Phantasmagoria…

oday I am in memory lanes trying to recall what ever is there in the dark alleys of my brain. The time of the year when usually results are out matriculation level o level chiefly. I did my metric or according to correct English grammar took my metric exams in year 1998.
Those days the times were definitely different. There was no internet. Yes there was but then it was 90 rupees per hour and we had to log from Lahore which was immensely expensive. There was no cable as it’s a normal norm these days in Pakistan. Instead of cabal we had the satellite dish with only 10 channels.
Bbc,Zee tv star plus the English one and few Chinese channels which never made sense except the animes we tried to watch ones in the blue moon.
I scored 675 marks in matric and I wept for 20 days. It was the first shock in real world. Moral…”we never get what we want in life”. The end of this was that I got into a small collage rather than following my mothers foot steps to Lahore collage for woman.
It was a small town collage with broken bricks and haunted grounds. The teachers were awfully haughty with sorry to say no sense of teaching or the word teacher itself.
I still feel a disdain about the place after so many years.
The agony of those days flashes back in my memories day after another.
My biology teacher use to dress up as a drug junkie and she was famous in collage for doing drugs. Well still she is a mystery. She use to enter the class open the zoology book and read in a language which was definitely not English.
But i still respect her for at least trying to come and attend the classes.
Then we had this physics teacher who never attended the class. She use to come all the way from Lahore well once a month. So she never was in the class.
The only worth mentioning teacher was Mrs Huma.She was young a new graduate and very enthusiastic. She was regular in attending the classes and enjoyed her work.
Then again I never saw the face of my English teacher during 2 years or my Islamic studies teacher. I even don’t know their names.
The 2 years were awesome in many ways. The collage had a good library. I read good fiction.Manto..i remember the look on face of librarian when she saw me reading manto and then borrowing it.
Quratulain haider..i read Agg ka dariya 9 times.Daphne du maurier…I read each and every piece of her work.
So I found the cure for my loneliness in the dysfunctional atmosphere of govt collage for woman sheikhupura.
Now when I look back I feel amazed the way I survived the atmosphere and then came out as a better person.
I scored aweful marks in my fsc 735.And so again my whole career was jeopardized. I was not a very good student but my average dropped from 80% to just a mere of 65%.
Those were bleak days. My parents were ready to buy me an admission in a private medical collage and I wanted to prove that I can do better than that.
At the end of day I did bsc from the same place went to a public university and then choose economics as a serious career path.
Some times when I look back I wonder that how I made through it all,
with out teachers with, out good books and definitely without any solid inspiration.
I was a small town girl with no exposure except books.
But I wanted to look outside the box and feel the life in my own way.
But every one is not as lucky as I was.
But still in my own neighborhood I have tremendous examples of females breaking the stereotype barriers and entering the labor force in non stereo type roles other than doctors or teachers.
But it is true that education at school and collage level needs to be revised again. We need good teachers and good planners with definitely a good accountability system.
I did my Ba from a collage which does not have any alumni or a recognized name.
I remember that when I was applying for my graduate studies in north America 4 universities mailed me back that my Ba was not from a recognized place and then I had to mail the Punjab university degree to prove my credentials.
It was a thorny way. But all is well that ends well.Today I am in a phantasmagoria.
When I look back I want to sit and pray To Allah for awarding me with things and opportunities I never had a hint about.
I don’t have any hand on the place where iam…
I am still a small town girl from a collage without alumni……