Early years at KE- Part 2

Day Scholars and ‘Hostelites’

Speaking about various groups in our class, there were two distinct categories. One were the day scholars and the others were the ‘hostelites’. The day scholars had homes in Lahore. Among my close friends Shahid Bashir, Aamir Ali, Afzal Saeed, Tajummul, Agha Arif, Sohail Kiyani, Kamran Hameed and Nasir Javed, Javed Ajmal were day scholars. And then there were people who lived in the hostels. Among my close friends Qayyum (Multan), Sadiq Zia (Sadiqabad), Talha and Mateen (Islamabad) were in that group. The last two I mentioned, I met for the first time not in King Edward but MAO College hostel. More about this soon.

Ki Jaana Maen Kuon

By this time my readers may wonder, just who is this guy. In one word, I would call myself an ‘anomaly’. My mother and father were from Lahore. My Dada Jan was Post Master General of Lahore soon after partition. He lived in Moochi Darwaze. He build two houses, one in Lytton Road where he lived and the other in Temple Road which he rented. He passed away in 1977 when I was at GC. I was born in Peshawar where my dad was a Naval recruiting officer at that time. I received early schooling in Karachi and at age nine moved to Chittagong in 1968, where my father was Chief Education officer at Marine Academy. After spending three beautiful years there, we were lucky to catch the last flight out before the 1971 war. I then studied at Cathedral School for a year, I moved to Cadet College Petaro in interior Sind. Why not Hasan Abdal? Dad was back in Karachi and Petaro was nearer. I did my Matric from Petaro and topped the Hyderabad Board. I won Nishan-e-Haider Scholarship which paid for me to study anywhere in the country all expenses paid, I chose GC for my F.Sc, because my Dada Jan and Dad studied here. And that is how I ended up in Iqbal Hostel. So, even though I had two ancestral houses in Lahore, yet had to live in a hostel. If you are confused by now, I do not blame you. So was I. I would say to myself Ki Jaana maen koun and I still do. Okay, enough about my background.

No place to go

Since my family was still in Karachi, I had to look for hostel accommodation. The only ‘accomodation’ I could find was the disaster section of Hall Road Hostel which had been earmarked for demolition. I would spare you the description. After spending only one night in that hellhole of a place I got a tip that there was nice accommodation available in MAO College Hostel. It was there I met Talha and Mateen and we became friends instantly. Talha was light hearted and outgoing. Mateen (may Allah have a place for him in Janat) was gentle, serious and hard working. I still remember our brisk walks from MAO College through Anarkali to KE. Sometimes we took the bus. We paid the bus fare, until I learnt the ‘code’. I would see that MAO college students who boarded the bus with us would simply say ‘MO College’ when the conductor came to collect the fare. The conductor nodded and moved on without charging a fare. However when I tried that the first time it did not work. The conductor made me pay. I then realized that I had made two mistakes. One, I had said ‘MAO College’ instead of ‘MO College’ and second I was carrying my lab coat. Needless to say I corrected my errors and never had to pay the fare anymore.
I have many fond memories with Talha and Mateen. I remember that both of them kept their books very neat and clean. Their Gray’s Antomy had covers and looked brand new. They used fancy book marks. I, on the other hand would use the femur or any other bone I was studying as my bookmark. You do not want to know how my Gray’s Anatomy looked. Mateen always got good good grades and passed all his anatomy ‘stages’ in first attempt. I wish I could say the same for Talha and me!

House at last, but no home.

My comfortable stay at MAO College however soon came to an end. I learnt that one of our ancestral houses was being illegally occupied after the original renters had walked away without paying rent for a year. It was up to me and my younger brother to get that vacated. I would not go in details here but I will tell you this. I told the illegal occupants that we were from ‘MO College’ and they left. Some of you will remember this house in Temple Road. This was the same house on the roof top of which we celebrated the Basant that Shahid, Qayyum and Sadiq Zia remember. Living there was very tough for my brother and me because we did not know or had time to cook or clean.

Girls of King Edward Class of 84
And the competition to get noticed by them.

Sorry for the last few passages. They became rather gloomy. As one poet says ‘wajood e zun se haye tusweer a qaenat me rung’. So here it is, the ‘color’. Besides adding color to blog, I am writing this for the current generation of Kemcolians for whom this may sound totally greek.
Girls at King Edward were a chosen few. After all,they were the top 20 girls from all over Punjab. The ratio of 20 girls to 200 boys was huge disadvantage to the boys. If you were a boy, what were your chances to get noticed by a girl, any girl for that matter? And if you preferred attention from someone you felt attracted to, forget-about-it. True there were some boys with ‘quality attributes’ such as being handsome. Imran Rahid or Imran Nazeer come to mind besides others. Some were tall and smart like Aamir Ali and Saeed Uddin. Others had cars and flashy clothes. Rest of us had to do weird stuff to get noticed. Some sat in the third row, others were loud in the back with trademark sounds that they produced during the physiology lectures. Some had ‘great entries’ like a chant of ‘Ghora Ghora’ from his friends and supporters for Athar Usmani. Sohail Kiyani was of course ‘CR’ and Aamir Ali had several quality attributes all rolled into one.

While some of us gave up trying to get noticed, others tried anything and everything. From colorful gaudy clothes, to strong perfume. One classmate had a toothpick in his mouth and wore sunglasses. No need to name names you know who you are. I too tried a few things myself and determined that I was invisible to the girls. I also tried sitting in the third row and making loud funny comments (At least I thought they were funny). No one looked back. No smile, no giggle. I was already convinced I was invisible to the girls, I now concluded that I was inaudible too.

Since my family was in Karachi and some of my friends from Cadet College Petaro were at Dow Medical and Sind Medical College I visit these colleges and thought wow these guys are so lucky. My friends there would routinely be having chai samosas with girls in small groups. There were also some established couples. Even in Lahore, I visited my friends at Allama Iqbal. Things were different there as well. For one thing there was no secluded cafeteria like ours. The boys were routinely seen talking to girls on matters beyond the lame asking for notes that we some time resorted to. Incidently Lalarukh, my wife is from Allama Iqbal but we never met during college years.

Coming Up Next
The magazines such as ‘Listen’ and ‘Sheikon ki Sheikian’
The physiology lectures by Nusrat Waqar and Dissection Hall.
The first Professional exams.
Celebration after the first professional results.


Mysteries to me
This will be a constant feature. Besides celebrating and laughing at our past, I do have some ‘selfish motives’ I hope in response to this blog my readers will provide me answers to some questions that to this day are mysteries to me.

One mystery from my previous blog was

1. Who was or were the authors of ‘Batain Humary Ghor se sun loo’

Today I will add the following

2. How did all the girls fit into that tiny room know as ‘Girls Cafeteria’.
3. Was I really invisible to girls?

I realize that the answer to both of these question depend on response from a few, none of which may be reading this blog, but hey, after all these years can you blame me for trying?

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.