Operation Clean-up

Tehmina Qureshi

 It was ten-thirty at night when I received a text from Ahsan Bhai yesterday, to bring a sponge and detergent  today.  He wanted everyone to contribute and have the annual "operation clean-up" (no pun  intended) in the department. 

For our readers who haven't seen the department, let me describe it a little for you. The department is two years old, has a nice cone shaped cap of blue glass on the top that impresses all the new comers. One enters a big atrium that has corridoors on either side, and the back door straight up front. The atrium has black couches in its remotest corners and a few benches that keep moving inside and out the back. The atrium is always a buzzing with activity and also shelters the IDPs of other departments which ironically do not allow students to sit there if they don't have classes. So everyone turns up here, at Mass Communication, to eat, get Photostats, sit, talk or smoke.

So I was telling you about the Operation Clean-up. The department had gotten especially dirty lately. Hence, Ahsan Bhai, was badgering us all to clean out the department bit by bit this whole week.  Once everyone gathered in the morning and had their fixes of the bad tea that is sold at our little canteen, sponges, buckets, detergents, brooms were brought out, and a few of us attacked the Paan, tea and shoe stains on the pillars. While some were busy scrubbing the grime off the pillars others thought of removing the cobwebs that hung above them. My friend Sidra Gufran had brought a pink feathery duster which looked really cute when she climbed her little-self onto a chair to wipe the cobwebs off, but it did only that. The cobwebs were as resilient as the students who were cleaning them, and swayed this way and that but mostly stayed in their places.

 Seeing all the ruckus that was being created and how everyone had taken over hos job, the janitor thought of bringing the water hose inside. Once he did that, he thought of spraying the walls with it to get it off the cobwebs too. To be honest we were surprised at his efficiency, but then we figured out he was probably thinking of the week's holiday that he would get once this gets done.

 The water hose was the turning point of the whole operation. The water made it expand laterally and charged everyone into washing every bit of the atrium. Walls, corners, windows, floor, stairs was hosed off by Suleman, Fahad, me, and the janitor. While Fahad and I fought for the hose, Suleman provided the sound effects to match the barrage of water coming out from it. Every lizard that came out of the corners was chased till it ran out of the department or beaten with brooms.

 The IDPs and people not from the department came in to witness this spectacle and stood right in the middle of the atrium to take our pictures. It took a couple of sprays on their shoes to make them understand that they are getting in the way of our project-of-the-year. Our friends who were content with only watching, got themselves complimentary sprays of water on their clothes as well. Our Photostat man on the other hand, watched all this in absolute terror.

After all the water was wiped off, and the confused IDPs were able to walk to the canteen again, and things normalised a bit, somebody piped up, "Aaj to bohot maza aaya! Ab agla safai din aglay mahinay!". Then we went to the famous Sufi and stuffed ourselves with food. Cleaning had tidied up our appetites too!