"Khambe pe charh ke"

                          First day of classes and Orientation

"Here is your roll number slip, congratulations, you are now officially a student of IEFR," the Convener of Admissions  droned as he passed me the piece of paper on which my roll number was written. Wow. Talk about the nerve on that guy. I managed to twist my lips into a shape that passed off as a smile. God knows it was a sarcastic smile dripping with malice. The guy had me waiting for a day and a half after finally giving it to me. Well, I wont be dealing with him anymore though, so, silver linings people, silver linings...
Anyways I headed off with Faraz, who I decided was going to be my new best friend, to the CS department and voila!, it was the most beautiful department I had ever been in. Unlike the other departments whose walls and class rooms screamed monotony, our department was aesthetically colorful and nicely designed. After I had overcome my awe (quite like Harry when he first saw Hogwarts) I entered the classroom. There were like only four girls and seven boys. All of the others had taken their roll number slips and had left. *tsk tsk*  Such Idiots *tsk tsk*.  The first class that I attended was Programming Fundamentals. The teacher was himself  CS graduate from IEFR. We had a jolly good time discussing computing and programming and it's practical implementations.
After the class there was a break and we headed for the Canteen otherwise known as HFC, had a cup of tea there and returned back to our classes.
We were told to move to another classroom for our Orientation. The teacher, this time around was a Ma'am Tooba, or at least that's what her name was I think. She explained for an hour about the importance of computer science and yippity yippity blah blah blah, no offense, but I was not quite listening to her as much as I was looking at the two guys who were trying to set up the multimedia for our Orientaion.
Phir chutti ho gye, or bahir Electrical Engineering k bhai log fooling krne k intezar mein khare the. "a bhai new comer, teri lgta he fooling ny hui, idhr ao aur apnee life history btao. saath lgana he khambe pe charh ke" I started the story of my life and ended each sentence with "khambe pe charh ke". After I had told enough to make them laugh, they told me the usual "aaj se hum tumhare bhai hein, vgera vgera".......

"I KNOW EVERYTHING!!!!"

                                     First day and fooling

I do not need to go in the details about the Registration day and how the line for the medical certificate was. I will, however tell you this much : I got in the line at 12 in the noon and my turn came at 6:30 in the evening. But it was a really nice experience because I got to make some new friends. I don't remember all of their names but I called them Molana Sahib, Wi-Fi, Altaf bhai (he was a karachiite), fauji, Bevafa ( his name is Abu Bakr and he is a really nice kid) Mummy Daddy (because he was there with his mom..... -_-..... Ikr?) and a freak we named "Go Nawaz Go" because that's what he kept repeating after every seven minutes.
We were told to arrive at 10 'o clock to receive our Roll Numbers and for our Orientation (more like Disorientation, its a movie reference, Accepted FYI). But when we went there, we came to know that the Roll number slips were yet to be made. This is the part where it gets interesting for you see, the much dreaded Seniors turned up. Pretty much everybody got ragged, fooled and made fun of. Tears were shed and some idiotic juniors were stupid enough to behave rudely with the Seniors. Badtameezi ensued, hence the tears. Meanwhile I was busy helping my batch mates with finding their allotted hostels. Juniors around me were being taken away and "fooled" in a methodological manner, rather monotonous in my opinion. All of a sudden some seniors called upon the guy next to me. Looking at the desperation on his face, I decided to go in his stead. They, the seniors were like, "What? We didn't call you, anyways a gye ho to thori si kra hi lo," they began with my personal information like my name, my school and college and blah blah blah blah. Then they told me to give them a salute and at the end of the salute, bend over, slap my hands on my butt and say NFC three times loudly. It was not as embarrassing as it seems. Believe me. It was not. They told me to go say hi to the girls and ask them from which departments they were from. I went, introduced myself and  asked. They were really nice tbh.
I came back feeling good and told the Seniors that they were from the BBA department. The Seniors, who had now amounted to roughly 90, told me to go back to the girls and this time I was to scream " I KNOW EVERYTHING!!" followed by villainous laughter. Now that I come to think of it, they must've thought that I was going to chicken out but thank God for making me a human and a beghairat Rana at that. :) So I go there again and tell them not to mind what I am about to do next. They say "Okay, you've got to do what you've got to do," I smile and reply "Thank you, this makes it much easier for me." I lifted my hands up and looked at them and proclaimed, " I know everything...Buahahahahahaha!!!," they started to laugh, I mean c'mon, even you must find it hilarious.
I went back to the Seniors, who were clapping and whistling  by now. They all gave me high fives and I had to hug like about seventy of them. Then each of them said the same thing to me," Yar, this was all tradition, hamare saath bhi hua tha ese hi, tension ny lenee, mind ny krna or koi bhi masla ho to hamein batana, koi parhai mein madad chahiye ho, koi assignment bnwani ho, koi banda mrvana ho ya koi agr badtameezi kre to zroor btana...Aj se ham sab tumhare bhai hein!" It all ended on a rather exciting note. My advice for those of you who are yet to get admission in a university or a college, do not resist the Seniors, get fooled, have a good time and go with the flow. Be a sport, okay? Personally, I enjoyed it all very much. Agle char saal ke liye seniors dost bn gye hein pehle din se . Tomorrow is the first class. Ya Allah madad!

Admssion!!! A Prologue

                       Prologue : The hell every Fsc student has to go through

I applied to IEFR and got in.. As I look back at the weird rollercoaster ride that my last 6 months were, I kind of feel that it was that simple. But it wasn't. So here you go, a little prologue shedding some light on the events of the last year. Okay, let's see. I was, till yesterday, an Fsc student who had gotten admission nowhere. I was not accepted into med school, into veterinary school, into a pharmacy college, an agriculture university and a textile university. The only thing that I had to look forward now was to get into those BBA programs that literally every kothi calligde has nowadays.
I did not want my brilliant mind that yearned to demystify the mathematical mysteries and delve into the anatomical analogies of the human body to go to waste by studying for four years for something that I did not like. So what option did I have left? Well ,it was easy, I had to "waste"  another year of my life studying additional mathematics ( something the pre engineering students have as a major subject in their Fsc ) . I wont buttercoat it , those 4 months were monotonous as fuck, for want of a better word. I had to study calculus, algebra, trigonometry, geometry and practice them daily...The exams came sooner than expected. I gave them and then in the end, got 93 marks and  I was like "what?". That being said I now had to give ECAT which stands for Engineering Colleges Admission Test. The test was shit, pardon my French, but it was. I got a 104 out of 400. Now I had applied to other places like FAST, NTU and NUST in Computer Sciences but none of them were really feasible for me. FAST was very far away from my home, so was NTU and NUST was in another city altogether, so all of them were a big NO. Time was running out and so were the options and I started to do what I was really good at doing...no its not what you think it is.... I started panicking, got all shivery and jittery. In my depressed condition I found something really awesome that solved all my problems.. NO, I don't mean marijuana, you judgmental reader!, I was going to say, I found the power of supplications and prayers. With every breathe I took, I prayed, "Ya Allah mera NFC mein Admission kra de, bsc hons comp science mein BBA mein ny!"
Well, I applied to IEFR and they took my application along with 2300 others. I had given first preference to Comp Science. My aggregate merit was not  very high so it was all hanging by a thread on the tip of a knife ; Couldn't quite let go of the thread and couldn't quite lift my feet of the knife's tip. Those were some psychologically torturing times : picture SAW meets Friday the 13th...
One morose day I wake up and my mom, who was now hopeless that I had any chance of making it to any college, comes inside and says to me " There's a letter from IEFR, I didn't know you even applied there." I shrug and tear off the envelope and inside there's a letter saying I have been shortlisted in the admissions category for Bsc hons Comp Science / BBA .... SOB BBA was not leaving me alone and it made me angry, scared, frustrated and doubtful.. Oh and the letter also said to deposit the fees to secure my admission so I deposited 1,07,750 rupees not knowing whether I would be doing BBA or Comp Science.... It literally was a leap of faith to say the least. Now the nerve wrecking wait began for the merit list... "Oh my dear God, please help me!!!" that's what I always said whenever I felt doubt regarding my admission.
Now all the other admissions to other universities had closed which meant that if NFC rejected me I would waste another year, this time for real. All my other Fsc fellows were busy becoming engineers, doctors, pharmacists, Vets and Accountants, and here I was, still yearning to get admission..





                                            Display Of Merit List

                                                      7th November 2014

I woke up with a sense of dread and my stomach never stopped lurching, I craved for a cigarette but since I had quit smoking this Ramazan, I decided to say " F**k it, Im not going to smoke" instead,
I went to IEFR and looked around for any signs of the merit list. Again it was delayed. God Bless Pakistan for having such slackers otherwise known as the members of the Admissions Committee. But thankfully it was delayed for only a few hours rather than a few days... I went into the mosque, prayed to Allah and asked Him to give me courage.   Hannan, my friend from School had also showed up. His case was very filmi ; guy studying electrical engineering ,hating every moment of it, wants to study civil engineering,  sits through the entry test again and finally achieves his dream of pursuing his dream. He and I wait for the merit list by playing table tennis, drinking lots of tea, eating pan masala and praying.. Then he and I  spot a man with a lot of papers in his hand, students gathered around him like bees on a flower. He pins the merit list on the softboard and to my surprise, I am on the 12th number in the Bsc Hons Computer Science list... I scream " WOOOOHOOOO! DAKLHA HO GYA!!!! and as if it were a cue for the seniors to appear, they did, " han bhai kitne no. pe aye, kis department mein hua admission? Treat do ,ao ragging krein, ao  ye kro vo kro," I don't listen to them instead I call my mom and dad and tell them the good news. Hannan and I hug each other for having gotten admission! I offer two ra'kat for thanking Allah and then asked for even more blessings from Him.

The Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department where hopefully I will make memories worth remembering.

 

Ok, so now that I have gotten admission and have actually something to write about, I sure shall start doing so. In fact I shall write the happenings of every single day I spend in NFC for the next four years. So here's to College! Here's to hoping that I study hard! Here's to my parents and teachers who made this possible for me! Here's to God Himself, the Grand Planner and the Nurturer! Allah Hafiz people, Adios!