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Remembering Rawalpindi Medical College (RMC)
Slowly, I leaf through the pages of
“Prof. Latif’s retirement special”;
With best wishes says the autograph
The year 1987.
His professional life, his achievements’ height
He’s long gone, like many others but memories
Are still fresh as the forest’s night
I feel the tug of 'that' invisible line,
That runs from my past,
From a place called RMC.
Extending way back through the corridors,
Looking past lecture doors
Brushing, the anatomy and physiology posters,
I drew then
Now hung on the walls.
I trace it round the dissecting hall.
Its desiccated bodies and formalin soaked specimens.
Bunked lectures and youthful shenanigans
Hanging out at the corner kiosk
Or playing cool in the college canteen
The line has never been forgotten.
But it gets covered, with day-to-day routines
Now, we have taken different roads,
Moving in different directions.
We read Facebook conversations,
Click through nostalgic pictures,
Yearning that youth, that young face:
That young feeling
The line has gaps in between, when we have been,
On several other journeys;
Operated in foreign theatres
Run clinics away from home...
Laughed and shed a tear, held a hand,
Solaced some one’s sad and untold fear.
Thinking do we need the line
Nostalgia has its own specific charm,
Smiles, unspoken words, tears,
All gather to form a new sphere,
40 years on it connects us
Extending from that old building
Connecting its countless souls
Synchronised with our heartbeats
It becomes visible
