Today i have resolved to pen down some of the most cherished memories from my past. And i do hope that this post is going to be one of the dearest of my all.
Two years of college life flew away so quickly that it seems just tomorrow when i was blogging about THE EXPERIENCE OF COLLEGE.....
Whatever my initial response to the hardships we faced in the first weeks was, it soon changed into an acceptance of what was a routine matter.
Starting with a bunch of strangers, our class progressed into the most notorious (rowdy, undisciplined according to our great teachers). A-section of 2ND year was a group of serious trouble causing sweet girls and we were its proud members.
The days which in the start felt like a burden became so full of fun that it was difficult imagining it will soon come to an end.
My first acquaintance in the college was with no one else but our very own Respected Principal. She first communicated with us at orientation and then made it her habit to do so every now and then.
STUDENT-PRINCIPAL MEETINGS.............
How can i forget those interesting student-Principal meetings in that doomed hall to which she called us so frequently???
I wonder why these were always arranged so that to spoil our precious cafe-time. The meetings usually were for discussing the reasons of our poor performance in class tests etc especially of chemistry ( as she had done PhD in the very subject).Our Principal's lectures were not to the students taste and thus we- the students- tried to avoid them as much as possible. But those who were unfortunate enough to enter that gloomy room called our main hall tried to have fun by complaining against almost any teacher whose name came to their minds. Our Principal would desperately ask us to tell her if we were facing any problems with our teachers. We were always full of complaints but most didn't had the courage to name our teachers (usually because the most problematic teacher ensured her presence in the hall during this all important meeting). But if luckily someone was not present or we were alone with the Principal for sometime, there were few courageous girls in our class who stood up and gave a good speech in favour of the poor student lot and the cruel teaching staff. The rest would whisper about "how true this is??" etc. And almost everyone thought " i was also just about to complain against her!!(any teacher being discussed)".
Here i would like to say that RB and AN were usually the ones to stand for a cause ( and a great cause it usually was indeed).
THE COMPLAINTS..............
The complaints lodged were for a variety of reasons against a greater variety of teachers. They were all genuine complaints - those which reached our Principal and those which were just discussed among us during breaks, free time etc.
E.g, the English teacher talked too much in English and her replacement didn't knew any English. The Urdu teacher was usually absent and when she came she preferred not to teach. (This is quite another issue that we all ticked our sweet Picasso music a little too much in rhythm to irritate the hell out of her. We actually shared pens with those who had ones which were not able to make that particular sound. Tick Tick tick...............).
The chemistry teacher taught too slow that we feared we wont be able to cover our syllabus in time. One physics teacher was too strict and the other was a bit too lenient and sleepy. I don't remember if our class had some serious issues with our Islamic studies teacher, but i certainly had one. She made me realise how badly my name can actually be pronounced. I just cant figure out how she got the idea that my name was the way she used to call it. We also had our doubts about the doctorate degree held by our biology teacher Madam Dr R, but we kept them to ourselves.
You people must be wondering we were one hell of a complaining lot but these are just glimpses of the complaints we had and the actual scale of them is quite unimaginable.
Most part of the First year was spent in making friends and deciding which seat in our overcrowded class was best suited for listening to lectures and which for the purpose of avoiding them. Everyone tried their best to get the honours of being a backbencher but all wishes cannot be fulfilled. Some unlucky ones just had to sit in front and they pretended to like it.
BUNKING CLASSES.........
We learnt the art of professional bunking and some of our class mates mastered it. The main reason behind bunking the classes was to get something edible for our stomachs. Because if we attended all our classes, the only reward we got was a lot of fried rolls stuffed with very less potatoes(boiled) and too much cabbage. It was considered the perfect diet for students and prepared in infinite quantity.....our college seemed to have an unlimited stock. With the passage of time our stomachs got used to them. If we wanted to get a plate of Channa chat ( which was not a good idea) or rice( which were rarely available) or anything other than rolls we just had to miss those boring chemistry, physics or biology lectures. If someone reading this is wondering why we didn't utilize those 20 minutes breaks we had in between the fourth and fifth periods?
CAFE...........
The reason is that during those breaks it was one hell of a task to get into that cafe and manage to come out looking sane with some eatables in your hands. We used to walk those corridors from that Room no 15 (our main occupation during First year) to the cafeteria and stand in front of its entrance planning how to satisfy our hunger. Some unfortunate soul was handed over all the money and pushed into that hungry crowd asking (rather shouting) for every sort of eatable (though they were not that "eatable"). By the time that unlucky girl came back with her hairdo spoiled and dupatta almost torn with some samosas etc in her hands, it was already five minutes past the fifth period. We had to rush back to our class and innocently claim that we had not heard the bell at all. Only then were we allowed to come in.
The sensible ones just brought lunch from home like good school girls and had fun with their sandwiches, fries during the break.
There was another option!!
CHALLI!!!!
Yes, that is boiled corn. The challi wala uncle was a great hit actually. When one was really hungry and the cafe was no help, one could always opt for buying one and enjoy eating it. When corn was out of season the "challi wala uncle" became the "daaney wala uncle" and we enjoyed those hot channa''s and kashmiri daanas a lot. In fact the daana's were quite in demand. You could choose from the varieties available i.e the hard, the soft or the mix ones.
Unlike what we usually supposed, the daaney waley uncle was quite a rich man ;-). Well, he at least always had a change while our cafe people usually had none. I remember quite well that once i required a Rs.1000 change quite desperately for i had to submit some important form. I went to the cafe for three or four times with WT but came out disappointed. It was just a thought to inquire from the uncle and WT said, "Come on Yaar! I don't think he will have it this early in the morning". I replied, "What's wrong in giving it a try yaara?"
Well, we asked him and he shocked us by getting it out from his pocket and giving us the required change. We thanked him and walked away to submit the forms.
We also entertained ourselves with his daanas during our biology practicals.Biology practicals were always a treat. Reason???
ZOOLOGY LAB.............
Our zoology lab was located in close proximity to our great cafeteria. So, we managed to get something to munch on while preparing those slides and viewing them under the microscopes. Coming to think of those microscopes, i think most of them were for the purpose of display as only a few actually worked. It was a tiresome task to put your slide under almost every microscope present and be able to see nothing at all. At the end one would just ask the girls around if this or that one was working. At last when one finally identified one in a functioning state, the scream of joy uttered would catch the attention of all students present and the place would become crowded in seconds with everyone pushing their slides in front. . To add to all the disappointments, the slides were usually a great failure. They were either full of bubbles or the dye (methyl blue) exceeded the required quantity a bit too much so that the only thing one could see was the dye itself. It was an interesting spectacle- the slide preparation. There was great bustle in the lab. Everyone trying to make the best slide. Our teachers directed us to take very little material for the slide as according to them, the lesser the material, the neater and clearer the slide would be. In the quest of getting as little as possible, we ended up with actually nothing on the slide other than a drop of water. We assumed our material to be microscopic and dropped some dye on the water. We would then try every microscope and ask every other class fellow if they could see anything like the slide we were supposed to prepare. Getting answers to these innocent and desperate queries in negative, we washed the slide and usually started all over again with the determination of Napoleon Bonaparte.
PHYSICS..........
Physics- as the name suggests- was terrible. Whether we were having the theoretical lectures or performing the practicals, we mostly messed everything. The department itself was quite weak. The faculty was not very impressive and we got the worst share. Our incharge-Madam S-was from that department. She tried her best in the one and a half year she was our incharge to convince us that we could never be doctors. Her favourite sentence was "Kia samajhti hain Aaap? aap sab doctor ban jayengee??"
She had that Inzamam-ul-Haq's sort of tendency to use a lot of "is" in her conversation too. We all thanked our stars when she happily got married and we got a new teacher as our incharge.
Madam T!! Oh, she was a sweety. A middle-aged woman who taught us very well. She was our teacher for Modern Physics and we irritated her quite a lot. She had that habit of giving childish punishments for our time wasting tactics. If someone talked a lot, she would punish her to go and sit on the last bench at the back (it was a wish granted for the concerned student). Then, if someone still disturbed the class, the maximum punishment she gave was to make the student stand facing the wall at a corner. Once she punished some students while we were in a mood to have some real fun. And i remember well how we all laughed out loud while she was lecturing us on our bad manners because the girls were exchanging corners behind her back (or rather pretending to play the kona-kona game).
Thanks Madam T for all your patience with us. I know we were trouble for you but i hope you didn't mind it much. I am saying it based on the way you usually smiled on our stupidities. And because you were one of the very few people who sincerely wished us good luck for our future when we met you last.
While discussing Physics, i really cannot skip the ever-smiling Madam A. She tried to teach us the electrical part of our course and was always wondering that something must have gone wrong. Because after almost every sentence she would ask, " Theek hay?" with that wide smile on her face. And we would say (to our own poor selves of course) that, "Nothing is theek(right) Madam!! We couldn't get a word of the crap you were trying to teach us". It was considered that banging one's head on the wall might be more fruitful then asking a question regarding physics from her.
She was the sort of our teacher, our college really treasured!
The practicals were not even worth mentioning. Both our instructors for the two years were a great terror- Madam S and Madam K. We never got any reading correct. We always supposed that the fault was with the apparatus available. Madam K would draw a circuit diagram on board. We would follow it to connect the apparatus. No reading!
We would disconnect and change the connections as we wished and finally would get the desired readings. Hurrah! three cheers for the 90 minutes of our poor lives wasted away.
CHEMISTRY............
Coming to the biggest horror of our life- chemistry. How we passed the physical chemistry's exams???
I really have no idea. But nevertheless we did accomplish that feat probably because of the efforts of Madam U. She worked harder than us to teach 86 brains which were blank as far as concepts in chemistry were concerned. I, for one, had no idea that anything like concepts existed in chemistry. Our Madam K always told us how she wondered that such dumb brains as ours could pass that first year exams. She had that perfect sarcastic touch to her lectures which were delivered so that we would realize how dumb we really were!
She taught us Organic chemistry and everyday when the bell ringed signalling that her lecture has ended, everyone took a deep breath of relief and knew that if this period went well, the rest of the day is going to rock.
She really was pleased when someone failed to answer any of her questions. It was the perfect opportunity to remind us what dunces we were.
Oh! how she caught 17 bunkers one day. It was a massive bunk because she had threatened that if someone failed to answer any question from the previous lectures, the consequences will not be her responsibility. She charged Rs. 100 to every unfortunate girl and then allowed them to sit in the class. I was also among that unfortunate party, and we all felt quite bad for F who was crying as if the whole world has come down because she had been caught.
We always repeated her (Madam K's) famous statement which she had delivered when a girl commented that she was unable to understand the last days' lecture. She wrinkled her nose, raised her eyebrows like a tent top and said,"Kia main kal faut hogaee thi? jo ab mjhe bta re ho? duffer!" The way she banged the door on MI's face when she came late in class and had a juice and rolls in her hand. She remarked, "Agr 11 bje he tum log bhook se mar rahe hotey ho to koi zarurat nahi class main aaney ki?" (if you are dying of hunger at only 11 am, there is no need to come to the class). We were shocked she could do this to MI, she being one of the best in chemistry.
WE got two weeks of complete bliss when she went on leave. Everyone was elated and wondered what could keep her away for so long. Some wished she was ill, some supposed she went to attend her son's marriage (though we were not sure if she had any son). We all hoped she wont return, but Alas! she did come back to torture us yet again.
Our inorganic chemistry was pathetic, courtesy Madam H. We called her Madam Sa Re Ga as she liked to sing and was a dance teacher too. In fact when we laughed while she was lecturing us, she used to tell us how "besurey" we were at laughing. She was biased in favour of any student who could sing well. Thankfully, we had none who showed this particular talent.
During practicals, the fun reached another level. In that smelly chemistry laboratory, the funnels (all broken and dirty), the burettes (with those funny rubber nozzles) and the beakers (both plastic and glass ones) were all our tools. We enjoyed the titrations and were particularly happy when we made good crystals. We would keep them in our notebooks like people keep roses in their diaries. We were completely unaware of the torturous salt analysis until we reached second year. The blunders we made while performing confirmatory tests or identification tests agitated our instructor a lot. The gases which evolved especially for bromide and chloride radicals were irritating to our nostrils and throat but we tolerated them somehow. Everyone tried to reach the laboratory early because they wanted to get their hands on the cleanest of the watch glasses, china dishes, test tubes etc. I thought it to be a useless quest as there never was any clean apparatus in that lab. We washed them as much as we could and when we returned them to that stupid monster of a lab assistant we had, he would say, "Wash kerain, warna main kal apko aisey he dunga".
If he was not around everyone attacked the apparatus as ants would attack honey. We played with acids, alkalies and salts and came out after having fun bracing ourselves for Madam K's torture. Everyone rushed to the Room No 2 while taking off their lab coats as soon as the attendance was marked..
The remaining subjects were what we called "compulsory" and so were not very important. We bunked them mostly, attended them for fun and cursed them as we reached our homes so late only because of them. In this category were placed english, urdu, islamic studies and pakistan studies.
ENGLISH!...........
We were always in a state of war with our english teachers and they kept on changing like Islamabad's weather. They were on top of our complaints-to-do list. There was one Madam A who had the shrillest voice one could imagine. It tore one's eardrums apart. She had so much nasal quality to her voice that we wondered if she used her voice box at all. We suffered many a headaches as a result of listening to her lectures. We got her replacement in Madam S. OH! what a command she had on Minglish (yes , not english). We feared our pronounciation will be lost if she taught us for even a full week. We complained against her strongly, RB even wrote a letter to Madam Principal about her. We got another teacher in her place who was quite a good one. The only problem was she mostly remained absent but it was not as serious as the last one. So, we graciously ignored it.
We also had a child-teacher in Madam S (biology). All the year she worried about whether she would manage to get admission in QAU for the PhD she wanted to do. She started to cry if we talked a lot or didn't listen to her or made noise. We then calmed her down with apologies. It was a tough job to listen to her inaudible voice. I have no doubts her frequency was below the range for human hearing. She was pathetic as far as diagrams were concerned but had a good grasp at the concepts. It's quite another thing that she failed to to convey those concepts to us.
WE.............
Our class was a group of many fun-loving girls among which thrived some who used to spoil the fun. There were bookworms (IM, HM, AK, KK ETC), there were bunkers (MA, JM, the AA and group n me too etc), there were childish girls (SK) and there were very mature girls (can't remember) too. We learnt a lot from each other.
E.g, RB taught us to swear a lot. She would swear on almost anything saying that "kasam sey" every now and then. And we admired it very much. After some while we all adopted the habit and said "kasam sey" very often. KK was a hardworking girl with immensely active tear glands. She would cry after every result (even if she got the best scores among the majority) and when we tried to cheer her up, she would say, "Tum logo ko nahi pata, mere dad ko kitna bura lagega mera result" and would cry even more. Our second year's Class representative- AN- was a fun loving girl. She was a great character infact. She always reminded me of the Fifa world cup italy had won. She was the cheerleader of the whole class when we made life hell for our teachers. She would call present for many of the absenties and bunkers by changing voices. In short, she was an excellent representative and a great help.
AK and HM-the pair was a good one in studies. Both were always competetive and remained at the top till the end. We considered them big time jerks for doing so well in studies and making us feel so average.
The greatest pride of our class were MA and JM. Wow! they brought great repute and fame to our class. JM with her head buried in the torn Harry Potter book and MA with her killer looks and lovely smile. I wonder if JM ever completed that book or not but i reckon she was pretty determined to do so. MA applied kajal with unbelievable neatness. It even shocked Madam K......
It was chemistry exam and she was wearing a pink sweater (when only black was allowed) and Madam asked with her eyebrows raised high, " aap walimey k liye ayi hui hain? Itni safai se to mene kabhi kajal nahi lagaya."
She kept wondering on it for a long time even after MA was gone from the exam room. Well MA hardly attended any class and so did JM. There was one sweet girl in Namkeen (Sorry T) and SK was the child of the whole class. She even brought her doll (Munni) for the visit to the class and we all loved it. IM was always a worried girl who kept on issuing and re-issuing books from our library (so was that room called where a pile of old, worn out books was kept stored like junk). I often helped her find the required books. We would find the best book for physics in the zoology shelf and would read it and try to figure out how much help the book would be to us.
EVENTS....AT COLLEGE...........
We had but few events at our college and we - the pre-medical lot- usually didn't participated in even those. We always were invited to the most boring of the events. I once participated in one graphic designing "poster competition" on insistance of my friend WT. She was a student of ICS and forced me to participate. It was quite strange but i won that competition. I was very much elated and recieved congratulations from all my class fellows. My smile that day reached a mile and remained so until RB bluntly mentioned it and i had to make my face look normal again. It was this prize that made me register myself for the intercollegiate poster competition. I and WT worked on it together with great devotion. We went to the XYZ college well prepared. They disallowed WT to participate. I still managed to get a prize there. Came back to the hall where WT was waiting for me. She gave a brave show by cheering up for my sake. We came back greatly dissappointed and told everyone how biased the competition was. Well, they allowed only one participant from other colleges and above ten students of their own were listed. We levelled the scores when they visited our college for competition though. We also introduced that one-student-each-college policy and it irritated them quite a lot. WT won a prize this time and the rest went to some other colleges.
FUNFAIR- THE BIG DAY..........
The other big occasion in our college was the Funfair. The first time we had it, the day was a rainy one and it spoiled much of the fun. The second time, it was a good sunny day and I and WT enjoyed a lot along with other friends.
The gol gappas were stale and roll paratha cold but we still enjoyed the pizza and the variety show in a packed, suffocated hall. RB and T performed very well and earned a lot of praise. Their dance performance was indeed excellent and was discussed for many days after the funfair. Infact, RB earned many fans after that. Other than those boring (for us) competitions and funfair, we had nothing of great importance in college. The whole session seemed to move towards this big event. Girls selected their dresses way before the actual day and planned how to spend it for the whole year.
MY FRIEND.......WT....
WT and i had great fun and the time spent with her will certainly be the most memorable. The whole day bunks, the cafetaria fun, the endless laughter on stupid jokes. I met with many other girls through her, few of them quite interesting. E.g, MH whom we called as the HBL, and SF who was a very cool girl with a habit of shouting and getting excited at every little happening. There also was a B frm her class, thin as a rod with a speaking style of the perfect Ghunda....(thief) and a very innocent looking MA(nt our own class one). She was an all time confused personality but fun to be with. She joked frequently and never realised that she had done so .
FUN IN BUS.............
The other time with WT which was really memorable was the fun in bus. The bus time was really the prime time. It was tailor-made for having fun. Our buses were wonders of mechanical engineering and survival. They produced strange sounds which only talents like RB could copy. We-the girls- were loaded in them just like poultry vans are loaded with hens. With our bodies bent at every extreme angle, we came home happily dicussing our day's happenings and suffering the cruelty of uncles and conductors. We had a Gandhi ji resembling baba for a conductor(no offence to gandhi ji meant, he really had a striking resemblance with him). He preferred to sit himself and let the conductory be done by someone else and usually was ready to flame our khooni driver against us. They were specifically trained to insult girls and they did their duty well. The khooni went away in our second year and we all were very much relieved. But we were unaware that his replacement will be a sweet-from-outside-bitter-in-real uncle. He never waited for anyone while picking us from our stops and we missed our buses very frequently.
We would make great noise in the bus singing jingles, copying our teachers, sharing jokes, teasing AS for being so thin that we could easily blow her. We would tell her that we never booked a seat for her, as she could easily fit in the air space between two girls. The sweet girl would just smile on our stupid jokes. Our group in bus got bigger and bigger with time and people feared us as we made so much noise to cause serious headaches. RB, her school time friends, AS,WT, me and later A and S from first year also joined in
EXAMS...........shhhhhhhh!!!
I didn't mention the exams because that particular period passed away without our even noticing its arrival. We were always giving exams. May it be monthly tests, periodicals or sendups or pre-boards (did anyone appeared in all of them??). We were always performing bad especially in chemistry (much to the dismay of our poor Principal) with the exception of a few who did well.
We always were shocked with our results, no matter how we did. If we passed, it was shocking, if we failed, it was shocking and if someone had got the topscore, then it was even more shocking. Everyone had that strange expression on their faces when they had their papers in hands. With eyes bulging out, mouth wide open, everyone just stared at their performances. We worried about the finals, went to the cafe and cheered ourselves up once again. WT would say that the college administration should mark cafe's attendance instead of the classroom's, as the former was much better.
NO-GO AREAS........
The college account's office was a strange place. May it be forms, registration cards, submission of transport or other charges, we had to stand for hours in long lines and the clever ones got the task done by the backdoor.
We avoided some places almost as if it was our moral duty to do so. Among these were the college office where some clerks were seated. We visited it when we had to get some important document's copy attested. We also avoided the assembly hall- it was the same doomed place where we had those meetings i had mentioned above.
We used to run away from the hall as if it was infested with some kind of contagious disease. If someone called us for the assembly, we used to scatter in every direction in the college but the one which lead to this great hall.
Also there was a library (or a room which was so called) where we rarely went. I only went there to assist IM and once for some search regarding an assignment. I remember we never saw those papers we had submitted with so much hardwork again and therefore pledged never to do any (hardwork) again.
DEDICATIONS...............
In the end, there are some dedications i would like to make to some of my teachers and some class mates. There is no ill will involved, its just a funny way to make you people remember me always.
FOR TEACHERS!!
Madam K (organic chemistry)
Meri nazrain hain talwar, kiska dam hai rokey war, tauba tauba astaghfar!!
Madam H (inorganic chemistry)
Abhi to main jawan hun!
Madam Sh (Biology)
Main roun ya hansun? karun main kia karun?
Madam S (Physics, Class incharge)
Main hun kon? main hu Don!
Madam A (Physics, Electricity)
Show me the meaning of being a teacher!
Are these the questions, you are going to ask me?
Tell me why you cant be quiet??
Madam S (English, or maybe Minglish)
Ik bar angrezi prha do, ik bar muskura do! Minglish se jan chura do! ik bar muskura do!
FOR STUDENTS:-
KK
Sheesha ho ya dil ho toot jata hai...acha ho ya bura ho(result) rona aata hai!
SK
i am a barbie doll, in a barbie world...imagination, munni is my passion : P
AK
bheja (brain) hai ya tape recorder??
MA
fikr na faaka, aish kr kaaka, ye hai naara fulan falan ka
AN (Fifa world cup)
chalti jaye, chalti jaye.......non stop masti, non stop fun......
RB
chupi rustam (bcz ov her performance in funfair and excellent results though she pretended she never studied)
IM
tension deney ka nahi, bus lene ka or letey rehne ka (IM's motto)
SA
ankhen iski gol gol gol! or hr wakt ghoomti hui.....
AS
larki hai ya chari hai, kesey ye khari hai??
WT
chaar din ki zindagi hai, kha le pi le mauj ura ley!
(the reason i had so much fun with her is her this attitude)
Maybe I have missed many important people, maybe i have skipped many a cherished memories. Whatever our complaints were, i would say these two years were indeed very important and fun filled. We enjoyed, we had fun, we made life difficult for our teachers and vice versa :)
THANKS....
I would like to thank all the people who made these two years possible, who helped me become what i am today and what i will be in future. I would like to thank Madam TS (Biology) for her loving attitude. I would like to thank WT for giving me this great idea of preserving these cherished memories online.
Above all i would like to thank my whole class for making these two years memorable. Advance apologies from my side if i did hurt anyone in the passages above or any other time. May Almighty Allah bless you all. Congratulations to all those who have accomplished what they wanted to. Goodluck to those who are facing tough times and trying to achieve something great in life. May all your wishes come true and may you all succeed in whatever you do. (Amen).
Always remember me in your prayers.
