30 September: A Complete Year in the University

              Like a bird it wants to fly when we try to prison it in a cage, and like a turtle it very slowly crawls away when we try to make it run faster than a rabbit. It's a curious thing. I'm talking about TIME. Today is 30 September. Exactly a year earlier was my first day in the university. It's hard to believe that it's been a complete year since then. So isn't this past year worth remembering and writing about? It is, my dear, it really is.

               I still remember that moment when I entered my classroom for the very first time, frightened, nervous, sat almost on the last chair, nervously looking around, trying to find out what my new classmates look like. Madam Amna was teaching something about Shakespeare but my mind was too perplexed to focus. My first challenge was to accept the hard fact that every class here will be 1.5 hours long, well, that seemed eternity, as I had never attended a class longer than 45 minutes in my whole life. 2nd challenge, female teachers will be teaching, and I will be studying sitting with female classmates, well, honestly speaking, in the previous 14 years of education I had never heard a voice of any female in the classroom, male teachers teaching, and I happily studying sitting with male classmates, so it was quite a challenge, you see. I did my primary education in a girls school though, but that doesn't count very much now, does that?

               Things have never been the same in this past year. This year kept changing me almost every day. Every day was a new day, and every day brought something new for me. Whether I learned new ideas of literature and philosophy everyday, or some general lessons of LIFE, the point is that I did learn something new everyday. I observed people, I observed how they walked and how they talked, I observed those layers of theirs under the shadow of which they always tried to hide their real self, I learned to be what I was and what I was not, I learned to discover what I was, how I was and why I was. The deceptiveness of appearance was a thing I soon made myself aware of. The reality, well, it was very hard to find anything real in itself, same as it was very hard to be real myself. Sometimes I was forced to think that nothing in this whole world was real. Was this world itself real? Was LIFE real? Well, I know my philosophy of deceptiveness and reality seems quite boring to you, so let's have no more of it.

               From Greeks to Chaucer and from Chaucer to Milton, from Shakespeare to George Elliot and from George Elliot to Virginia Woolf, where I learned LIFE by reading and examining the characters of these magnificent bunch of writers, at the same time, I keenly enjoyed the presence of certain characters in my own story of LIFE. It's compulsory here to mention the name of my beloved friend and classmate Siddique Ullah from Baluchistan, who, in our very early days in the university, asked me once, "Awais, what this word literature means which our teachers so often repeat in every class?" I smiled and then answered his question, but today, Siddique not only knows the meaning of literature, but he's also expert in various categories and theories of literature, and his curiousness is still adding to his thirst of knowledge and learning. So, you see, I'm not the only one who is claiming to be a changed person after this past year, but beautiful people around me are also changed in various aspects after this year.

               The long roads, green plots, and marvelous buildings of my university were assets I soon fell in deep love with. Long walk towards Gate 2, sitting on the benches of lush green VC Ground, observing sunset by sitting on the bank of Fish Farm, spending too much time in my beautiful department, believe me it's been the best year of my life. Zahida accompanied me mostly in exploring the various places of university, Khansa often walked with me towards Gate 2, Noor's walk remained often limited to Fish Farm, Tayyaba, too lazy to walk, was sometimes able to reach Fish Farm with staunch difficulty slowly crawling at a snail's pace, and Maria, well, she proved herself too fast when she hit a running Speedo Bus with her leg, result of this adventure isn't worth mentioning though. I spent most of my time with these people and I can say this with great level of certainty that I loved every single moment of their company. Back in the hostel, especially on exam nights, I was lucky to enjoy the company of Sanawar, Arslan Gujjar, Shahroz and sometimes taking advantage of the wisdom of Zia ur Rehman from Gilgit. I received a tremendous amount of love from every classmate of mine, and in return, I've always tried to give double the amount of love and respect to my every classmate. And this I think is the rule, you receive which you give and vice versa.

                Pandemic however deteriorated the charm of this year, but still, we all are hopeful of meeting again. One disadvantage of studying in Punjab University I found was this geographical diversity of students there, my classmates belong to the various parts of the country and that's why I've been unable to see any of my classmates in the last 7 months. That's a long time. But this geographical diversity of my classmates is very advantageous at the same time. I miss all of them, and sometimes I want to tell them how badly I'm missing all of them, but then something stops me, I think the credit of teaching me the art of hiding my true feelings at certain occasions also goes to this year. A deep psycho geographical analysis of the time I spent in Lahore and Punjab University would make things even more complex, so let's avoid any sort of complexity and keep things simple. I would end this article with a sincere prayer for all of my classmates, keep shining buddies and soar above the clouds, you people were created to serve some bigger purpose, may Almighty fulfill all your wishes and you be successful in all the plans of your LIFE. See all of you very soon.