Of False Airs and Language Barriers

By Sidrah Roghay

When I first told my mother that I planned on enrolling in Karachi University I was met with a lot of resistance. My argument was that the degree is recognized, she said it’s a war zone.

I was still made to sit for a test at a private university offering media sciences as a bachelor’s programme. I messed up the test majorly. Mainly because till the night before I was sitting in a mall in Dubai watching Arab women with their puffed up hair and overly done eye make up, wondering why men think they are pretty. Surprisingly, I still got a call for an interview. The panel was less interested in what I can do and more in what my daddy does for a living. A week later I got an acceptance letter that I threw down the bin.

I assume my parents never got to know about it.

Adjusting at Karachi University was never easy. Here I was in the middle of a never ending campus where Grey’s Anatomy was unheard of and designer labels were spotted once in a blue moon. People got offended if you talked in English. Un-made eyebrows and untamed hair was a common sight. Even women stared!

I remember the first time my chair person wanted me to go on stage. She insisted I host in Urdu. I would stutter and stammer every time. I was scared of making a major mistake and forgetting my sentence midway. After several failed rehearsals she gave up and told me to continue in whatever language I was comfortable in. I took a sigh of relief. The third time I took the mike I was able to make an announcement in proper Urdu (with some help from Prof Mahmud Ghaznavi).

In my first year Urdu was a compulsory subject. My teacher mastered his subject, and spoke in Urdu I had never heard before. The first three classes or so, I sat at the back bench like an idiot not grasping a word of what he said. But he was a kind chap, he went easy on me and encouraged me to make mistakes. While many other students from the same system of education opted for “easy Urdu” I took advanced Urdu as a challenge. Here I was being introduced to people like Putras Bukhari, Ibn-e-Insha and Nazir Akbar Abadi. I cursed my education system for hiding such treasures from me. These were great men, and in no way less than Dickens, Hardy or Orwell. The six months of Urdu classes served as an appetizer for me. I tried to look into Urdu literature more. I bought Iqbal and Umera Ahmed.

At KU I realized that language was just a mode of communication, and not knowing a particular language does not in any way make you less learned. Here, I pushed aside all false air of belonging to “a certain system of education”. I learned to look at people behind their bushy eyebrows and black robes. I was meeting people from such diverse backgrounds. I made friends with a Somali, Sudani and got to know an amazing Italian teacher. Through interaction with people from interior sindh I began to understand the Sindhi language.

I learnt about real life stories and struggles people had made, and were still making to get to this place.

While previously I would step aside from all political discussions, politely saying “I’m non-political”, here I unknowingly absorbed a little bit of each political party. I know each of their songs by heart, and with that outlines of their political agenda. I formed an opinion of my own.

In a nutshell I got a taste of what real life would be like, mass culture and aspirations and teachers and friends who have shaped me into a better, more aware individual.