Why not?

It was the year 1975 and we started to struggle for the admission in a medical college. It was so simple a procedure during those days; you obtain enough marks and you would find a place in the merit list. And those enough were quite unlike what we notice at present times. 75% aggregate got First Class first position in premedical section in that year whereas one of my patient’s daughter with 76% seems to have no hope for getting even to the gate in the present era. This remark isn’t meant to offend those hardworking students, as one very senior person sitting at the Dow University Of Health Sciences administration once informed me that they did not even give a second look at marksheet below 80% aggregate. And look at how right he was; a van driver’s daughter with 84% couldn’t get admission -- the only option offered to her father was to accept the self finance seat, which the poor fellow could not afford even in his dreams.

Anyway, we submitted the admission form with documents, which included the most crucial and most important domicile certificate, which had the column requiring me to fill in the place from which my father migrated!

As we all remember clearly, the days we used to go to DMC and afterwards, following the events each day. The first floor canteen -- just as we entered the college gate, the samosa and that tasty, warm doodh patti and the shor sharaba of youth (now I somehow hate loud noises).

Then came the controversy of 20 free marks of NCC, making it tougher for some students to get into medical college as their merit would go down but that anti-NCC campaign paid off! And NCC marks were scrapped.

But I just cannot recall why a meeting attended by admission-seeking students was addressed by one young, political leader sort… and somehow his statement "... give us control on Karachi, we will build roads so shiny like glass.” I wonder why that statement got stuck in my memory.

It was such a thrill, the day of interview. Straight away, I can’t remember how many days elapsed between submission of form and interview. Names were called according to merit and just the original documents were checked and we got into professional career.

Yes, it will get quite long but it is worth writing, as I took the challenge of professional education in a much better way than few of the other classmates. First prof.: the best! And believe me, the basics we did were excellent; the three D's of Anatomy: discussion, dissection, and diagrams --the pillars of Anatomy. I'm lucky to have met my friend, Kasim (HR) and Owais and we formed own (study) group.