Adil Najam
Do you know what place this is? Can you recognize any or all of the buildings you see? And how is it important to Pakistan?
I suspect this ATP Quiz is either a little too easy. Or, maybe, not easy at all. I guess we shall find out soon enough.
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I would be remiss if I did not add that Ravians are not cultic. But they take pride in everything about GC. There is a richness in heritage.
And this richness brings both pride and humility. Pride, for Ravians never take a back seat to anyone. I have never known a Ravian who will take nonsense from anyone.
Humility, that there is no higher citadel of learning and excellence in Pakistan. Even those, who do not do well, know that they touched grounds where giants roamed.
But the list of luminaries is long. Very long. And far too many have been more than mere footnotes to the history of Pakistan.
The entire main campus of the GC was built on a rather huge mound of Earth.
The front of the campus was street level and the far back was also on the street level. In between, a rise of, my best guess of 20 feet. Thus the construction was cleverly done.
The oval grounds are actually street level from the front. That is why they never flooded, except for the normal slower drainage problems of Lahore. And the main building has about 20 or so steps that takes you down. When folks played on the grounds, it gave a “Stadium” effect. No other college in Lahore comes close to this.
Naturally, negotiating the slow climb up the road to the main building was good workout. And the “sciency” students, give or take twice a day hike (for lunch or other activities), were kept in good physical shape.
I do not remember what triggered it, but there came a time in the mid 70, the iron gates came shut and not even a bike could go up to the main building.
I admit this is the city Lahore I do not know. I enjoyed the comments.
But the “sciency” students were at a disadvantage.
You see, the “artsy” students stayed around the Main building the whole day. While the “sciency” students, literally had to mad dash across various buildings. From one end of language classes to all the way to the Physics department.
And barsaat never helped.
Of course, the “love garden”.
But wait, there is a “secret garden” behind the sleepy Physics department. I think it was physically considered as the Punjab University. Actually, there are two or three smaller places there. A more relaxed place since it was not public grounds.
Talking about Physics dept. It was a sleepy place with less lighting than the topic of light we studied there. But with its excellent ventilation and thick mud walls, it was the coolest building in GC. You wanted to be there during hot summer days.
And then right outside was the “cycle stand”. The guy over there ran the stand better than most parking spaces in NYC. Squeezed every inch of horizontal space. He knew exactly where your bike was in his fully enclosed cage like stand. He marked each “paid” bike with a painted letter “A” under the seat. Took us a couple of years to ask him what that meant? His answer, “ahh giha” (his understanding of, “I got the money”). Doubled us over.
BTW, since Kachari is the center of town, the mile marker across the GC walls was marked “Lahore 0 Miles”.
So, technically, this view is the center of Lahore. (Regardless of what folks at Lakshami Mansion think.)