The not so SEMINAR libraries…

By Sameen Meher

The University of Karachi was built in June 1951. It consists of different faculties with several departments. More or less twenty one departments are administered in the faculty of Arts at K.U., each having five to eight classrooms in an old building including a spacious hall (as compared to the other classrooms) named as the “SEMINAR LIBRARY”.

                                               

The purpose of these libraries is to provide suitable research material for the students, relating to their subjects, in their respective departments. Though all departments of the arts faculty have a seminar library but only 10% of them are properly administered.

Here in the following article I am going to share some bitter but true facts about these libraries.

 Usually, a library is known to be a place where rich, informative and knowledgeable resources are provided, along with a librarian, to control that particular ‘pin drop’ silence and guide the students how to use the reading material and take care of the books and assemble them properly. But the librarians of these seminar libraries are irresponsible and do not perform their job efficiently. They are not punctual and not even guide you in search of any material. Once you enter the room, you find a mess all around.

Most of the seminar libraries are used as substitutes for classrooms. While there are students who want to utilize their time by studying in the library, the teachers ask such students to leave in order to conduct their classes. This is an inappropriate practice since the library is not for these purposes. The administration ought to plan the development of the rickety old buildings and accommodate more classrooms instead of gardens.

While on the other hand the most pitiable situation is that there is not enough library material such as books or research papers, for this very reason, students prefer the digital libraries for their studies.

The seminar libraries of department of economics, Persian, Bengali, philosophy, social work, women studies, English literature, education, and political science look like ancient ruins. Not a single librarian is present there and if luckily they show up then they do nothing but sleep or groan at students. Resources are not arranged as they ought to be and a situation of chaos is found all over.

Though there are some of the managements that look after the library assets properly, they remain exceptions, for mostly these seminar libraries are slowly turning into mid-day chit chat rooms. Something must be done immediately to improve the situation.

Till ‘grease’ do us apart…

By Fatimah Mazhar



The sociology department is a busy department. You find clusters of students sitting and standing here and there. The intriguing part is that this department is associated with the Bengali department which does not have many students and sociology itself is not a very popular subsidiary subject. Then how does it manage to be the second most cherished spot for people after the Arts lobby? Let me tell you the answer. It’s because most of the time, the corridors of this haunted department are deserted. And who, better than the ‘Love Doves’, knows the value of an empty branch on a maple tree. In short, the sociology department is the perfect meeting point for all the people-in-romantic-relationships aka ‘dates’ found in K.U.

The seating arrangement for these dates is a special one. The love stricken (rather thunder-stricken) souls place themselves comfortably along the corners of the raised pathway leading to sociology. Sometimes you can see a boy giving out a hand to his fair lady to help her sit on the stairs. Many a time you can witness both of them whispering among themselves and some are found holding hands, listening to the recent (pathetic) Atif Aslam track on their mp3 players, completely oblivious of the fact that someone or rather ‘some political activists’ are watching and observing their postures like a vulture eyes its prey.

Yes, it’s the same political party who thinks that a girl and a boy are nothing more than brothers and sisters in Islam and must maintain a “Shar-aee (according to Islamic principles) distance” when talking to each other or else the consequences are bound to be severe…and I mean it when I say “severe”, both for the male and female doves, since this particular party doesn’t discriminate between genders when it comes to spanking and beating. Sad but true.

So, whenever these “pseudo mullahs” see an overwhelming presence of love birds chirruping along the corners of the sociology department, they consider it as their solemn duty to correct them. What they do is, that they pour a handsome amount of grease along the corners of the pathway and on all those seats where the ‘dates’ enjoy their quality time. This makes the whole situation (and the pavement as well) too messy and filthy for anyone who wishes to have a seat there. The poor love doves have to find other places that can keep them far from the madding crowd.

Not only do these dates suffer from this idiotic ritual but also innocent singles like me get offended when our brand new pair of sneakers gets greased. This is wrong and must be stopped. Who has given “those who we don’t speak of” the right to step into the way of love/flirtation/time-pass/whatever –is- between those two people??? One word of caution folks, next time you wish to visit the sociology department, watch your step!



Constant Vigilance!!!