Our very own, beloved anatomy department, which used to be a safe harbour for poor, helpless, inflicted students like "US" ofcourse, is no more the same. The serenity has gone away with the winds ;) I assume some dirty pigeons have flown from some other department (i hope u better know where pigeons are found in excess) carrying viruses of contagious diseases which were specific to that place or may be pollen carried it, lets leave the source but the virus has been transmitted to the anatomy teachers and they have started torturing the students especially in DH. Ahh! DH..dissection hall or whatever it was for you has now become " danger hall". No entrance after 10.30( i used to make entry at 11.30) , doors closed and these days "chaey paani" don't even work. Just last week i was enjoying the rain , i tried to make my usual grand entry, with all the precautions i sneaked into the DH, and suddenly sir appeared from no where and noted my roll no. and i got 2 absents marked. (i regretted later, i should have enjoyed the rain more). Gone are the days when we used to party and gossip in DH( we actually celebrated birthdays in there) but now there is a big notice

1. No entry without overall
2. No eatables and drinks allowed
3. No use of mobiles allowed

Teachers actually wander around here and there like hungry predators in search of some prey, you do anything wrong and 10 absents STAT. Just today they hunked 10 physiology books from students, so you see in what miserable conditions we are living!

Hey where are you people going? we are still left with the biochem deptt which has come to life again with a new head , well not actually a head but an acting head! This year biochem hit us like a drone attack killing all the energy left after anatomy and physio. Last year this deptt was heaven, no books, no tests( well actually there were 3 tests but i passed in 1:) life was so easy at this end, I actually learned the whole year syllabus in 1 day, but now we HAVE to study biochem:( with teachers like...(well no comments on that). We are still in confusion about the books! In every lecture we are being realized that easy days have pass, tough time is coming (as if something worse can happen after such situation). and now for the cherry on the top we have a biochem class tomorrow from 2.30 to 3.30! every limit of torture has been broken!

So these days i actually feel like all the departments are in a race of winning some title and a clash of Titans is going on. Now you people decide who wins. I'M gonna go and watch the real movie:)

By Fatima Akbar Shah of 2nd Year.

Trudging through the pavilions of university at times I look back to those times when a mere candy and juice sufficed to my pleasure. My mom would run after me as I was about to leave the home in the rush for school open her clenched fist on my palm. I danced a jig at the moment and gloom of going to school vanished for everyday a new candyland toffee would drive me through half school day till hoola hoops. Huhh!thos were fantastic days.

“Past is always pleasant to see”

Smiling, I explode out through the lecture jail visualizing the upcoming half an hour which seems a treat these days. No slide, no round about but a time to revel. A lad squeezes out through the crowd with an air of confidence of a cunning businessman. His darkened lips half curtaining yellow teeth still convey a smile sprouting from the innocence rooted deep in him, that which is trying to creep out through the dozens of layers of affliction, deprivation and ignorance which the atrocious society has dumped upon him. He sways his so called exotic cow boyish bag through the elbows and shoulders of the jostling crowd and brings to position before me like a British duke presenting a diamond ring to his beloved.” Lay lo bagi, kal Wada kiya tha”. A small dissenting nod of mine invites another dialogue of association with me,”chotay bhai nal mazaq,lay lo na”. I look with an astounded gaze at this comment of intimacy but soon glistening wrappers of candies betray me to my school era. I am forced to enjoy what my destitute K.E can cater to my pleasure. With no canteen and no shady resort to to gossip with friends, this poor boy does the work of mobile canteen with to say sheer substandard sweets. But I seek bliss in that. My philosophy of relishing all life manages to present out of its odds appeases my aggression against my college scenes. With candies bought at the cost of ten rupees where at one side I try to fill the hollowness of recess, at the circular tilt my soul aches for the credulous sapling. His small being presents a multi-dimensional life to me. Poverty, starvation, economic stress over-powering care-freedom, longing to buy toys when added together shaved the wood of my being deep to its fragile fibers when one sentence of him left me shattered for weeks, "Baji doctor bannay kay paisay ikathay kr raha hn".

By Abdul Rehman Afzal of 2nd Year.

“Yahoo………!” I exclaimed thrice (as if performing some ritual) as a friend of mine showed me the sms he had received from Mr. Zubair of Physio dept. I was with him to cheer him up in his badminton match at 11.15pm which was to start shortly (though another friend n me have actually gone to the badminton court to see our friend losing from a senior and make fun of him later on; then why friends are there for). However, I immediately texted my roommates and 3 other friends, forgetting about the match, and planned to go out and celebrate.

The 6 of us got packed in a “mini” car; the car looked mini for the 4 out of 6 were at least 6 feet tall. Listening to deafening music, we reached Malee cafe. Once we had the menu in our hands, we spent at least 10 min turning over pages. Almost all of us looked to each other and broke out into a laugh; what now; obviously the prices were too high. We decided “Kuch asisa pocho jo in k pass na ho, ta k hum uth kr ja skain”. So we asked the waiter “Pastries kahan di hui hain”. He replied curtly, “Sir wo ap neechay say ja kr lay lain”. Feeling a bit relaxed, we moved downstairs; went round and round twice; made our way to the exit and ran frantically to the opposite side of road as if the Malee people will stop us and force us to get stuff from their café.

We now landed in Arizona Grill. Obviously their prices too made us shoot nervy smiles at each other but in the end, we settled for some mouth-watering dessert and fresh juices. We made snaps from each n every angle; solo and groups; zahir c baat hai, to upload on facebook and brag about it k dekho hum Arizona grill gyay thay. The juices and the dessert too were photographed, so that others will believe that we indeed spent some money there.

On the way back, we were stopped by a patrol police car; oper k sans oper aur neechey k neechay! The music was stopped n Ayat-ul-Kursi started. The officer asked us to move out and if we had any ammunition (as if by faces we looked terrorists)! We got cleared and rushed ahead. Near the PC hotel, my friend did actually stop the car to count the 8th floor where Shoania are staying (check out the desperation)! We enjoyed a movie later on and by the time it ended, our tummies shrieked n demanded food. So now we went to Gawalmandi and had naan channay and one of us ate “paaey” (yukhhh) at 4.45am! Action packed celebrations ended at last after that.

The overwhelming jubilation made us sleep only after fajar prayer; signifying how relieved (for the time being, don’t know how eventually will it turn out for us) we were to have another day off in a week!

Miraculously, my friend won the badminton match and now we r asking him for a treat; then why are friends there for!

Ever wondered why this place never has washed wash rooms? Well, legend has it, that more than a century ago…

Owing to cheap cement and hollow bricks, Anarkali by way of constant digging with her bare hands over many years, had managed to scramble free of her imprisonment. She’d just reunited with her dear Jahangir, but before much could be said or done, she voiced an immediate concern; she had to go. Jahangir thought of no other place than neighbouring K.E.… the white domed palace that housed kings and queens from all over the region. Yesss, a convenient wash room… fit for royalty… would most easily be found THERE, he thought…

*****

The two dashed forward, narrowly missing a small rugged kid selling sweets. The prince took notice of a burly figure… the face was round and clearly suggested nobility. Has definite resemblance to daddy-o mused Jahangir, mistaking the person to be actual royalty. He inquired the other’s name.

“Anwar Kala.”

Ok the name wasn’t exactly royal, so what? “Let’s make that Akbar Kala, if I may,” said Jahangir with a short bow (Rule no 49 of being a Mughal prince… always bow before other royalty especially when suggesting a name change!).

“You see, Oh Akbar Kala! My dearest Anarkali, having been locked up for so long an era is in dire need of… well… ahem,” he coughed to make the point.

“Latreen ka raasta chaheya?” said Anwar Kala, getting the idea with a sly grin.

“Ah! That’s hitting the hammer on the U-bend!” said Jahangir appreciatively. He listened carefully as Anwar Kala mapped out directions to a rest room in the ‘Patyala’ chamber of the white palace.
Anarkali gave a lofty expression to her dearest, which he knew was level red of the words hurry up! So he bade the monarch farewell. But Anwar Kala had something else in mind.

“Chai, pani kay paisay shehzada jee!”

Astonished that a king would ask such meagre a demand, Jahangir grabbed a few gold coins from his robe and handed them over to Anwar Kala. The two then hurriedly headed towards Patyala, too busy to notice their Akbar Kala faint with a loud thud at the sight of gold…

*****

Jahangir lead Anarkali up a flight of steps. Finally… he thought. He held open the door of the wash room for Anarkali to step in, and then waited patiently outside, as she clicked the door shut.
But a few seconds had just passed that his dearest emerged grimacing. Years and years of solitary confinement had left Anarkali with, other than a gi-normous appetite and a tendency to mutter to herself, the shortest of tempers. But who could blame her… she had after all waited many many years for this day… a visit to the rest room… to come, and wanted nothing less than royal perfection.

“The flush doesn’t work! Take me somewhere else!!!”
“Are you sure-” began Jahangir but the stench confirmed the obvious. He sighed and steered her down the white steps.

*****

There were Kings and Queens everywhere, dressed in robes of white. Jahangir noticed the kings were mostly on the lanky side, bespectacled and thin. And who could blame them, he mused, guiding Anarkali through the Anatomy Lawn… with THESE many queens, they’re bound to be running around all the time trying to find the perfect one- a growl from Anarkali made him quicken his steps. The queens were in all sizes; tall, short, squat, lean. What a marvellously assorted queen-collection we have here was the prince’s thought. The couple was again too preoccupied to take notice of a knocked out Anwar Kala, who was surrounded by people squirting water at him to wake him up.

*****

They climbed the swirling steps to reach the wash room opposite the Reading Room. There were a couple of people in wait outside. Jahangir would have given all the gold in the world to buy a quicker turn, but imperial rules forbade a prince to bribe his way up a line (be it to the loo or the throne). So, they waited too and watched…

A king emerged out from the rest room… the next king in turn entered… then when he emerged out a queen entered… and when she came out, a king entered again…
The SAME rest room was being used BOTH by Kings and Queens.


Anarkali fell with a light thud, on her face, fainting with shock.

An astonished Jahangir toppled down the flight of steps, (not unlike his grandfather H. had once done as historians say) ending with such a spectacular breaking of his right femur and left ulna, that the sight could make any surgeon’s mouth water.

K.E.’s kings and queens gathered around them, wondering what on earth had happened.

*****

Hence folks, legend has it, that from that day to this, and likely in the many to come; the wash rooms of K.E., being unable to serve the beautiful, the glamorous, the alluring Anarkali, have never been able to enjoy the luxuries of functioning flushes, unclogged U-bends, spick and span floors and odourlessness.
Yes, ‘tis a pity. And until better days come our way, or till somebody figures a way to break the jinx, the loos of K.E. shall all tragically remain… under…- the curse of Anarkali…

So there I was the other day in one of our 8 o' clock Physio lectures, trying unsuccessfully to ward off my chronic somnolence, when this sudden roar of euphoria went up and down the benches. So the others were actually awake and listening to the teacher? Hmph, traitors! That completely shattered my previously-formed hypothesis that the human ear goes into a sort of self-induced dead time when exposed to a certain number of lectures on Diabetes Mellitus. (Honestly! I've had so much diabetes in the last few days, I'm ready to go into a seizure!) So, I thought, had they finally decided to start a night school for non-morning people like me? Nah! Sudan would go nuclear before that. So what was it? "The teacher says we'll be getting the weekends off!" somebody whispered from behind. "It's going to save electricity and all, BUT WE'RE GETTING SATURDAYS OFF!!!" (This news ofcourse would pass through the Chakra of denial many times before eventually being confirmed through a text message at 11:45 p.m Friday night.)

Now normally, I would've lost no time in forming some sort of opinion about a thing like this, but among other things, judgmentalism requires huge doses of coffee. So I just sat there, completely out of sync with the mafficking crowd when a friend leaned forward and whispered, "Becharay bachon ki choti choti khushiyan!"

Like-minded friends

who're just as bitter as you,

are a gift God bestows

on a chosen few.

If you've read the Harry Potter series, you'd probably be aware of how Dementors work. And if you've been observant enough, you might have noticed that there lies within each of us a silent Dementor - a sepulchral sentinel hovering just beneath the mushroom-cloud of our consciousness - that goes into hyper-drive when there's an over-load of happiness around you. And my ever-faithful Dementor needed no second telling. I started to think.

So that's how those Armani clad miracle workers in Islamabad plan to deliver us from the energy crises? Two weekly holidays, closing off commercial activity at 8 p.m everyday, suspension of electricity to neon signs and bill-boards (which, by the way should've been controlled from the start. Lahore looks so cheap with all those giant, revoltingly colourful uglies sprouting up all over the place) That's their big idea of a bail-out that's taken them a little more than two years to come up with? What about the effect, off weekends and early closure of commercial enterprise would have on our already frail economy? What about the thousands of megawatts that'd be lost anyway due to our inefficient transmission system? What about the noisy, fuel-eating generators that have already become part and parcel of every household? And while we're asking difficult questions, what about the complete lack of consensus on building strategically important dams, at a time when personal politics should be the last thing on everybody's minds? Have our rainmakers at Isloo given a thought to what'd happen after a few years with energy production at an all-time low and the population increasing by leaps and bounds? What of the Agriculture and Industrial sector that's being made to bear the brunt of defective policy-making? It's no rocket science that conservation and production are not mutually exclusive. Conservation (well-thought out, long-term conservation, that is) will only take us so far. It's fresh production on which our ultimate survival counts.

And while the general student body at KE rejoices in its bread and circuses, I can't help but appreciate the truth in what Mohsin Hamid writes in Moth Smoke, 'People don't believe in consequences anymore.' (It's such a nice feeling you get when you're able to relate things in books to real life. The dreariness of life when put into black and white somehow makes it seem more interesting than it really is.)

But as a friend asked me yesterday, what am I going to do about all this apart from ranting? Well, I've been thinking and I've come up with an amazingly simple solution. See, I figured out that politicians have as huge a psychic appetite for personal gratification as the common man. And what do you do if you've got loads of free time and a laptop that runs on free electricity? YOU EGOSURF!!! So you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to put the PM's name in here, so the next time the 'urge' comes over him, this particular post comes up in the search results too (ummm...along with 50,000 others!) So hey there, Mr. Yousaf Raza Gilani! If you're reading this, please note that people are counting on you to be sensible. Please do us proud for once and make some right decisions. They don't have to be anything earth-shattering. A little consideration and common sense has been known to do the trick in most cases.

You think I'm crazy? Well if you're one those geniuses who think that off weekends is the best thing to have happened at KE in a long time, I'd just say the feeling is entirely reciprocated!

By the Anonymous Sophomore.

When I talk of ‘cultures’, please don’t be pushed into the delusion that I’m going to give an account of some annual or monthly or even weekly practices observed by my class. Rather we’ll be contented only if we observe them on daily basis and this ensures that we keep in intact form the ‘cultural heritage’ of our seniors. A gist of the cultures prevalent in second year these days is as follows:

1) The Clerki Culture:

This culture flourished during the ‘reign’ of Prof. Kamran Aziz. I’ve myself witnessed the scorching, overbearing moments of the month of May when Sir would scream, “Har banda kutte ki tara bhonki jar aha hai!” and there were the most obedient ‘theetas’ who would take this statement to their hearts, and jot it down as if it were going to be a hallmark in the next major discovery of Biochemistry! This culture still pervades in its rudimentary form during the lectures of Sir Javed of the Physiology Department. Anybody found guilty of not writing his words verbatim would have to bear the brunt of: “Daac Saab! Get out; you are not wanted here!”

2) The Daydreaming Culture:

After the clerki culture, this culture has haunted the boys of my class (can’t say anything about girls!) This culture thrived during the lectures of Renal Physiology by Ma’am Imrana, when most of the boys (including me) would envisage themselves as the world’s greatest physiologists and pioneers in research in the upcoming two years’ lapse. But we should not wink at those who were exempted from daydreaming with open eyes: they either preferred to dose off under the very nose of Ma’am, or started playing games on their mobiles under the bench!

3) The Long ‘BBSSS’ Culture:

Except for the lectures of Ma’am Attiya and Sir Akram, this culture can be documented in almost all the other lectures. Lecture becomes intolerable after around 35-40 minutes and except for a ‘handful of theetas’, almost the entire class shrieks, “Sir BBSSS…Sir BBSSS…” Some teachers are quite ‘ruthless’ and they threaten to expel the ones shouting ‘BBSSS’, while the others who nurture a soft corner in their hearts , give in around five minutes or soafter the onset of this transient culture!

4) The Attendance Culture:

Ah! Again a very popular culture and this is the only culture that, I believe, will never perish from this university. This culture invariably follows the ‘long BBSSS’ culture. It constitutes the most-awaited moments of the university hours, and many boys are audacious (and shameless too!) enough to declare it openly that they come to the lectures only for attendance (again, can’t say anything about girls!)

5) The Clapping Culture:

O God! When we don’t know what to do next, we start clapping. This culture ‘mounted to its maximum altitude’ during the lectures of Histology by Dr. Tauqeer Ahmad. But since all the ‘decaying cultures’ leave their remnants in one form or the other, a loud applause follows when Sir Javed tells us that he passed his M.Phil, and the most ridiculous, a standing ovation follows when Dr. Shakeel (Acting Head of Biochemistry Deptt.) steps into the lecture theatre. This foments him to the extent that his temper rises mountain high and we become the ‘victims’ of inevitable consequences.

In short, the second year M.B;B.S. is the ‘refuge’ that we take for all our non-doctorish and shugali attitude.

The ripped and burnt notice of KELS Essay Competition on Biomedical Ethics (Abortion and Euthanasia) speaking for itself.

The intolerance, the aversion to discourse, how did we end up like this?

"In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books." Sigmund Freud

Human psyche is really tough to understand. sometimes u just get stunned by how you change in itsy bitsy of moment and take full 180ْ turn….and the biggest example of this phenomenon is when you are talking about your institution…

Everyone at K.E. comment on every bad aspect of it while sitting with friends, from wrong test dates to non-cooperative attitude of departments, from old building to smallest cafeteria, from small grounds to such short sports week, from narrow minded atmosphere to cheap crowd, like this is the last place they wanted to be in…but suddenly if an outside intruder pops in “Hey guys. Were you telling something about K.E.?” now here somehow within a fraction of the tiniest second…your one switch goes OFF and some other switch is ON (well here I cant really tell what pathway would it be in the brain responsible for such a sudden U-turn….actually I haven’t studied it yet…) You start your speech on all the good points in K.E. , leaving no possible point to be untold….trying by every means to impress the other person…..and when that person doesn’t seem to agree on all the effort you just made you still have one point….. “K.E.’s MERIT IS NO.1” and all the discussion of your opponent goes down to trash!

Recently I have sort of mastered in this discussion, first with my cousins and friends in other colleges…they all try to degrade me like this “Hey yar! You people read BD? Ohhh…we study from Last! And ofcourse KLM! And yeah don’t forget Snell! its really good” and I just have one answer..Those who don’t get admission in K.E. show their grudges in this form..! Just today one of my friends came from another medical college, and she commented “Hey its too hot here! I can’t stay ”, as if their own college is situated in some other “cooler area” of Lahore!

These days I’m having this discussion with my sister as she’ll be giving entry test this year, she has the biggest problem with K.E…but the controversial thing is that she just wants a seat in K.E. (as it has top merit) but after getting seat she wants to reject it to go to some other institution to prove something which I completely don’t know! Here I’m compelled to think that all of us studying here… Are we just here because K.E. is labeled as no.1 institute? Or is it something we really wanted? Ahhh confusing question but whatever it is…. We all believe and feel proud of the fact that “K.E. has simply nooo comparison…!

An Anonymous sophomore contributor. (Poor kids, scared for their lives!)

Daac Saab! Get Out!

By Asad Ahmad of 2nd Year.

Our life seems uncertain; like a bumpy road to a distant town; r like a small ferry journey in an ocean. Some consider it monotonous and therefore just like a cycle of events...But I think that my life is too spontaneous to call it boring....It has colours and contrasts; crisp and full of enthralling experiences... Sometimes if only we observe our surroundings we get fun!!!
Like when you are walking on a road at late night back from the reading room, a SOHRAB KING BICYCLE races past you. The rider has empty milk can in one hand and is playing a music from the bicycle bell from his other hand.And his singing of a Bollywood song is an icing on the cake. Similarly the chat of a cobbler and his client about the effect of nuclear technology; and two people talking about I.T. business in India while transporting worn out monitors on a donkey cart make you buoyant. A couple of times the extra load forced the donkey-cart in a wheelie (one wheel) position...really pathetic! The electricity outages and corrupt officials have helped make thousands of funny SMS jokes.

So my suggestion is to observe your life. Believe me you would never get bored.

The irony of vacations in medical colleges is more than I can bear. No matter how generous or how magnanimous or how utterly, impossibly, graciously large-hearted they seem on the surface, you can always smell the rotten stench of underhandedness beneath it all. Oh sure, they tell you it’s spring, the season of love, hope and joy and since the confines of a medical university can or should or do NOT seem appropriate for any of the above three, they smilingly tell you to go take a week off and wash off all the gruel and grime of this modern, convenient euphemism for plain old donkey-work. So no worries, right? You’re a Kemcolian, the crème de la crème of the nation, (God knows one of these days those words will be spoken out loud one time too many and then someone is going to get killed…or badly beaten up) what’s it to you if you have a Head and Neck stage, a Biochemistry test, a Physio tutorial, an Embryo+Histo king-size, super-combo, lying in wait at the other side of this disgustingly deceptive rainbow? You’ve already gone half mad. Why stop now when we can help you make it a permanent arrangement? Oh and happy vacation bacho! Enjoy!

So since chicanery breeds chicanery and since Murphy’s Law holds spookily true (in academics atleast) this year too, like last year, the April vacation sprouted wings of its own and sped away, leaving behind a trail of broken promises, unfinished, too-idealistic-to-be-followed time-tables…oh and the brightest, most beautiful golden and green and periwinkle blue coloured day-dreams, lovingly wrought out in the drugged, quiescent April afternoons.

But this first week of April hasn’t been entirely wasted. Not by a long shot. Among other things, it has been great fun watching the news. (And no! Shoaib Malik and Sania Mirza doing salsa together is NOT news. It’s slap-stick hogwash being spewed about by a couple of dunderheads) You know, you’re an odd Pakistani if you’re not aware of the changes April has brought to the Constitution of Pakistan. You’re an even odder Pakistani if you’re not aware of who Mian Raza Rabbani is. For myself, I just want some ethereal Pegasus to transport me to Islamabad so I can go meet him, shake him by the hand and tell him, ‘You sir, are a wonderful, wonderful man!’

If words were people and people were words, I’d like Mr. Rabbani to have ‘charismatic’. That’s how I’m programmed, you see. It’s a default setting. Words don’t make much sense to me unless I forge out a living, breathing effigy from the meaning they seemingly convey to me. And believe me, Mr. Rabbani, with his thoughtful head of silver hair, his resounding voice, his eagle-eye eyebrow raiser (which, I’m sure could quell the rowdiest toofan-e-badtameezi we normally see at KE events) and his sheer, unfettered aura of authority has just earned him the title of my ‘Hero for April 2010’ (pretentious much?) I change heroes every month. Makes for a motivationally inspired living.

So I ask you, when such momentous, fate-changing, valiant, earth-shattering decisions are being taken by such handsome, enigmatic men, who remind you of your grandfathers, who’s got the time/ energy/ lack of taste for such unromantic vapidities as the functional components of the twelve cranial nerves?

But we all know that symbolic changes like replacing older names of provinces with er… awkward sounding newer ones don’t mean much unless what’s been written on paper is put into action. I don’t understand political jargon. I don’t even know the difference between a federation and a confederation. For me, the return of power to the people after 30 years simply means lesser hours of loadshedding so I don’t have to strain my already exophthalmosed eyes under the flickering UPS light. It means lesser strikes on Mall Road so I can reach home early and go to sleep…errr to wake up with a refreshed mind so I can study, yeah? It means people like our maid’s son, who lost their jobs in the recent thread industry fiasco would be compensated.

And for once discarding all bitter cynicism, let’s admit that perhaps in this world atleast there are no happy endings. There'd always be loopholes and eye-sores to tackle. So while we’re here, let’s make do with these ‘delicious ambiguities’ as Gilder Racher puts it in a fit of absolute, facile optimism. Let’s really believe for once that a positive change can and will come to this great land of ours… for if Robert Langdon can be allowed to hope after Dan’s Brown’s most recent fiasco, surely if the message of hope can still be borne as an epilogue to that disaster of a book, we aren’t all that gone to the dogs, right?

Hmm…I never wanted to be a doctor. Melodramatic... yes I know! But the only reason was that all my friends wanted to be doctors and since I had to do something unique and challenging so I gave up on being a doc. (Don't ask what I planned instead) ;) However as I grew up I could not stop loving biology especially human biology. O how much I hated that chapter ”KINGDOM PLANTAE” in F.Sc, only I know. So that is that and my ever growing love to study humans landed me here at KEMU. Alhamdullilah a bunch of some really good friends was all I could ask for and now my life at KE is what I think the most memorable years of my life. Getting rid of local authors (widely acclaimed B.D CHURASUA AND PHYSIOLOGY BOOK) has been the biggest achievement in 3rd yr. The quest for knowledge is on!

Yes, life does get depressing sometimes, time runs short, schedule gets hectic… yet life is eventful. We are learning, developing our minds and endeavoring to save lives… satisfaction is immense. Being extremely busy the whole year makes us to enjoy the vacations like hell! So my message is to sit back and relax. Muster up your courage and strength. Glow in the glory of the goals achieved and plan out family outings. Enjoy life just this once and then get ready for the next roller coaster ride.

Look to this Day!
For it is Life, the very Life of Life.
In its brief course lie all the
Verities and Realities of your Existence.
The Bliss of Growth,
The Glory of Action,
The Splendor of Beauty;
For Yesterday is but a Dream,
And Tomorrow is only a Vision;
But Today well lived makes
Every Yesterday a Dream of Happiness,
And every Tomorrow a Vision of Hope.
Look well therefore to this Day!

Aariz Zainab

23rd December , a day to remember, well yes that my sweetys birthday, but 23rd December /06, a day when more than 250 Demons Devils Lucifers n all the Trite Souls, with a silent scream were thrown in a magic lamp for the next 5years..."Hopefully” Magic lamp, sounds interesting honey? Try sniffing it. The reek of stale sweat in lecture theatres, the stench of dissection hall, the putrid cadavers, fetor of formalin, malodour of autopsy rooms, and not to forget the stink of the septic ally cleansed operation theatres. A ton of detoxifier and internal deodoriser fail to reverse the cataclysm in your goose honking respiratory tracts. Still loving it? Viola! Another Kemcolian discovered!

First year starts with the Hippocratic Oath, and at one clause, no doubt, you start smelling hypocrisy "we shall treat our colleagues as brothers and sisters." The incarcerates are then shunted for the group photo n on their way back many get nipped by the much dreaded carnivores for ragging, and the harassment includes, ump yea, playing ring-a-roses around some preys, taking grubstakes from others, or just 3 4 beasts holding a beauty and forcing her to guess their names. And it’s not really difficult to diagnose who’s the fool is this scene, its only then you realize the real definition of fooling...
Old definition: a form of abuse on newcomers
New definition: a plaudit for the newcomers...one day you would be like us.

And the fooling sessions at hostels, what final year sees in maternity ward, the poor souls were asked to evince, dolour à l'accouchement. Ah, let me just censor it. No doubt the thralling authorities, played the best haze...the moron look in that maroon uniform dupattas n blazers.

The grind begins with the 1st substage, only viva passed, thanks to the very courteous examiner, but harbingered a series of failures. Half prepared physiology tests, unprepared biochemistry assessments n prepared yet unrecalled anatomies, the rueful story continues in the 2nd year as well. 3rd year comes with the sour pharma, bloody forensics n eye straining microscopic pathologies. But the colourful internal assessment card, with lots of rubricals and a tinge of black presented every time at the final viva, throat drying to me, n mercy-invoking to the examiner, surely does the play.

Prepared to be gritted, slain, and decayed, the voyager continues, while the journey, silently yet intentionally polishing him.
K.E, life sucks here, it cries, it strives, it suffocates, but finally, it respires.
From soil sprouts a delicate plantlet, unable to sustain itself, but nurtured here.., nurtured to stand and nurtured to exist.

Yes, another Kemcolian manufactured.

Just another Wednesday… well not exactly. The day before the much awaited spring break was an event in its own right. With the interclass declamation (I being one of those organizers who were MIA most of the time) and the dreaded eye ward test ( I flashed that light in my patient’s eye so many times I gave him what was equivalent to laser surgery!) I had plenty to keep me busy. And, as usual, my friends had planned some impromptu lunch at a “to-be-determined-in-the-car” restaurant to mark the occasion…. So all that was left to do was to find everyone.

Wandering around, looking here and there, somehow we ended up in the anat dept (I say “somehow”, but actually we had heard some KAPS video was being shot there so obviously we had to check it out :P). It was only once I got inside that I began to think about the last time I had been there… my last anatomy viva. I began to recall that day… sitting in front of Ma’am Attiya, trying to keep up with the questions she kept throwing at me and doing my best to keep my mind off the fact that freedom was waiting for me just outside those doors. Alas, I screwed up my last question in the excitement, but it didn’t matter. I ran (nearly falling) out those doors, stopping to hand Anwar Kala a Rs 100 note before he had the chance to ask for “chai kay paisay”, then kept running looking back only to see his surprised expression.

I took a closer look at the models around me, remembering how everyone would be climbing on each other, kicking and pushing trying to get a better look at those dissected limbs in the days before the exam… how all I could do was scratch my head, too embarrassed to ask whoever was explaining exactly where she was pointing. That was enough to send me crashing back to the present, when the same room was deserted and eerily silent though my ears still rung with the echoes of the past.

I continued to the DH, finding the movie shoot in progress. BANG! That old DH smell hit me like a ton of bricks. Trying to stay out of the way, I kept strolling along…. Checked the old notice board bearing new notices. I chuckled under my breath at my instinct to check the marks of Roll numbers 129, 111, 95… but this time it wasn’t our result that was hanging there.

Waiting for my friend to finish her role in the movie, the rest of us dragged some seats together to form a circle as we had done so many times before. Same screech of the stool, same friends and their same strange behavior. Then I began to recall just how insane we had been on occasions… like that day some bug got onto Noor’s clothes… how she screamed while the rest of us suppressed our laughter doing our best to brush it off only to find the bug had jumped onto someone else and then the next and then the next until finally we fell back onto our stools, too breathless from screaming to laugh anymore. Substage studies, the stampede to the dissection tables whenever anyone said, “Maam Zahra is coming!”, and even arm wrestling matches just to pass the time… the DH was where it all happened.

My daydream was cut short by my friend yelling, “Let’s go!! My part is done. HURRY UP!!” So I grabbed my stuff and began to chase the rest of them out of the anatomy dept… no time left to look back anymore, many more adventures await.

"I never wanted to be a doctor".
"Medicine is trash."
"K.E was never the place I had dreamt of"

26th December 2007 was the day when I entered into K.E. With tears in my eyes, slightly shivering, with a sea of emotions overflowing, I took a deep sigh of gratitude and vowed myself never to be ungrateful to Allah for what he has given me. I don't know why people are so awkward and thankless about what they are blessed with. Probably they forget the days and nights they studied to come to K.E or they just want to prove what Albert Steve said "Everything seems easy and worthless when it is achieved." Sad but true! We certainly need to change our behaviors and work diligently to really protect the word "noble" attached to this ONLY profession.

But in a hospital one learns that cheerfulness is one's salvation; for, in an atmosphere of suffering and death, heaviness of heart would soon paralyze usefulness of hand, if the blessed gift of smiles had been denied us.

Among the many mysteries that surround the healing arts, the most compelling and time-consumingly distracting is of course one that’s the most obvious and makes no sense whatsoever: namely, when do you become a doctor? To put it more philosophically, when does a neophyte know that the proverbial moment of truth has arrived in his life? That he has finally been initiated into the much revered, Hippocratic pantheon of healers? How can he tell? When does he know? (If you think that the vocabulary’s suffocatingly over-bearing and that your eyes are bleeding from the verbose, far-flung philosophy, go sue Dan Brown! I’m reading The Lost Symbol nowadays and he does have an irritatingly contagious propensity for writing like this)

So… back to the million dollar question. If your life were plotted on graph paper, what would be that one point when a golden halo would materialize atop your head and you’d go, “Hey what do you know! I’m a doctor! I have powers! I can heal! World, here I come!” Being the hopeless cynic that I am and given the current status of my stagnant academic condition, I don’t think I’d ever be able to tell. So I turned to the people around me for some enlightenment on this very fundamental quandary of a medical student who’s got nothing better to do.

My parents, being the altruistic renegades that they are, think it’s when the patient you operated on the previous night, sleeps out the anesthesia the next day and says his first words. Then you know. But that’s almost too noble! They are too old (and too wise perhaps?) to understand.

Dr. Jalal-ud-din Gohar of the Anatomy Dept. thinks it’s when after a 6-month house-job, you’re able to tell, with eyes closed, just how many bricks are missing from the northern wall of North Surgery ward. (Awww sir, that’s so cute but we’re being philosophical here and philosophy, you see has no place for cuteness)

My friends, who have a penchant for stating the obvious think the initiation is complete the day someone calls you Doctor Saab (or if you’re living in the Punjab, Daakh Saab) as in, “Daakh Saab…yes I’m talking to you Daakh Saab! Get out of my class” or better still “Proxy? Bench pe kharay ho jyen Daakh Saab!”

So you see, the bottom-line is that nobody knows! It’s all conjecture. And what does that say about the charge of pseudo-divinity that has been conferred by ‘lesser mortals’ into out unwilling hands? What of the demigods we’ve become in the eyes of people who expect to see no error, no lapse of negligence, no mistake, no uncertainty from the messiahs whose hands they readily put their lives in? And what happens when suddenly their numinous little bubble pops and they realize that their gods too are creatures of the flesh, shackled by the constraints of morality, mortality and morbidity the same way as they are. That their messiahs too would bleed and cry out in pain when the nails of attrition and hatred are pushed through their mortal flesh at the Cross? What happens then? What happens then, is what happened yesterday at Jinnah Hospital, Lahore.

Without getting into the debate of who among the three parties – the media, the doctors, the patients and their attendants – should be made to bear the brunt of the incident, I’d just say that the future looks grim; for as any aspiring doctor will tell you, what we really want in exchange for our slavish toiling, sleepless nights and mindless slogging is not money or power or rank. It’s respect and awe and admiration. It is only the One True God after all, Whom Arabic calls Samad. All the rest of us can ever hope to be are stone idols, craving reverence and subservience, both fearing and faring on the ‘great expectations’ of their worshippers.