From KE, with love

For many people their alma mater is like their home. The feeling of love and belonging they get from anything related remotely to their institution is unparalleled by any feeling they would have for even a much better  institution (in the world’s eyes). For me it’s a bit different. KE will always be my home. I have memories associated with its  tiny nooks and corners but FJ, an institution I was never an official part of,  has my heart. 

FJ is like a grandma’s home for me. The place where you feel safer and happier than any other place in the world. Where you are pampered and cherished. The place which seems to you the most perfect place in the world. I have never been a student of FJ but some of my earliest memories are related to it which were superimposed by even happier memories later in my life. I am not an FJ-ite or an FJOG but three very proud generations of my family are.

FJ to me is a sisterhood. Kind of like KC or LC but more powerful. Because here girls don’t come only to build friendships. They come to construct themselves. Someone once said infront of me that we need co-education so girls can get confidence but I have yet to see an FJ doctor stuttering infront of a male colleague. For me being an FJOG means my grandmother ; a proud and confident  woman who always stands for what she believes in, who works hard to build her career but is just happy to stay at home after retirement because her social life at 75 is still going strong. Being an FJOG also means my mother who is happy to have a more laid back approach while still managing to rise in the ranks. But mostly for me an FJ-ite means my sister. A person who people sometimes considered not that outgoing becoming a force to be reckoned with during her FJ years. I chose KE over FJ and I think it was the right decision for me. It was where all my friends were going and it was my dad’s college. But even after four years there remains a ‘what if’ feeling in tiny part of my heart that maybe I just wasn’t strong enough to admit , even to myself, what I really wanted. And if my daughter , proud of her FJ heritage, chooses FJ over KE I’ll be much more proud of her because it takes a much stronger person to go against the status-quo . 

 FJ is a female medical college but it’s so much more than that. It has a vibrant history , much older than even AIMC. It has its beautiful traditions. I have never seen odd days  and traditional days celebrated with such zeal as I have seen here. But mostly it’s about girls standing for themselves. I remember how surprised my sister was when I told her that in KE its our ‘Bhais’ job to get the banner and flex printed , among other ‘male’ oriented jobs. She was like in FJ girls do it all. And we do it so better than your ‘Bhais’ . I remember the day she came home and was like “today we made a society ” and I was so confused but I have seen the progress of ‘Q’ from literally the day it was born till now. I have witnessed the first quiz and its haphazardness from the wings and I have also seen a first-class inter-collegiate quiz. I have cheered on FJ teams in quizzes held my college feeling a sense of pride with every right answer though I am a nobody in eyes of FJ-ites. 

My sister is graduating. She is sad of course. But I am sad too. I won’t have the right to come to funfair anymore. To be a part of the major events. To be a part of inner circle of FJ. To walk with my head held high because I knew I had an ‘ in’ with all the final year. To be proud of every little achievement of ‘Q’ and SAPS. To be content with the my status as someone’s granddaughter, someone’s daughter or someone’s sister . To have a sense of belonging whenever I walked in the main gate. And of course to eat food at MK. 

When FJ’s history will be compiled in books , I won’t be in any part of it. A Kemcolian certainly doesn’t has any right to. But I hope atleast some FJ-ites remember a person who filmed their quizzes , made questions on the spot and cheered from them in KE, because FJ will always be part of my life and soul wherever I go.

- Guest Post by Maryam Ayub (King Edward Medical University)