1988 & 2012: an equidistance journey to and from millennium 2K

In 1988, when I was born, I was 12 years away from the new millennium and in 2012 I am again merely 12 years away from the new millennium.

The difference off course is nothing but the morphological changes.

Today I ponder over an amazing topic, a question and the most romantic idea: “I want to become a (profession) when I grow up.”

It’s amazing when you hear from children about the future profession they want to choose. It feels as good to hear as to imagine the child one day achieving that professional career that s/he utters. I never knew (neither did I inquire) about my future ideal as a child. May be my school teachers would remind me. I do remember that by grade 8^th I would reluctantly respond to the question “what is your future plan?” with “doctor”.

Time slipped and so did matriculation. Perplex with the option of deciding between Pre-Engineering and Pre Medical, I consult few of the best career counsellor and professionals and somehow cling to pre-engineering. Well, to their question “what is your future goal?” I respond, “I guess I want to study management sciences... or maybe I want to become a doctor... no I feel like becoming an engineer...”

Finally, I am in Lahore and in the first day of the college our Urdu professor sir Tahir Masood asks a million dollar question during an introductory dialogue. “Please one by one introduce yourself: your name, your region, your school and what do you want to become?” Why would the teacher ask us our future plan? Doesn’t he know that we are pre engineering students and we will become engineers? My heartbeat has already raced off, as I for the first time in my life hear the words “Electrical engineer, Mechanical Engineer, Civil Engineer, Electronics Engineer, and Computer Engineer” while students in the front row respond and Tahir scribbles every detail on his file paper.

It’s my turn and I haven’t yet decided my specialization in engineering, I speak “...I don’t want to be an engineer (50 students and the teacher startled at my statement fix their eyes on me) but, I want be academician and I plan to do PhD in Physics” This was brilliant; it not only surprised the audience but myself. Now the biggest joke to share with you all, the same year I drop physics in examination.

 

Well, this is 2012 and I stand here with a degree in my hand. I am not a doctor, neither an engineer. It is as if I have done everything and yet nothing. While I travelled the first half of the equidistance to the year 2000 with my parents and teachers, I wandered in the next equidistance journey from 2000 to 2012 on my romantic ideas. That made the 24 years of my life. I do not regret for not having a clear goal all these years, I wish to start anew, with clear and defined path for the rest of my life.

Happy New Year- Happy 2012

Towards a destiny with clear road map

(P.S. I loved art and Architecture)

Steve Jobs is Alive

Steve Jobs is dead, mentions the news. My eyes catch a glimpse of the statement and they keep going back and forth. Really? 

"Jobby" a sound appears from my unconscious, we are all in a group and a guy smiles as he approaches not knowing how to react to the call. This is another beautiful day at college, and it has been quite inspirational semester. A series of lectures has been devoted to entrepreneurship in Marketing course, and directly or indirectly the valor, courage, vision, inspiration and 'out of the box approach' example has served by one extraordinary man, Steve Jobs. Our professor Mannan Amin (a Stanford Graduate himself) did everything to familiarize us with the legend's technological revolution. Our energetic fellows started the Forman Entrepreneurial Association and I remember exploring and discussing the marvels of Steve Jobs in one of the formal sittings.

As we strolled towards the hostel, Rizwan Javaid is the center of arguments. Because, for us a small group in an academic institution somewhere on the globe, Riz was Steve Jobs. We called him Jobby, not because he invented some technology resembling Apple, but for the inspiration we had taken from the legendary man. We made him part of our friends circle, we stayed with him, we dined with him. We aspired to become like him and follow his footsteps in professional life. 

Now tell me how a legend can ever die. He is present everywhere, with every student he has inspired, with every person who has loved his innovation and with every teacher who has explained many things through one phenomenon: Steve Jobs of the century.

Volunteers’ misfortune or the Disaster hit peoples’ hard luck?

After a struggle of 3 months for a cause’s sake, all seems void and null. They were all students working on it, and they all were regular and there were 90 of them. But, a single blow from the administration of Forman Christian College, Lahore seems to have settled the fire in all the unanimous volunteers, who had stood up for their people’s sake. I have a respect for the administration’s decision, and their valuable suggestions, but the reaction has triggered some interesting thoughts, confusing and complicated though, and I want to know the meaning of these complexities. Constraint, Propaganda, Agenda, Inflation Or The Fate of The People Of Gilgit-Baltistan (Hunza in particular)…

It has been 3 months and the volunteers of Forman Christian College, Lahore are working on a project. The project called Attabad Welfare Project was planed with the department head of Sociology, Prof. Shahid Rasheed, and the team’s advisor Asst. Prof. Ather Azeem. Initially, it was decided to start work in the aftermath of the outflow from the spillway. Fortunately, the downstream destruction did not happen. Thus, Attabad and villages of Gojal (from Ayenabad to Passu) were chosen as the target audience to be addressed.

‘Forman volunteers’ as they started to call themselves had a successful project with the people of Swat, during the period of ‘war against terrorism’. The team went there and served the Swat IDP, and this had an unprecedented result. After a year, the resettled families came to meet the volunteers and invited the volunteers to get a chance to serve them. With a similar notion of showing sympathy and love for their own people in the time of crisis, Forman Volunteers launched the Attabad Jheel Welfare Project. The first goal was:

“To go to the affected area and people themselves so that cultural and social differences are bridged and understood, besides serving them.”

And, the response of our administration to the proposal was nothing but a straight forward denial, which is their right. True that there are administrative constraints and the decision based on inflation, restrictions and the institutions policy regarding extending financial support is fathomable. But, there are three areas that did not sufficiently satisfy me, and neither will it satisfy any other person, after the fact that the proposal was canceled.

Firstly, on the issue of sending an official request to other universities for putting a funding stall by Forman volunteers our administration had interesting proposal. Our university can’t send official request to other universities’ student affairs department, but Forman volunteers should request any society of other university, collect fund through them, and deposit it in the account created by us. This will then be a joint collaboration of “Forman Christian College & Particular University”. How will other university societies agree to us on unofficial request? How will it be called a joint collaboration of FCCU & Particular University, if your students’ affair department can’t send formal request?

Secondly, we supported Swat IDP because it was “war on terrorism”, but this is “a natural disaster/Issue”. What does it mean to support war against terrorism whole heartedly, but to think that the sufferers of natural disaster are receiving good treatment and this is not the pressing issue? Isn’t both situation same on humanity ground, that in each case our people have suffered?

Thirdly, you can work on your personal relations (PR) for funding, but we need to know and “evaluate” your personal relations for why are they ready to give money. “Even if we you are not using FCCU platform”. If we are not using FCCU platform, and if we are standing as volunteers for humanity cause, for the people of Pakistan, for creating a bridge between diverse culture and traditions through a goodwill gesture, why do we need to get our PR evaluated by the administration.

Next, whatever money you have collected using FCCU platform, and whatever fund you may collect from PR, the “best” and “effective” way is to send the funds to a functional NGO, or send it to the people on monthly basis. When our goal is to not just feed the people who are already getting aid and support from various NGOs and the Government itself, rather to have a people level interaction in the time of crisis, utilize the funds on institutional level for e.g. for equipment needed. True that our goals are not ‘holy scripture’, true that this suggestion is a possibility, but what is the problem with giving the dedicated youth a platform for having a chance to serve & bridge gap.

Finally, after all the above, “we are with you, & we appreciate your work”. I hope you really are with the volunteers.

But, the volunteers are going to have a decision based on the current scenario on what are the possibilities of doing the cause. Whatever the decision is, the people of Hunza will receive the message of your sympathy, and your stand on their behalf, for their sake. They will remember you all in their prayers. They will understand the circumstances through which you have been during the campaign, and even after that.