Examiness at IBA!

Exam day at IBA is when everyone is found digging in their notes, books, etc. Some even dig others’ brains to get ‘summaries’ of what they have studied the entire term. Irrespective of whether the person is among those who pay attention to each and every word and pause of every teacher, among those who doze off in class because they know everything already, among those who know nothing yet slip out of the class to kill time with their friends in the shed or among some other group of people so wholly unconnected with me, every person tries to do something, something that would be directly benefiting him in the upcoming exam.

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But there are some (meaning me !) who you might even refuse to consider sane, who stop their last moment revising, cramming, whatever it is for a while, and attempt to admire the whole scenario. For some I know it may be a highly stressful period but yes, I think the sight is simply… beautiful! Beautiful from which angle? Well, I can’t explain how it is beautiful but I just think it just is. The way humans interact, hasten, learn, rote, question, panic, rush, all in such a brief amount of time is just fascinating to me.

Also, the duration in which we all take our exams in makes me feel funny for some reason. Each human in the classroom-turned-examination-hall has his sympathetic nervous system activated more strongly than before including the invigilators. Every single prick demands the attention of the poor humans under the torture of tormenting questions photocopied on pieces of recycled paper such as the biscuit wrapper’s cracking as the invigilator opens it, the clicking of ball point pens by those who think that doing so will make them come up with brilliant answers to questions they can not yet decipher and the clang produced by stationary items dropped on purpose as some signal to cheat perhaps (in the view of the watchmen). Lastly, and most importantly the voice, the proud and tall voice of ‘Sir, SHEET!’ raises not only the head of an average student but also his blood pressure, heartbeat, pulse and temperature and pumps adrenaline, cortisol in his veins resulting in an over exhausted poor little body in the end. Speaking in terms other than biological ones, an average student’s response to such an exclamation varies somewhere on a line on which lie hope, hopelessness, jealousy, longing, frustration, panic, resentment, focus and many other energies, in an order I know not.

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As for the moments after the exam, they are simply memorable. We see people complaining about the complexity of the questions asked, whining about how less time they had to answer them, questioning their friends about how they did it, reopening their notes to confirm what they had written was right, sometimes even resorting to the restroom and crying (yes, there was this girl who cried so hard after her microeconomics exam that her big round eyes grew larger and reminded me of Dobby’s tennis-ball-like-eyes!). After the exam however, things settle down irrespective of how well or bad they had gone in those 3 hours and life moves on.

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This may be a sight at not only at IBA but in fact everywhere where normal students exist. As for me, wherever I will see it sometime in the future, I shall remember my memories at the place, my four years at which flew by like four days.

My Dear Lahore, My Dear Pakistan...

Today something terrible happened. Seven bomb blasts took place in one single city, Lahore of my dear country. Yes, seven!

There was a time when the news of seven injured people in such blasts used to upset us to the point that we could not have our meals properly for some time. But we grew immune to such shocks.

Then came a time when the news of seven dead in such blasts used to upset us to the point that we could not think of anything else for hours. But we grew immune to such panics too.

And then came a time when body counts failed to raise our blood pressures, failed to put things into perspective for us. A time when not seven injured in a day, not seven dead in a day, but seven separate bomb blasts in a single city within a few hours failed to make us realize the truth.

The truth, you ask me what it is?

Well, they are a couple of essential things I consider true for this situation.

Firstly, what is happening now i.e. bomb blasts isn’t merely a function of explosive chemicals and the ones exploding it. It is the function the actions of each an every citizen living in this country. Yes, everyone can clearly see that there are no missiles in this case or no foreigners parachute-landing. What is being done to our dear brothers is being done by our once dears brothers and no one else! What else but some kind of weakness might have lead them to go for such deeds.

Secondly, we are a nation, more than 60 years old. So logically speaking, learning from the mistakes of the past 60 years should have made us wise enough to do the right things at the right time. But apparently what George Bernard Shaw once said

“We learn from history that we learn nothing from history”

In short, what is happening might aggravate if we continue with our pathetically apathetic attitude toward our country. And things will only improve if we build our fort strong from inside. A fort whose wall’s foundation is firm like the ideology on which Pakistan was created and whose bricks are as strong as we Pakistanis are capable of being ourselves.

May Allah give us the right intentions and adequate capability and strength to bring peace back to my dear Pakistan.

11:26 pm

March 12, 2010.

When the colours die…

The worldly colours burn in my eyes

A nagging burden seem all ties

With every tick the breath grows shallow

And at a gradual pace, my body goes hollow

My once healthy flesh and sturdy bones

Start feeling like cold smoke and stones

And friends and family seem eons behind

As my soul takes flight, and I go blind

Wrote it last semester when my brother was in the ICU, almost fighting for his life.

Their Conspiracy Theories

I move around in very different parts of the society, two of which are relevant here; one in which adults and youngsters alike sit glued in front of the television, hypnotically depressed by the pessimism of conspiracy theorists who tell them how certain ‘secret groups’ consisting of the most influential individuals in the world control their lives directly or indirectly, and the other in which both adults and youngsters alike deny the very existence of these ‘secret groups’ and ridicule the extent to which the former group blames external factors for all that is going wrong in their lives.

Neither am I calling the Rothchilds, the Zionists or the Jews nor the Taliban, Al-Qaeda or any other particular group conspirers. I am only talking about the believers and the deniers here.

The believers think that their enemy has such supreme power that none is more powerful, influential and dominant than it is and that that they themselves can not do anything to save themselves from the fate their enemy has designed from them. They think that watching TV programmes about conspiracy theories and attributing their failures to different external factors is all that can be done.

On the other hand, the deniers not only disbelieve that their failures to some extent are a function of their enemies’ plans but also deny the very existences of such foes. They think that their being flawed as individual citizens and as a nation on the whole is nothing but a result of merely their own flaws.

Who are you?

Young World - My Old Love

Back in the good ol’ school days when life was saner, I had a friend which made Saturday the best day of my week –my Young World. I would wait for it week long and spring out of bed early on Saturday mornings unable to contain my excitement.

Actually back then, I was a good studious girl, meaning no TV allowed for more than half an hour, no story books for more than an hour, no drawing, painting, arts stuff except for weekends, not even helping mama at kitchen stuff!. The only thing I could do was study ( that being the first priority ) , eat or sleep. No, I am not exaggerating.

And what I was allowed to read as extra-curricular stuff everyday was Dawn’s editorial. All those letters published, except sometimes one or two, used be utterly boring to me back then. So I never read them unless my nana forced me to :( While, Young World, my handsome prince, was all yum yum! It was something I was allowed to spend time with as much as I wanted.

It had almost all the things that could cheer a teenager up with a monotonous routine.

• The comic section –Archie, Heathcliff, Big Nate…lovely colours, what a break!

• ‘Did-you-Know?’ boxes –wildlife, geography, architecture and what not…I would read them out to my mom.

• The review – new movies, games, websites, storybooks… Just reading them used to be almost as good as experiencing them in real life.

• Mailbox –kids of my age talking to the editor about random stuff…

• Super Sis! – kids troubled with their love lives, kids troubled with their growing bodies, kids troubled with their academics…

• Cover story & Country Hopping –got interested in it quite after sometime…

• Pen Pals – people actually used to put their email addresses down in that section and introduce themselves a bit to make ‘pen pals’ with the readers. Later on, the section was discontinued with; you can guess why.

And there used to be so much more … beauty tips, interviews, event coverage, etc.

But I would give up all of the above for my two dearest sections: Story Time and Poets’ Corner. I would save them for the last. Once I used to be done clean-sweeping the whole issue I would go to my bed, curl up in a ball and read first the poems and then the stories to myself.

Last of all, I used to feel ecstatic when my entries used to get published! Just poems and letters to the editor… I just photographed my entries before the issues wear away. Here are some of them…

Tick Tock Tick T...

Adil studied Business Law all semester exceptionally hard. He topped both the mid terms, passed his quizzes and assignments with flying colours and was all set for an ‘A’. Today, the final exam day, he wakes up in his bed and his yawn turns into a piercing shriek. He finds out that he has overslept and missed his final exam! Imagine his state.

Hareem took her 4-year-old cousin to the shopping mall and left her with the salesman for a minute while she tried out a pair of drainpipe-jeans in the trial room. When she came back both the salesman and her cousin were nowhere to be found. She can now do nothing but sob.

Ali was crossing the road in a hurry to catch the IBA point. His cell phone rang, he lost his concentration for a split second and … *HIT*. His parents call that split second back everyday but in vain.

Time is time. Whether it is an hour, a minute or a split second, its value is immeasurable, unquantifiable, inexplicable and undeniable. They say time is money, I say it would be ridiculous to even attempt to compare something as infinitely valuable with something as limited as money. Can that split second Ali lost his life in be ever evaluated?

If time is not just money, what is it? Being humans and therefore bearing an erring nature we can not solve this mystery ourselves. Hence, we recall what our Creator has told us. He said,

“By the time, verily Man is in loss, except such as have Faith, and do righteous deeds, and in the mutual enjoining of Truth, and of Patience and Constancy.”- Surah Al Asr

Hence, time for us is the only chance to save ourselves from being among the ‘men in loss’. Furthermore, we have to use it the right way. Surah Al Asr tells us that we should use our time to work upon our faith in the Creator who cares for every single cell that we are made up of instead of staying up all night long playing games, to apply Islam to our lives the Kaizen* way instead of wasting our precious hours sleeping till two in the afternoon, to spread the truth ( after having acquired it ourselves off course) instead of endlessly delving ourselves deep in frivolity that gives us neither worldly nor spiritual gain and along with these efforts to practice patience in the face of hardships instead of resorting to vailing, complaining and therefore ending up neutralising the thawaab earned earlier.

If a certain act does not fit in one of the four categories – faith, good deeds, truth and patience –then we are clearly killing time and therefore putting our whole eternity at stake. Remember, we are immortals!