TODAYs NEWs. I was chatting with some friends after Friday prayers when a stranger came up to me, smiled, shook my hand, and pointing to the man who was standing next to him, said; “This man wants to talk to you.” The second man looked at me, smiled and asked me I had taught economics at the University of Karachi. I said, yes, back in the 1973-74 academic year. He said I was one of your students. I said: “It is amazing that you recognized me after all these years.” He said you had long hair back then that fell down to your shoulders. Other than that, little has changed. Of course, I wanted to tell him my waist size had changed but decided not to. He said I remember you spoke in the university auditorium when some professors from Japan were in town. And then he rattled off the names of the other professors. I was floored. Regardless of how I looked at his face, I could not remember him at all. The class was an upper-level microeconomics class and there must have been some 200 students in it. It was just one semester long. One student later became the finance minister, another became the Chief Economist of the Planning Ministry, another went on to lead a Think Tank and yet another became one of the three executives of the Central Board of Revenue. There was also the girl student whose Dad came to see me because my homework assignments had caused her to have a nervous breakdown and in her rage she had stomped on her eyeglasses. I was not sure what to do. He just wanted me to reduce the amount of math assignments. And then there was the student who stopped a petition that was being passed around in the dorms calling upon the Vice Chancellor to fire me because I was driving the students crazy with impossible-to-do homework. And then there was this student (who looked older than me today). I asked him what he did. He said he worked for one of the leading banks in Pakistan (Habib Bank). I asked: “Consumer banking?” He said: “Mostly business banking.” The first man protested: “He is just being modest. He is one of their senior VPs.” I said: “It is sad what has become of Pakistan.” He said you should not believe everything you read in the papers. You should visit Pakistan some day and see for yourself how much progress we have made. I said there is no electricity in the homes but plenty of violence on the streets. Does that add up to progress? He said: There is also a McDonalds in every neighborhood. At which point he introduced his son to me and said: “I told him my teacher was standing there and it was important that I go and meet him.” As we parted, he shook hands with me again and said: “It was a pleasure meeting you, Sir.”
Posted on: Sat, 12 Jul 2014 00:24:14 +0000
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