinary middleclass individual doesn’t inherit a house for living in Pakistan, then by virtue of serving their entire lives in public or private job won’t guarantee them that they would ever be able to buy or own a shelter for their respective families from a sizeable pension or gratuity.

The incumbent ruling political party which won the elections on the slogans of ‘’across the board accountability” and ‘’change’’ last year is the last hope that in the next four years the “change” would be visible and tangible in the lives of millions of people in this country. The failure would be catastrophic. People would stop believing in the political/ democratic system and would begin apprehending that either these politicians are not worth getting their votes or their own votes are worthless.

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

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 ….