Early Years at King Edward Medical College

The professor was wearing a white coat and making drawing of some type of circles on the black board. In the front row of the big lecture theater, about 20 girls sat, most of them also wearing white coats were listening intently to what the professor was saying. A good number of them were taking detailed notes. It was early in the morning. The weather was beautiful and I was tired from being up late the previous night. I was drifting in and out of consciousness. Every now and then, I heard the words ‘osteoblastic type of cells and osteoclastic type of cells.

After the lecture, my friends and I headed for the cafeteria which seemed to be like an oasis in a desert of dry lecture theaters. I remember thinking to myself how the knowledge about osteoblastic cells will help me ‘heal the humanity’ and more importantly how was I going to survive here, if I could not pay attention to the lectures.

The year was 1978. I had finally made it to King Edward. It was a new place and yet it felt like home. After all, most of my friends from Government College Lahore (GC) had also made it. Shahid Bashir, Sohail Kiyani. Tahir Majeed from S-4 (there were seven sections in Government CollegeS1-7) were all there. So were some other friends like Agha Arif, Tajummul, Aquil Haider and Afzal Saeed. I also knew Kamran Hussain, Naveed Yazdani and others. And then from my Iqbal hostel there were Aamir Ali, Qayyum, Pervaiz Iqbal (Roll #1 of GC) and Ijaz Mahmood of Chichawattani (I remember that was name on his door at Iqbal Hostel).

The elections for Class Rep (CR)

Those were exciting times. I remember how we were sitting in the cafeteria when the topic came up. There were 72 people from GC in King Edward. The second largest group was from Cadet College Hasan Abdal with twenty something. We knew if we all supported one candidate, we had a good chance. Agha and Sohail were both very popular. They were particularly liked for being funny and smart. I remember that during a ‘strategy session’ it was decided that Sohail Kiyani would be our candidate and Arif Agha would tell folks that he is also running. Later he would withdraw his nomination in favor of Sohail. I remember Agha telling people that he was running but somehow either people found out or he spilled the beans. So that strategy did not pan out. However Sohail did win and was from that day on referred to as the CR. Although I do not believe girls had a separate representative but Atifa Naheed was called GR.

Popular Names

Speaking of popular names, I remember a few to this day. Athar Usmani was called Ghora, Aamir Ali was Bumba. But no name was as popular as ‘Bhindi’. Sofia Ismail was taller than most other girls and also very articulate. The name spread like wild fire. You could be talking to someone in Allama Iqbal Medical College and they would know who Bhindi was. One day I saw our CR being confronted by Sofia. She was saying ‘Kaya maen Apa ko Bhindi nazar aatti hun’. Sohail was all red and looking at his shoes.
‘Quadratus Kinnairdus’ was a name given to a group of four girls from Kinnaird College. One day in Anatomy Hall lockers we all found a poem addressed to the girls. I still remember that the first line was ‘Battain Humary Ghor Se sun Loo, Chamak chulo, Chamak chulo’. One of the mysteries for me to this day is ‘Who was the author? Or perhaps it was a group effort. Perhaps my readers can enlighten me. It is okay. We are all grownups now.

I stop here for now. My cat is knocking on my door and it is time to go to work. I have a lot more that I remember. I may write about it if you guys want to hear it. I apologize to anyone who feels I need to apologize.

Thanks for listening.