A Good Samaritan, Hatim Tai, and Formanite
By Manzur Sangam Gill One day in 1958, a young mother wanted to wear her favourite jora [set of clothes]. She searched for it everywhere in the house, but could not find it. When her young son returned from college she asked him about this favourite jora. He sheepishly told his mother that he had given it to the college mali [gardener]. The mali had pleaded for good clothes for his daughter’s wedding. The mother’s anger turned into mother’s love for her benevolent son. On another occasion, he came home from college without his trousers and jacket – it was winter and he was shivering. On the way home, the boy had felt sorry for an old man and had given his warm clothes to him. The mother has many similar stories about her son. As a second year FSc student, this young man got into an argument with another student and was ready to hit the other boy with a spanner. Dr Sheets, the Vice Principal, tried to intervene, but was told by the angry young man, “Get out of the way, Doctor”. You can well imagine what happened next: the young man was expelled from college. His father, bedridden because of backache, came to the college and pleaded with the Principal Dr Ewing, “Please give my son another chance otherwise he will become a vagabond.” The Principal reinstated the young man and kept an eye on him. That youngster of the 1950s is Dr Chaudhry Ahmed Saeed, President of the Formanites Alumni Association, and a benefactor of his alma mater – Forman Christian College. Many years later a fellow Formanite’s wife was terminally ill with cancer in California, bedridden but wanting to be in Pakistan, the land of her husband’s birth. I was that Formanite, and my wife Susheela could not travel by international airlines because of her condition. Thanks to Dr Chaudhry Sahib, she was flown by PIA to Lahore in comfort, and taken directly to Shalimar Hospital for medical care and to recover from jetlag. I have had the good fortune to have been associated with Dr Chaudhry Ahmed Saeed from 2004 to 2012, the years FCC was recovering from nearly 30 years of nationalization. He gave selflessly on countless occasions: counsel and contacts to the administration, financial help for needy students and building renovations, a leading player and donor in organizing yearly Alumni Reunions. He has been an extraordinary spokesperson for his alma mater. In biblical language he is a “good Samaritan“(someone who helps a stranger in dire need without knowing the person’s caste or creed and with no thought of reward) and a “Hatim...
27 Years at FCC
by Aroon Datta Our family moved to Forman Christian College campus when I was five and I left when I was 32 years old. In 1953, my father, T S Datta, joined the faculty as a professor of English. It seemed like we had moved into a beautiful state park or, better still, a beautiful, extremely well-kept garden. The meticulous lawns, the trimmed and manicured hedges, and the sports grounds were all extremely well-maintained, and as green as they are to this day. Everyday, for ten years, I rode the FCC bus to Cathedral School — that bus with its distinctive blue color and its unmistakable smell of leather seats. Our gang generally occupied the rear of the bus, by design, of course. This habit of mine persisted in college, university, faculty meetings later on, and all during my professional life. In 1964, I joined Forman as a student of the sciences and proudly wore the blue college blazer and the badge (emblem) that read “By love serve one another”. The four years that followed were some of the best years of my educational career. I had the most fantastic teachers who inculcated into the minds of their students a love for the sciences and languages. I fell in love with chemistry from the very beginning and graduated from college in 1968 with a major in chemistry. It was a very proud moment for me, and also for my parents, when I was asked to join the chemistry faculty in 1970 after I received my MSc degree from the University of the Punjab. Actually, it was an unbelievable offer, one that I could not refuse, because up to that point I had only dreamed of teaching some day. After coming on board, I realized that all of a sudden my former teachers had now become my colleagues and I could “hang” out with them in the cafeteria at Lucas Centre!!! For years after that, I would get up from my chair every time one of my professors entered a room. And, by the way, it’s a pretty cool thing when your own father becomes your colleague. Rest assured, that needed some major adjustments in my everyday behavior as a young lecturer. I proudly served Forman Christian College from 1970-80 and then decided to move to the United States with my family. In search of more “enriched” bread and butter I made some career changes and chose to go into neuroscience research eventually–a bit different from organic chemistry at the end of the day. I may add here that due to my passion for chemistry, I have maintained my adjunct...
A Dream Come True
by Humza Bin Masood I would love to share my story as one of my dreams has come true. I got admission in BS (Hons) in 2011. I joined RCYG in my Freshmen year as a Coordinating Officer. In that year the Red Crescent Youth Group (RCYG) offered a 15-day Medical First Responder Course in collaboration with Rescue 1122. After that training, I came to know that when my brother died he needed CPR [cardio-pulmonary resuscitation] but at that time no one one knew it. By the time he reached hospital it was too late. It was a challenge for me and it was the dream of the founder [M Shafiq] of the Emergency Services that there should be 24/7 Emergency Services and a place where such service could be provided. Today, when Mercy Health Center was inaugurated, I was glad that I kept the promise I made to myself and the Founder of Emergency Services. The challenge which I accepted when I came to know that my brother required CPR at his last moments had been completed. At first people laughed at me asking how it could be possible that FCC would take such an initiative as it an institute whose priority is education, not health. Today I can say that it is possible and hard work is the key to...
My First Day of Teaching
By Dr Rehan Siddiqui I came here in 1962, and at that time I was just 22 years old and much thinner than I am today, I weighed just 110 pounds. I was interviewed by Professor E J Sinclair who was the principal, and a very well known teacher and administrator. He asked me, “Rehan, will you be able to control the class? You know, you’re so thin.” I replied, “Yes sir, I can do it.” The day before my first class, I went to see the lecture room and it had these blackboards where you wrote on the lower part and then pushed it up. I tried to push it upward and I couldn’t, so I knew this was something that would be a problem. I remember I was up the whole night preparing. I was going to give my first lecture, and there were about 60 strong students, including some East African students, very smart, who were at FC at the time. When I started teaching, I filled the lower part, and then I started erasing it. Somebody at the back said, “Sir, you can pull it up.” I knew that I could not, so I said, “Wait a minute, you can copy whatever you want to, and then later on I will start writing the next part.” Professor Zia-ul-Islam, who is now Head of the Biology Department in the Intermediate side, was in my first class. Anyway, it was a good experience, and I enjoyed teaching from 1962 to 1966. This was the first period of my life at FC...
Behind the Brick Wall
by Rabia Anjum Many stories shared on this space are about students with ambitious dreams surrounding FCC, or with parents passionate about the heritage of the institute—but for me, FCC did not exist until a few months before my admission. Having lived in Lahore all my life, this may seem odd at first, but FCC was just a hazy illusio. Better known to me as FC College, the mention brought to my mind two main things: “boys” and “matriculation”. Being a product of O/A Levels through and through, I barely thought about it and tried to follow in the footsteps of my peers: I applied to a few foreign universities, and then to LUMS. I didn’t get far enough in the former as my parents disallowed me from pursuing an education abroad, and for the latter, my financial aid application didn’t go through. A month before my final A Level exams, I was devastated—where was I going to go? I didn’t want to be a doctor, let alone an engineer—I really just wanted to study Biology! To be honest, I had my heart set on LUMS—the buildings, the people, every corner seemed so familiar in just a few visits. I was a cell without DNA. So my mother and I were juggling various options in Lahore. She insisted on KC, while I pushed for PU … it was a bloodbath as neither of us was convinced. I had been to both institutes and I didn’t get the feeling I did in LUMS. Call me superstitious, but for me an institute was a whole package—and it all started with the ambiance. And then, one day we were passing by the all too familiar Zahoor Elahi Road, when my mother asks: “How about FC?” “What about FC?” “I hear they’ve been denationalized … and they have made great strides in the past few years. Even in Sciences.” “Okay. Isn’t it for boys?” “Why don’t we find out?” So that’s when she took a turn and for the first time in my nineteen years of life, I saw the institute in its entirety—not just a brick wall I passed by every other day, but a community, a purpose in itself. I didn’t take long to make my decision. As soon as I went past security and on my way towards N-Block, I knew it: this was it. My future institution. This place was my DNA! Three years into my Bachelors, it seems funny I thought the two places were the same. They are so very different, and I’m glad they are. Here at FC, I have the opportunity to toy with the...
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