Five Words of Sympathy

By: Ramsha Ekhlaque 


A sense of anguish, more so than pain, had taken rule of heart and she felt extremely light headed. Maybe the upper content of her head was a little more lighter than a spiral of wool, which was slowly turning as it unravelled. One more revolution and the final strand would release to allow her mind to slip through the gap, and float slowly up and away. Now she was drifting, drifting, drifting down through a bed of gently swaying seaweeds.

The day was damp and bleak, and a grey mist hung over the lake like a veil. The only sound to break the eerie silence was the slow methodical beat of its wings, as a lone grey heron passes lazily and unseen, overhead.

Fragments of thought, splinters of words and droplets of silence spun into a kaleidoscopic jumble, shifting infinitesimally and fell into an incredible new pattern.

All at once, she discovers that there is nothing around at all but a spreading carpet of grey-green moss, year's deep, and a silence that feels as old as time itself. There is nothing to frighten her, but she is frightened and lone-some, not so much for people, but a sound, any sound. She turns to run back towards town, but there is nothing behind her now. For a second, she stood under a grey moss, under a grey sky, in the midst of a grey silence.

The emptiness in her heart, the numbness pounding her brain, the salty tears that flowed unchecked from her eyes, the shear nothingness that now took hold of her soul threatened to engulf her entirely. Her legs buckled, knees sinking into the sodden earth as she watched her own casket being lowered to its final resting place.

She opened her eyes to find herself in a land of deepest shade. It was a weary region of dead, where all things are forgot. Dark as the empty heart of an abandoned soul, dark as the unlit corner of a bedroom closet, dark as a clogged drain, dark as a murderer's soul, dark as a dead man's memories.

Her head swam in the fire burning inside, the only smouldering embers of a time where there had been other presences with her, around her, in her. But now, the void had been slowly filled with a cold, howling storm of fear that refused to ever let up. She was completely and utterly alone in her mind, body, soul and all the loneliness could offer her were five words of sympathy and two droplets of tears.

ISpy: Edition 1

Written by: Shehroze Shaikh

Welcome to the first of the many exposing editions of ISpy.
After spending this week observing you Pakoras of PAF Chapter and scrutinizing all the speculative news brought in, we give you the headlines.
1. Cats for Physics. Chapter cats finally enroll themselves in class.
2. Hot weather, and the domestics won't turn on the AC? No worries. Sabeeh Mohiuddin demonstrates how to turn it on.

Detailed news now; the good news and the bad news.
Good news is, Peter and Delilah, the infamous Chapter cats who make our snack hours miserable (I still haven't forgiven them for clawing at my Zinger and tipping over my Pepsi glass), have finally decided to use their time more productively. They have enrolled in Sir Imran's Physics class with A1S5. It did not go smoothly, however... Cats, being the royal creatures they are, had no regard for Sir Imran's authority as they seated themselves near him and with a trademark, "Meoww", ordered to be pet. Sir Imran wasn't one to take their poop, so he literally kicked them out of the class. First day, first offence. What does a cat have to do to get pet? *sigh* Don't worry P&D, you'll be fine.

Moving on, it's November, and still the Earth won't turn away from the sun to give us a bit of that sweet thing called winter. Well, atleast we have ACs (All those who have working ACs, I loathe you. -A2S1)
But since the AC remotes are safe and hidden with the Domestic Staff, you can't really sit in your classes when you're free because the domestics are like toys that work on keys. Chaabi lagi hui hai ke AC kab band karna hai. Well no worries, as Sabeeh Mohiuddin has provided all you nincompoops with a demonstration that shall keep you cool. You simply open the AC flap and press the power button inside. *sigh* It's that easy. Ofcourse, watch out for any 'chaabi-lagay-domestics'. As it happened, Sabeeh show-of-brains was undone as a few minutes later, the toys got angry and turned off the AC, again.


That's it for this edition of ISpy. Visit the blog every Friday night for the juiciest details of life at PAF Chapter.
P.S. Pictures next week too.
This is ISpy, and we're watching you.
Koi deikhey na deikhey, hum jaasoos deikheingey.

A Gathering of the Noobs and the Nincompoops: The NUST Olympiad '14

Written by: S.M. Ali Ul Haque (A1-C3)

It was a beautiful day on the 17th of October, as The PAF Chapter Gaming Society eyed its first competition of the semester. Well, that was the plan anyway.
We all got there around 4 pm only to notice an empty parking lot. Brushing that aside, we made our way to the reception where the receptionist asked us what we had come for. Oh, but of course! We're here to trim the garden! Not like there's an Olympiad here or something.. oh wait, we're here for a Competition. After a lengthy and an unnecessary conversation about our intent and why we didn't have ID cards, we were let in. First thing you notice at the venue of a competition is the buzz of activity and an indistinct noise of people chattering away, right? But this time, it was so quiet that I swear I heard a cat meow 80 metres away.
Anyway, we got on with that and met our 'Guide' who was complacent beyond life. Very casually, he swept aside our queries and baffled looks with a "chill out" here and a "just relax, bro" there. He then explained to us where we had to be, so we parted ways with each other and headed to our respective rooms.
I arrived in the Fifa Room only to find the organizers playing 'Winner to Stay'. I mean.. this is supposed to be a competition organised by a nationally recognized university, but okay, no problem here. Our Guide told us to "chill out". When they finally saw us, I could see they were wearing expressions of bewilderment on their faces. Should it not have been the other way round? I swear the Head had spaced out for a good 3 seconds, following which they regained composure and initiated the Competition among the 4 of us. Albeit we were part of the same team, we couldn't face each other in the first round, as per the rules.
I started the match only to find my controller is faulty. I quickly paused the match and complained. The Organizer said that he would arrange one in a minute. Little did I know that his one minute is equivalent to thirty minutes! Because it was just a matter of half an hour when my Guardian Angel finally decided to fulfill my wish and presented me with a functional controller. Following this intriguing episode, we finally began playing the match. My first match against one of my friends, Shehzad, resulted in a draw. Then all of a sudden, this guy comes in and goes like, "Sorry, I'm late". Must've been fate or something. He was the guy I was supposed to play next, so the Organizers shifted my match back an hour and put my colleagues, Noman and Arham Soleja against each other, in which Noman easily defeated Arham by a margin of 4 goals to nill. He went on to boast about it as if he had won the world cup. Fairplay, though.
Later, I played my opponent Nabil. I was able to defeat him without much difficulty by a margin of 3 goals to 2. Right After my match, I began to feel thirsty so I asked one of the Organizers to get me some water. He looked at me with discontent and said, "Wait, mein scene karta houn." After this, he whipped out an old Pepsi bottle, drank it, got up, vanished for 15 minutes and finally came back with water that tasted like Pepsi and a bit of Mountain Dew.
Afterwards, near the end of the day, Shehzad got to play too. He won his match as well by a scoreline that even he himself doesn't remember. Must've been a boring encounter because according to the Fifa commandments, you must boast about every victory. Finally, by the end of the day, we had all qualified for the next round, except for Arham, for obvious reasons.
Now I honestly thought that our event was badly managed, but then I met up with the Counterstrike team. They told me tales of true hardship and such that I couldn't even begin to imagine. They played without proper equipment. No headphones and their Organizers had a stunning lack of knowledge about the game. They did not even know how to switch sessions! Just fantastic. And to top it off, when the Team asked for the required gears, the Organizers promptly said that they'll have to bring their own. But somehow, they emerged victorious too.
After a day of being sent in circles, all of us were ready to head home, but it wasn't over yet. They stopped us on the way and began promoting their social events, especially the Carnival, which was to commence in an hour. They told us that we simply had to attend it. They said, "It'll be the best carnival ever!!" But having seen enough of their worldclass management and arrangements, we all looked at each other, gave them a positive response like all good delegations should, then left immediately.
Most of us didn't attend the second day of the Olympiad. Firstly, because of the city conditions and secondly, because you need some shaman-level patience to go through THAT again!

Desi Tarka: The 2014 Welcome Party.

Written by Daniyal Rafat

“Once a year go someplace you’ve never been before” said Dalai Lama. Well lama jee, you should reshape your perception a little bit and instead every year you should visit The PAF Chapter’s A-Levels Welcome Party. You know, with your robes and all...killing it!

PAF Chapter A-levels Welcome Party 2014 was themed "Desi Tarka". When I got to the party, the first glimpse of the legit arrangement brought me a thought, “Who is getting married tonight?”
It seriously could have been passed off as a desi style wedding ceremony, it was that colorful and bright. The Gol Gappa stand, the pakoray, and the Sugarcane Juice, made it all more realistic. The Decor was fitting. Girls in heavy, shiny, in other words, totally desi dresses. Good thing we have alot of weddings in Pakistan, 'cause the dress they wore at a certain wedding, only to throw it in a drawer never to be worn again, finally came out and on and voila!

Our seniors started off by sending Ameen and his chota partner, Ahad, to do some badtameezi on the dance floor. Their steps on badtameez dil got everyone pumped up. The only thing missing was a gorgeous Deepika Padukone. I know it was Chapter, and such things don't happen here *HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH* but we can dream, right?. 

"No Deepika? No problem."
-Ahad bin Wahid, Badtameezi Wala.

Then the stage was taken up by Sara Sadiq and co. for their talk show themed play, “Aaj ki raat chapter k  saath (Tonight with Chapter.)”, and boy, was it controversial. The esteemed guests included filmstar Meera as Injila Bilal. Meera ji, her presence always "attaches four moons to the gathering". Other guest was Bobby Khusra a.k.a Jahanzaib Khan, the head of the transvestites community. The show brought forward interesting news. When asked what kind of roles she likes to act upon, Meera ji answered, "Chicken Rolls". Okay, so Meera ji likes to 'act upon' Chicken Rolls..nice...Haha..Ha...Ha..*Scarred for life*

Another interesting question was when Bobby ji was asked his..no her.. no, his...her....ahhh what the hell, about their love interests. When (s)he answered that there was no one in particular, (s)he was asked her type. Being the modest person (s)he is, theanswer was, "Larka ho ya Larki, bus munasib ho". There we have it, for all those wondering souls out there, and in Chapter (No, I'm not being judgemental), you have your answer. If you're munasib, Bobby is yours for the taking.

"OhEmGee, the proposals have started coming!"
Bobby Jee, with her/his evergreen...sorry, ever-black expression.

 Finally, the stage was set for the AS to take over the mic. Well, we could have made a statement of intent that we are good too. So, two guys and a girl from AS got up and volunteered to perform and guess what? They decided to rap. Desi Tarka...and they decided to rap. Amazing. So amazing that their performance inspired some amazing cheers from the A2 gang standing at the back. *Wink*  To further embarrass them, our deputy head bhai came along with his bae for the night, Yusuf, and danced to celebrate their love behind the rappers. Well, atleast they attracted the crowd's interest.
The highlight of the night though, was the past and present coming together and blowing everybody's minds off. Yes, Osaid Taan-Seen Tabrez, the man whose voice warmed Chapter's Redbricks to their very core, came back to perform a duet with the boy who people are calling "The Next Osaid", Shehrayar Rehan. And boy, was it amazing. They were probably singing together for the first time, but their chemistry was amazing, and they melted Chapter hearts. 

The smiles say it all, while the voices cast a spell.

The dinner was served and after that, came the most awaited phase of the party. The photography session. DSLR here, Retrica there, everywhere you could see people posing for pictures. There were some BEAUTIFUL pictures but one thing was flowing from every picture. Love. I'll leave you to judge the nature of this love though.

So honey now, take me into your loving arms.Kiss me under the light of a thousand stars
Place your head on my beating heart

Um...Ali, I know you can feel the bulge, but that's not where the heart is.

"Amma gulkand bananay kay liye laayi thein. Main tumharay liye chura laya."

Around closing time, the teachers tried their all to clear the crowd but no one listened. But how could they let it be? Up stepped Sir Shoaib and said just one sentence, "Chalo Chalo, Apni behnon ko baad mein rukhsat karlena", and all the boys scrammed. Typical Sir Shoaib, always cheeky. Makeen sahab joined in with his own declaration that stated, "Everybody here is a Mehram to each other"...

You have Makeen Sahab's permission.

Edited by Shehroze Shaikh