Pondering over more serious matters

In the past few months, I’ve come across at least two pieces exposing the elitist, snobbish mindset that allegedly exists within Karachi Grammar School.

Having never even set foot in KGS premises nor having had any close friends who have been educated there, the school’s ‘imperialistic exclusivity,’ as one blogger put it, was brand new information for me — a regular, run-of-the-mill Karachi born and bred.

For someone who went from a peela (yellow) school to a government college to the sprawling University of Karachi, I wasn’t exactly sure what to make of this attitudinal clash brewing inside KGS.

My brains couldn’t compute the fact that the town I live in also has students whose academic problems go beyond filling out forms, getting documents attested, collecting admit cards and then repeating the tedious process all over again.

As a veteran of the battlefield that is Pakistan’s public educational setup, I have no shame in admitting I got a kick out of this boohoo over class consciousness. I found it surreal, even. That’s because life is very different for the hundreds of thousands who attend public colleges or universities in Pakistan.

Take my varsity for example. Bearing the name of the country’s grandest of megalopolis, Karachi University, or KU as it is known, is supposed to be among Pakistan’s finest. Well, it’s anything but.

From walking in through its Silver Jubilee gate on day one to farewell festivities, Karachi University throws every possible problem from all possible angles at its students. Admission forms will be issued at one place, but the dreaded bank challan will be accepted at totally another. On your return with all the required paper, a queue longer than the Great Wall of China will almost always await you.

Somehow survive to see the line end, and you finally get your two seconds of face time with the old, uncompromising dude behind the window, who takes pleasure in rejecting forms and sending students on more treasure hunts to find the right form, document, attestation, etc. This institution is so obsessed with paperwork, it should, perhaps, rename itself to the University of Red-tapery.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 8^th, 2016.