You’re So Good To Me – The Beach Boys

Fire – Jimi Hendrix

Maybe Someday – The Cure

Squeeze Box – The Who

Cat Scratch Fever – Ted Nugent

Sharp Dressed Man – ZZ Top

Friggin in the Riggin – Sex Pistols

The entire Agha Hasan Abedi Auditorium of the GIK Institute was jam-packed on the last day of the performing arts festival.

The three-day festival was organised by Cultural, Dramatics and Entertainment Society (CDES) of the GIK Institute. Students from all over the country and members of Pakistan National Council of Arts (PNCA) participated in the festival.

The official media partner for the event was City FM 89 and renowned comedian Sohail Ahmad was the chief guest at the concluding ceremony.

The event brought a lot of entrainment to the fun lovers who enjoyed the most refined acting skills of the students representing different institutes/universities.

However, the outstanding performance was of the GIK comedians, which sent the whole auditorium in a burst of laughter.

The organisers said the event was aimed to encourage the young artists to display their best work and show their talent.

The art lovers appreciated the efforts of CDES for reviving the true essence of drama with quality humorous plays. The participating groups staged their plays relating to cultures of different Pakistani regions and social issues but it were the comedy plays which pleased the audience the most.

The exciting stories of the plays were based on some heart-touching stories of human behaviour, social attitudes and issues faced by families in a community were relevant to the society in terms of entertainment, education and positive aspects of living. The most vital part of the festival was it integrated with the academic activities of the students. “Such events enhance skills and develop personality and greatest achievement was that it helped discover many artists,” said CDES coordinator Yasir Afridi. “It also developed a teamwork habit and raised the concentration level of the participants.”

The classical dance performed by Adnan Jahangir charmed the audience. With great display he elegantly carried the audience with him through different classical demonstrations. The most attractive plays were: Oh My Proposals, Mental Tunnels, Level 99, Nritya and Abhinaya, Tuta Hua Tara (Mime), Fifteen Minutes Hamlet By Tom Stoppard, Faulty Towers, Hadbandi, Sufism: The Sources of Peace and Pass Ker Ya Bardhast Ker.

The story of Hadbandi was an epic tale about the love of a couple who were separated by the boundaries of time while Fifteen Minutes Hamlet was the parody of the famous Shakespearian play, Hamlet. “The plays were presented to point out the social issues with entertainment and education and were amalgamated in satire,” said Sohail Ahmad. “It was an opportunity for the youth to explore the concepts and styles of traditional and contemporary stage artists.”

Copyright, Dawn Newspaper.

When I came here I believed that I had made the best decision of my life; I loved the freedom, the chance to do as I will. Two semesters on I couldn’t have been more off; I hated it here. The freedom was still a luxury but the oft felt injustices by the educators, the poor grades, the lack of acknowledgement on behalf of our peers and the isolation from our friends and family were like poisonous thorns in our sides that were twisted deeper every day. I am sure most of us have felt the same. I was once told by a friend that you will cry at least once while you are in GIKI and it will be filled with bitterness and the deepest sense of bereavement. Away from our homes and childhood friends we were forced to find reconciliation in the people who were stuck in the same dilemma as ourselves. I will quote a famous saying here and no matter how cheesy it sounds, it is true to every letter.

“Misery loves company”

Through our misery we found people with whom we loved to spend our time, people who felt as miserable as ourselves. Words filled with anger, hate and venom spilled out against everything and everyone that surrounded us here and finally, finally there were people who listened to them, who added to them. Once the anger was out, we started to appreciate things that had once felt like a plot against our happiness; the surrounding mountains, the Lake, the greenery, the golden sunlight that surrounds everything after the rain and the flood-lit grounds; everything seemed to be more wonderful. Even the weather, which once seemed to be mocking us, felt glorious.

I cannot for the life of me find words that can describe the feeling you get when you sit on the roof of your hostel enjoying a cup of tea with a friend or two with the wind whistling around you and carrying huge dark clouds upon it, the joy of eating mangoes with lassi during the summers, the adrenaline rush when trying to escape from someone pelting water-balloons at you or trying to dump a bucket of water on you. These are such unique experiences that you simply have to be there to feel it and it is these small secrets and many more that bring us all together and join us in the bond of friendship. Secrets like these are what define a true GIKIAN. The term might not sound charming to some who believe themselves to be above the pettiness of categorizing yourself on the basis of your institute; however one has to understand, it is not the idea of separating yourself from those who didn’t choose to come here but to identify yourself with others who share the same secrets as you do.

Graduates of GIKI have often been accused of considering themselves above others and while I do not condone the behavior of those who believe that one person can be superior to another, I do believe that during our time here in GIKI we go through such immense transition and development of character that we find ourselves far more mature compared to some others who are at the same stage of life. It does sound narcissistic but it is true and anyone who has graduated from here can testify to its validity. Some might ask what do other institutes lack compared to GIKI. My answer and I am sure many will argue against it, is the isolation GIKI enjoys from the rest of the world. We do not follow public holidays, we are often forced to stay here when all over the country institutes tell their students to stay at homes, we eat what we are offered and our complaints, though lengthy, are feeble. We become so accustomed to the language barrier that once made us feel isolated that we try to chip in with our own form of “pukhto” simply to irritate our Pukhtoonkhwa friends. We try to find solace in the fact that one day we will finally be walking out of here with an engineering degree in our hands. A famous man once said

“We are what we choose to become”
And we chose to become GIKIANs.

How I love the green of your face,
The flowers that make thee blue;
Your windswept trees,
Your luscious folds,
The bane of a desperate sorrow;
How I adore thy monument and dome,
Where so many a heart fell;
How can I ever love another?
My paradise lost in hell.

Ahmad Asghar Batch 16

Ex-Horizon President

A final tribute to our departing Horizon President

From being incharge of holding Intra and All Pak Gaming Competitions along with managing the working of the LAN in GIKI, Netronix has now solely become responsible for selling food at inflated prices throughout GIKI.

President Mr. Farooq and Resident No body Mr Kashif Jamal have been weekly reported to be selling Savor Pulaos, Hespers and Pizzas at inflated prices to the rest of the helpless GIKI community.

The move raises alot of eyebrows as so far as no society solely responsible for ripping people off has been approved by the Administration. Their actions are something the GIKI Administration should seriously take a look at.

As heard in Project Management Class :
The best way to resolve conflicts is through confrontation

There are two types of people in GIK; Those who’ve got probations and those who will. (A wise senior to a newly departed freshman)

Professor to Student on coming late:

Get lost to tuck and eat some CCHAAAKKLAAATTTE!

Professor pointing laser pen at Student:

I will infrared your nostrils!

It is in the universal handbook for engineers that you can’t brush your teeth.

As heard in  lecture hall:

Student: ‘Sir, is this series convergent and divergent at the same time?’

Sir: ‘Calculus mein khusre nai hote!’

——–

Student: ‘Sir why do we have a negative sign in the value for gravity?’

Sir (turns towards the student): ‘huh?’

Student: ‘Sir why do we have a negative sign in the value for gravity?’

Sir (takes a step closer to the student) : ‘huh?’

Student (shouts) : ‘SIR WHY DO WE HAVE A NEGATIVE SIGN IN THE VALUE FOR GRAVITY?’

Sir (comes very close to the student): ‘huh?’

——

Student 1: ‘Yar sooch agar mein SuperMan hota!’

Student 2: ‘Haan tu phir shayad MT mein pass hojata?’

Tight shirts and ties followed by short knickers and dress socks was the dress code that many of the 16ers followed which left Batch 18 offended and rightly so. Many 18ers claimed that Batch 16 had shown no belief in the ability of 18 to arrange such an event and had thus resorted to mocking them by such behavior.

Batch 16 has a history of ruining high profile events and it must be highlighted that the last farewell they attended suffered a similar fate. A spokesman from Batch16 has come out and apologized for their behavior claiming that it’s something ‘In their Blood’ and should be laughed off.

It remains to be seen whether the Administration takes some action against the 16ers or not.

The primary objective of this seminar was to motivate individuals towards entrepreneurship by developing self confidence in them which shall also come in handy during interviews, in case the individual instead goes for a job.

Dr. Riffat Naheed has a comprehensive track record as a senior executive in corporate management, international business, business development and human resource development. She highlighted the typical questions that are posed by companies during their selection interviews and the most common mistakes that an interviewee makes while answering them.

This seminar was more like an interactive session, with lots of questions being put forward by the large audience. A training workshop was another interesting feature of it, in which anyone could volunteer to get the experience of giving an interview to a big multinational company.

The seminar was a great success in terms of crowd participation with over 300 Gikians attending the seminar. Mr Jehangir Bashar, Rector GIK Institute and Dr Junaid Mughal, Advisor IET GIKI Chapter also graced the occasion with their presence. They congratulated the entire team IET for organizing such a useful and successful seminar and also expressed their best wishes for the society.

The last debates for the day ended at about 8 in the evening. The LDS had arranged a lavish gala dinner in the café lawn, which was much enjoyed by all the participants and LDS members. The gala dinner was followed by the E-night. LDS broke away from the cliché E-night of musical performances; instead they had scheduled a performance by the “Party Quirks”, a bunch of improvised comedians from Islamabad. This turned out to be the perfect follow up to the dinner. Both the dinner and the performance by the party quirks provided a much needed break for the participants form the grueling debates from earlier in the day.

There were two rounds of debating on Sunday followed by the semi finals. In the English competition UCL contested LSE and GCU contested FC in the semifinals. In the Urdu competition we saw PU go up against team adjudicators and GCU go up against PMC for a spot in the final. Team adjudicators and GCU emerged victorious from the Urdu pools and GCU and LSE from the English competition.

On Monday GCU emerged victorious in both the English and the Urdu competitions. The motion debated in the English final was “This house would grant amnesty to surrendering terrorists”. All in all it was a thoroughly enjoyable tournament, with many participants already looking forward to coming back next year.

The first semi-final was between GIKI and FAST where the score was 2-0 with GIKI in the lead; the second semi-final was a long-standing tussle between LUMS and LSE resulting ultimately in a win for LUMS at (1-0).

The final match was a compelling performance between GIKI and LUMS where the former took the trophy home along with a cash prize of PKR 25,000. The matches were refereed by FIFA approved officials.
Saad Khan, CEO Gillette, in the presence of Shehzeen Rehman, HR Manager P&G, handed over the tournament trophy to the jubilant GIKI team. GIKI captain received the winning trophy and paid tributes to the efforts of P&G and the university officials for organizing such healthy activities especially for the youth.

The University Champions League was a part of P&G’s University Challenge initiative and brought together 7 teams from the leading universities of Pakistan, providing them the opportunity to showcase their athletic abilities whilst promoting the spirit of sportsmanship and teamwork.

The University Challenge is a significant step by P&G Pakistan towards empowering the youth of the country and the Company hopes to devise such campaigns in future as well to help youth become successful leaders of tomorrow.

Courtesy – The Nation newspaper