Time to Say Goodbye!

Ammar Bin Yasir

Dear Readers,

The past three months have made me a celebrity of sorts in my mini world – a blogger with a small but regular readership. I can’t thank you people enough for being there. For reading my blog posts regularly (no matter how pathetic they were at times) and taking the trouble to comment on them; for being honest with those comments and helping me improve myself  as a publish writer with your apt encouragement and criticism.  I know I sound like a star cricketer with millions of fans, retiring from the game after an illustrious career. But trust me, for the first time in my life, I can relate to that feeling (sounds like an outrageous overstatement? Just get it over it for the last time!).

I’d like to thank Ms. Sadia Mehmood for coming up with this ingenious idea of letting us do something creative, interesting and stimulating. As a veteran internet user, I knew what a blog is, but never had any idea how it works and the fun behind it. Maam, thank you for making the course a fun-ride. Tehmina, our editor and administrator, it was your magic management that kept our blog miles away from all sorts of gisch-pich. You’ve been a wonderful team leader and manager. We are proud of you. To all my team members: Shumaila, Saman, Maimoona, Aden Atiya, Gufran, Sidra, Ayesha and mommy – Tehmina, I’d like to say that although it would be immodest to claim it so openly but deep inside we know that we are the best!!  

Good Bye!

NOTE: This is the last post of Chooran Chutny. Thank you all, for your time and feedback. We are surely wiser, then when we began three months ago, and hope that we formed a tiny bit of your lives that you are going to miss. Adios!

 Chooran Chutny Team

Here it is

Mohammed Ammar Bin Yaser

That day Sir Humair Istiaq explained the concept of ‘nose for news’ to us. It’s one of the essential characteristics of a reporter: the ability to smell and question any wrongdoing around him or her that is usually overlooked by a layman, and put it in perspective by exploring the idea in detail then developing a story out of it. The idea hit me. I thought it’s actually easy to intelligently write about anything as long as the facts are correct and the story can be put in perspective.

I came home excited but caught cold, and my head started to ache. My nostrils got blocked so I was unable to smell any object whatsoever, let alone situations. In other words, I was sick so I didn’t feel like to write. But I didn’t stop toying with ideas. I thought I should write about the interminable load-shedding we bore on Wednesday. But then thought no, it sounded clichéd. They happen all the time. I wanted to unravel some juicy scoops about departmental corruptions that are open secrets among students in the department but are never written about or discussed formally. Then I thought, I shouldn’t get entangled in needless controversies.   

But I didn’t give up. I thought I should dream up some phony news story and let it go. Something like: Somali Student Claims to be Obama’s Cousin. And make a hilarious news report out of the headline. But I wasn’t in a funny mood. So I sat down with a single purpose in mind: to write a blogpost not more than three paragraphs long, that is coherent, intelligible and which crisply explains my situation. And here it is.

Former CR sprains ankle, calls it ‘a painful lesson’

Ammar Bin Yasir

Karachi 2 Oct: The former class representative of second year Mass Communication department sprained her ankle while descending the stairs beside Abdul Bhai’s canteen here on Monday.

Maimoona Ejaz, who is usually seen on the front row of most of 2nd year classes, let out a shriek as she missed and slipped three stairs and received an inward-sprain on her right ankle.

Students around her immediately stood up to help and carried her to the nearest sofa since she was in acute pain and unable to move her injured leg. “The pain was excruciating” recalls Maimoona, who’s fondly called Momo by her friends.

Despite the mishap she was adamant to attend her sociology class which was about to start. She asked a friend to call a rickshaw, and finally paid Rs.30 for it.

“Paying Rs. 30 for the rickshaw was even more painful, I almost cried” remembers Momo, who now wears an ankle- brace hidden by socks.

After university, she went to a physiotherapist, who after inspecting her injury, said it was a first degree ankle sprain that temporarily damaged her tissues and ligaments and she will be fine in a week’s time. 

“I want to say to the students of the department that learn from me, I don’t want you experience what I went through. Whenever you’re using the stairs be careful or else you’ll have to pay Rs. 30 for nothing,” said Momo, holding back her tears - AP 

Idle students organized Protest against Aafia’s Sentence

Mohammed Ammar Bin Yaser

Karachi, 29th September:  A group of non-partisan students of Mass Communication department organized a protest rally against, what they say, a harsh and biased verdict meted out to Dr. Aafia Siddiqui’s in US.

The rally was organized by Ahsan Raza Firdausi, a final year student, who enjoys a reputation of being the leader of the politically lazy students of  MassComm department.     

Ahsan Firdausi, popularly known as Ahsan Bhai, was seen all pumped up, desperate to flaunt the strength of what he called "the non-partisan majority." 

To make the rally a success, he coaxed a junior into buying a brand-new mouth speaker, or Bhopoo, for the occasion that cost the kid a whopping Rs. 1200; collected Rs. 10 from students and brought a number chart papers and markers, and made placards.

Girls, with a reputation of good-handwriting, were seen in the lobby, busy scripting the spotless sheets with black markers in English and Urdu. They came up with razor-sharp catchphrases and slogans, condemning the gross injustice done to the daughter of Pakistan. 

In the mean time, Ahsan Bhai was found actively stirring up the long-dead conscience of lazy students – pleading them to join the march and make a difference.

By noon, a total of seventeen students agreed to ‘make a difference’. They left the cool and the cozy shadow of the department building and came out under the scorching sun.

Following their leader, they went to the Silver Jubilee Gate, where a handful of bystander joined them. And the protest began.

A number of students spoke ad-lib on the occasion. And the majority peacefully held the placards.

Cognizant of the ever-possible ugly implications for raising his voice on a political issue in KU, Ahsan Bhai, made it a point to loudly declare on the Bhopoo that the rally was purely nonpartisan in nature and was in no way encouraged by any political party.

He, and other speakers who joined the rally on the way, urged responsible citizens to use ‘pressure-building’ tactics and force the government to take necessary steps to bring Dr. Aafia home.

The sun was so torturous that the reporter found it impossible to wait for the event to end.  So he left in the middle of the protest, and was later informed that the protest ended peacefully and there was nothing worth reporting about the event further, so Ciao.  - AP :P 

I am not lazy; I am just a bit more thoughtful!

Mohammed Ammar Bin Yaser

The day she brutally grilled Rehan, Ma’am Sadia said that writing a blog post shouldn’t take us much time, it’s nothing: ‘Just sit and think of anything you come across in KU’ she  said, ‘and jot down a few paragraphs on it, that’s it!’

Maybe it is that easy for others, but for me, it is not so. I can’t usually sit and write about a subject I don’t feel. I know it is a very un-journalistic thing to say, but this is how I am. I find it difficult to scrawl mindlessly on a subject I don’t care about, and then patiently dissect and dress it to make it readable. It’s pure torture.

But I must confess one thing: this blog-a-week exercise is kicking me on the butt. It’s pricking me to change my stubborn writing habits. I can feel the change.  Added to the pressure of writing something interesting every week is the anxiety that the moment it flies out of my hand, my writing will be read and commented on. Unlike scribbling my fleeting ideas in a private diary that I can hide in a closet, it’s going out, being read and talked about. It’s crazy.

I feel like a bathroom singer being dragged by his collar to the stage amidst thousands of people and being forced to sing. And this very thought gives me creeps. So it’s no wonder while writing my weekly blog post I become over-conscious and my mind goes blank. I struggle to put down words in an intelligible sequence but with little success - I hate the feeling. It is not that I can’t write a number of technically error-free paragraphs and post it, I can; but I fear exposing my shabbiness that stem from urgency, the ‘quickness’ of it all.

I’ve read pieces in other blogs being run by my classmates who are following the same regiment. I often find sentences and passages in their posts, which in my opinion require complete re-writing. But they are fine with it. They are not only fine but excited about it. Some of them often plead me through text messages to comment on their blogs.

To tell the truth, their breezing confidence about their work made me uncomfortable, I was pricked by envy until the great German author Thomas Mann, who won the 1929 Nobel prize for Literature, came to my rescue. The moment I came across this quote from the master I knew I was in a different league: “A writer", says Mann, " is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people." Now I know why people call me lazy!    

How H.I can help us improve?

Mohammed Ammar Bin Yaser

On 13 July 2010, our very own Sir Humair Istiaq, wrote a bitingly sarcastic article in Dawn’s Education page about the shabby state of public university education. He didn’t name Karachi University’s Mass Communication department in the whole piece, but we know he only talked about us to prove his thesis. In the article, H.I quoted some of the answers that students of third year, wildly, attempted in their semester exams. After reading it, one is convinced that the article couldn’t have been named more aptly: Hilarious Answers.

I remember, many of us shared the link to the piece on our Facebook profiles - ‘liked’ it, and exchanged comments like ‘hahahaha’ and ‘God! How embarrassing’.

In the article, Sir Humair, in his notoriously witty style, identifies a crucial problem that most of us overlooked because of whining embarrassments and giggling mockery over its publication. But soon the issue became stale and got buried in the archives.

Here’s what he said: people are always grumbling about government’s lack of efforts in the education sector, which is true to some extent. But, we should also look at the other side of the equation. Then he quotes outrageously funny answers from the answer-scripts of third year students that amply show how clueless these students are about the world. Bottom line: perhaps the government is not doing enough on the education sector, but we, the students, are no good- we suck too!

Now the question is who is to be blamed for this utter inaptitude of students? I think the answer lies with the person who questioned our aptitude in the first place.

Like any other associate of the faculty of Arts, the department of Mass Communication of Karachi University is host to students who never intended to be here at the first place. A significant chunk of students never choose Mass Communications as their major. They just copied the name of the department from the brochure as a filler to complete the ‘preference’ column of the form that asks to specify a list of departments in case the prospective student didn’t make it to his/her preferred major. But, to their sheer horror, many of these students found themselves dumped here.

Hence, it’s no wonder that our department is replete with Shaboranis who never unfolded a newspaper in their life except to mat their wardrobe or cupboards with papers; or read a book outside the purview of their syllabus.

I don’t blame them. They are like the IDPs. Folks without choice who decided to cling to their last hope of acquiring a bachelor’s degree, while swallowing the harsh fact that they failed to enter their desired field of interest e.g. Pharmacy, Microbiology, etc.

These students were literally disoriented on the orientation day, but soon learned the not-so-tough art of persistently scoring good marks in the exams. They soon learned the trick: download the content related to your topic from Wikipedia, submit half of them as assignment and memorize the remaining half for the exam day. Simple!

This is the bitter truth.

So how can we get over this sorry state of affairs?

We can’t, but Sir Humair can. All he has to do is provide the students with a thick handout and set questions from within the content of the handout. Avoid being clever and keep the questions straight.

A slight change of method on his part can at least transform the overall quality of education being imparted in the department of Mass Communication of Karachi University if not all the public universities of the country.

Sacchi mein!

On Art of Political Correctness in Campus

Mohammed Ammar Bin Yaser

Getting admitted to Karachi University as a regular student requires a lot of paper work. You submit papers; you get papers in return. You submit them again and get them back with seals and signatures. None of us are exempted from this excruciating trail of formalities. But the screeds of papers we trade with KU tell us very little about the place. There are things that we learn only by experience.

One such ‘private’ reality of our beloved university is the existence of political parties in campus. It is no secret that every department in the campus has its own share of political cadres, working to further their party’s interest. Here, I’ll shed some light on one particular gang whose fearful presence compels students to be political correct when taking part in various discourses, in class or otherwise. No matter how far you are from the word ‘politcs’, these men will stalk you, and expect you to fit their definition of a ‘proper Pakistani’.

For the benefit of the silent majority who find it difficult to tactfully explain away their friends or classmates of this kind, here are some words of wisdom they won’t find in any booklet or document they received from the university. They are learned only with time.

The first principle of being politically correct is ambiguity - you have to be vague. It’s essential. You should never ever take a clear stand on a radioactive political issue. Your views should be ‘custom-made’ catering to the listener, that is, the person you are talking to.

For example, you meet a scraggily breaded guy in your department, who, you know, belongs to the aforesaid breed. Shift your gear: greet him with an “Assalamualikum” the word should be drenched in an Arabic accent – throaty - the "Ain" should sound distinct and clear from rest of the syllables. It helps!

Try to strike a conversation, if you think he is staying with you for a few moments. You can ask the timing of Zuhr or lament about the brazen dress sense of girls in the department (even in Ramadan!). Obviously, you don’t have to be that direct, but at least make a face that communicates your dislike for them. It works!

Avoid local politics. Go international: dwell on safer grounds like America, Israel, Palestine, and Kashmir. It is recommended that you stir the conversation towards sports or other trivial subjects to play safe.

Our right-wing brothers are mostly unhappy about the state of affairs: the open mingling of the sexes and music. Share their worries; add some concocted anecdotes that help them reaffirm their views, help them prove how countless despicable social evils stem from such immoral trends, but don’t look desperate. That can be counter-productive. That might bring in an invitation to their regular ‘study sessions’ where they teach you how to be spotless and save the world. So don’t get carried away with your “concerns”, keep it light and you will be safe.

Try acting upon these ‘nuskhas’ and Allah will save you from His creepy custodians.

Trust me!