18-D Fateh Hall, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad (UAF)

University of Agriculture, Faisalabad (Old Campus)

18-D Fateh Hall, Univ. of Agriculture Faisalabad (UAF)

For Mazhar Ali, who does not say much but whose “silence is wonderful to listen to“, to quote Thomas Hardy.

I arrived in Faisalabad (formerly Lyallpur) towards the end of 1986, in December if I am not wrong. I was one of the two or three candidates from Quetta City to qualify for an agricultural engineering seat at the famed university. I arrived later than the other successful candidates from the province. The reason for that delay was some bungling on the part of the staff of the then Director General of Agriculture (DGA) in Balochistan, the late Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali. The DGA office was responsible for the selection of candidates in the different fields of agricultural sciences in the two or three state universities in the country that offered degree courses in those fields. What had happened was that although I had passed the test and the interview and had the required score, my name had been suddenly dropped from the list of successful candidates and somebody else’s name inserted. This was a person I knew personally and who was not eligible because of his lower score in the post matriculation tests called Pre-Engineering Intermediate College Examinations in the Pakistani education system. There were only limited seats allocated for candidates from Quetta City and for the province as a whole in the professional categories, particularly in the fields of medicine and engineering, at the state universities in the country. These were called “quota” seats or the “quota system” then. Anyway, after I challenged the wrongful decision for which the DGA was either directly or indirectly responsible, my name was hastily reinserted in the list, but as a “special case”, so I was told. Obviously, I was not happy about it and threatened legal action against the department, but my friends and family suggested that I not take that long and costly route, and instead avail the "special" seat and leave for Faisalabad without delay since all the other candidates had already left. I eventually relented and arrived in Faisalabad in December 1986. I was registered in the Faculty of Agricultural Engineering and Technology and was allotted the registration number 86-ag-728.

I was received, as were many others from Quetta city and the province, by a couple of senior students from Quetta, in my case namely Mazhar Ali and Irfan Ali Bakhtiari, neither of whom I had met before. Among students from Balochistan, it was a tradition to help students from your part of the province or your city settle in the university. There was even a student organization to which most, if not all, students from the province belonged: Balochistan Student Association (BSA). Mazhar was then living in Fateh Hall, room 18D. Fateh Hall was on the extreme end of the row of residential hostels that stretched from one of the two entrance gates of the university. So, from Fateh Hall it was a long walk to the main gate that led to the Gobindpura area and further onto the city which we often visited in the evenings and on weekends. Like every big university in Pakistan, our university also had small cafes and restaurants (often called hotels in Pakistan) and the shabby chai (tea) stalls just outside the Gobindpura main gate, in addition to other small businesses that mostly depended on the students for their survival and success. These chai stalls were always teeming with students in the evenings, especially when the weather was fine and not too cold or hot. Cold, maybe not but hot, oh yes! Faisalabad is one of the hottest places in Pakistan, with the mercury shooting up to 42degC and above. Until I arrived there, I had never experienced that kind of heat and humidity in my whole life. It was the same for most of us from dry and cold Balochistan, except maybe for those who came from Sibi, another place in the country that resembles a hell chamber! As fate would have it, it was Sibi to which I would be posted upon joining the agriculture department six years later.

Faculty of Agricultural Engineering

Both Mazhar and Irfan (Bakitiari) were engineering students. They helped me settle down in the new place. I have clear memories of running back and forth the length of the mile long campus corridor with Irfan to get all the admission paperwork done. To this day, Irfan and I recall those days and as we do we cannot help but laugh: Irfan walking briskly ahead of me and I, in my blue smuggled Iranian sweater totally lost in a new and unfamiliar environment, trying to keep pace with him while holding my dirty, yellow file folder with all my documents in it behind me. Mazhar, not an outspoken or very social person---and in that sense the exact opposite of Irfan who got nods, smiles and waves from every second person on campus irrespective of their department or faculty-----introduced me to the rather fastidious dean of the faculty, Sheikh Sahib. I think his name was Sheikh Sarwar. He was a short man with piercing dark eyes that shone with a kind of intelligence that can be termed uncanny only because it was tinged with a certain degree of frustration, even anger. Years later I would come to understand fully the source of that frustration in such individuals: in a country where the cult of mediocrity is pervasive, and even actively celebrated and promoted, any intelligent person is bound to get frustrated, if not angry. No wonder, Pakistan is among the top “least developed” or “developing” countries that have high rates of brain-drain. To get back to our story, at first, the strict dean was reluctant to accept me in the faculty since I had arrived late and also because there were many irregularities (typos and all) in my papers that were prepared by the clumsy DGA clerks back home. Eventually, he signed my papers with the pre-condition that I would score a GPA of at least 3.0 at the end of the first semester; after all that I had gone through until that point, my admission to the faculty was made conditional! And as the dean said that to us, he smiled at me but gave Mazhar the eye (Mazhar, who is undoubtedly a great human being, a wise man in every other respect, was not really one of the brightest students in the engineering faculty, especially not in strictly theoretical physics and math based subjects!) Not to boast but to mention here for the record (!), I did manage to make it to the 3.0 mark at the end of the first semester (it was 3.31 to be exact).

The Ganta Ghar (clocktower) in Faisalabad

Faisalabad was a very different place from Quetta then, and not only weather wise. It was definitely a bigger city but at the same time it never felt like a big city to me, say, like Karachi, Hyderabad or Lahore, cities that I had often visited and even lived in one of them for extended periods of time. It was called “a huge village” by its local residents then and its people were referred to as villagers, the pejorative term for which is “paindoo”, and not city dwellers proper. The entire city is designed around the main clock- tower called the Ganta Ghar, which stands tall at a central point where eight streets---bazaars---meet. Some say it is an architectural representation of the colonial era Union Jack, the flag of the imperial Raj. For us students, one of the sources of entertainment was roaming in these maze-like bazaars, treating ourselves to the steaming hot daal chaawal in Chiniot bazaar and the spicy murgh pulao in winters, or visiting the tea houses in and around Bhawana and Jhang Bazaars.

Going to the movies in the city’s many cinemas, especially to Minerva and Shabnam, was the most popular activity among many students, including those from Balochistan. At least once a month, we would watch a Punjabi movie at one of these theatres. It would be Mazhar, Irfan, Masood and Zubair, and sometimes Sajjad Foladi and Ishaq Ibrahim, too, with me tagging along. It was a time when Anjuman, the popular movie actress, reigned supreme in the world of Punjabi cinema. Since the queen must always have a king, so, that spot was filled by the one and only Sultan Rahi, the ghandhasa wielding, mustachioed Punjabi Jhat hero, whose kingdom was constantly challenged and was under threat by his great rival Mustafa Quershi, another loud action hero with even a bigger ghandhasa and more hair on his face and chest. Occasionally, we would watch a B-grade Hollywood movie. They were mostly low budget, low definition, gross and gory horror movies that were an insult to one’s aesthetic and artistic sensibilities. The theatres rarely showed good quality Urdu and English movies. It was a time when cinemas meant dusty, badly ventilated, smoke filled halls with dirty floors and rows of thinly cushioned folding-type chairs. Nothing like the new Multiplexes or Cineplexes with Dolby-NR, all-surround sound systems and HD quality screens that we see nowadays in the cities of Pakistan.

Minerva Cinema, Faisalabad

It didn’t take me time before I found out why going to the movies was so popular with the students. The movies themselves were not particularly interesting with almost all of them based on a typical, cliched formula: the same plots, same song and dance sequences---with at least one of them in the rain showing the plump heroin wearing a thin white dress----and same or similar fight scenes. For the viewers, the main attraction was what was known as the “tota”, meaning an extra piece of reel that was run somewhere within the main film. This “tota” was almost always rated stuff, meaning R 18+ or even soft core (western) pornography. It would appear suddenly and run for a few minutes before the operator would switch back to the main movie, the one advertised on the huge, garish poster boards outside. During the two or more hours of the movie, this would happen at least three or four times. The “tota” had a magical effect on the frustrated audience: the hall would suddenly go quiet and as soon as the projector would roll on to the main movie, the same hall would erupt with whistles, hooting and clapping. These “totas” were never openly advertised on the huge, colorful poster boards, but were spread through word of mouth. As to their timing, that in itself created suspense and excitement among many in the audience. Some had become so expert that they would predict the precise time of its launch with a margin of error anywhere between 5 and 10 seconds!

Back to Fateh Hall. I was allotted a bed and table in 18-D Fateh Hall soon after I got admitted. There were five of us in the room then: Mazhar, Munawar, Bashir Agha Jr., Zulfiqar and I. The occupants of this room before us, were Inam ul Haq, Rizwan ul Haq, Mazhar Ali and Bashir Agha Sr., I believe. While Inam was still there doing his masters in plant breeding and genetics, Rizwan and Bashir, both engineers, had already left after graduating by the time I arrived. I met them later in life. This particular room had a history with students from Balochistan. It had changed hands for many years, from one batch of Balochistanis to other and this tradition continued until I graduated and left in 1991. That is when the young, chatty Muhammad Ali Agha and others moved in. In the early evenings most students from the province and some from NWFP (now KP) would gather at the canteen and there would be Quetta-style “bandaar” over chai from the canteen. In addition to the greasy parathas, French toasts, and omelets for breakfast, the canteen also served afternoon chai and biscuits, or snacks. The place was run by a slender nay, emaciated, guy named Aslam who minded the cash register while his two younger, chubby brothers, Feeqa (Rafeeq) and Bhutto (Zulfiqar) waited tables.

Fateh Hall, University of Agriculture Faisalabad

In addition to those who resided in Fateh Hall, there were many Balochistani students in other hostels, too, some of whom would join these gatherings and whose names I would like to recall here: Inam ul Haq, Tahir Aqeel, Irfan Ali, Maqsood Khan, the three Ali Rezas (Ali Reza Hazara, Ali Raza Naqvi and Ali Reza Raisani), Zulfiqar Achakzai, Riaz Khan, Amir Mehmood, Najmul Hassan, Ubaidullah Luni, Anwar Adil, Nasrullah Shah, Fazal Haq, the two Naveeds (laghado and latt!), Azam Kakar (Dr. Ziaratwaal), Bashir Agha jr., Wahab Khan, Manzoor Baloch, Naqibullah Khan, Sajjad Foladi (Loralai walla), Shahid Masood, Dawood Almas, Rauf Khan, Mehrullah Jan, Zubair and Masood Chaudhry and later, Muhammad Ali Agha. There would be some students from NWFP, as well. Two of them, Ishaq Ibrahim and Shahid (?) Afridi, were the closest to us. Ishaq, who I believe was either from proper Peshawar or Mardan area, was perennially present and was good company, a joy to be with. Popular, loved by all and always smiling, laughing and cracking jokes, he had a cool and care-free attitude, except when it was exam time during which he would start panicking! “It’s that time: theory of structures and Dr. Amanat!” This particular engineering subject, spread over two semesters, was one of the most difficult to pass. The subject was dry, theoretical---all formulae derivations, calculations and number crunching----but what made matters worse was that it was taught by one of the most unpopular professors on the faculty. It is true that some oddball types loved his communicatively obscure and clearly anachronistic teaching style, but the majority simply failed to understand what the man was trying to communicate. Moreover, the professor’s temperament did not help matters, either, even if at times he displayed streaks of dark humor. While my classmate Najmul Hassan (from Quetta), because he was a math wizard, sailed through it and got high marks, my senior Mazhar and many others had to spend an extra semester just because of this one subject and the good professor who taught it. Other classmates from Quetta, Amir Mehmood Reza, Nasrullah Khan, Ali Reza Naqvi, Anwar Adil and yours truly barely made it.

Student politics at the university was mostly done on what is known as the ‘baradari” basis, where different Punjabi baradari groups like Gujjar, Jhat and Rajput etc. had formed their own student organizations. There were the usual politically oriented student groups as well, such as the Islami Jamiat e Talaba (IJT) and People’s Student Federation (PSF). At times these groups would clash with one another, often violently, and when that happened the authorities would close down the campus. BSA was our student organization that served as an umbrella association for all the students from Balochistan and which was mostly about organizing social and cultural activities and helping the students from the province with any issues that they might have at the university. By the time I graduated, things had changed a bit. While there were still these gatherings at Fateh Hall and other hostels, although much infrequently than before, many of the seniors had left----Inam, Mazhar, Irfan, Munawar, Tahir, Zubair, Sajjad, Masood, for example--- and with their departure many of the old traditions also began to disappear. BSA, for example, became ineffective and even unnecessarily politicized at times. I guess, it was the passage of an era, however short-lived, that I was witnessing. It was time for change, in other words.

For more, please click:  Class of 83: St. Francis' Grammar High 

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