Wednesday afternoon, 15th of May,
and I am sitting in an auditorium waiting for yet another event of NSS, Meet the
Scientist, to start. As it mentions scientist I have an image of this nerdy guy
with frowning brows and hurried step. Yet the man who is staring out at me from
every of the six corners of the auditorium is the complete opposite of what I imagined.
This is Dr Adil Najam, as the poster shouts out at us. He is also VC LUMS,
winner of Goodwin medal for effective teaching and numerous other things.
Dr Adil’s turn to hold the stage came soon and
hold he did. For the better part of two hours or so he took us to an
exhilarating and wonderful journey down memory lane, back to when he was a boy.
“When I was four years old, my parents left
me at school. They haven’t yet come to pick me up.”
My assumption negated. He was a scientist
after all. Only a scientist had to be this crazy to have passed three quarters
of his lifespan (judged on the regional lifespan) studying; and still showing
no signs of stopping.
I turned back to the stage. Dr Adil (I was
beginning to like his personality with every passing minute) was telling how us
about some of the lessons he had learnt from his life; “The seven lessons of my
life” he called them.
Beginning with a lust for learning, I along
with the audience was first lectured about the importance of humility. He was
telling he had been a janitor’s assistant in Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT). (Funny, I thought, to travel all the way to MIT to be a janitor’s
assistant). Then I heard him saying that his father was a government servant
and I was brought to my senses.
He had a taste for dance too, as his life’s
ambition was to see LUMS students as waiters in the LUMS cafeteria. Oh, but
wait, wasn’t he saying something about being humble, I think that’s why, stupid
me.
Then we were advised to build bridges, not
walls. Yeah, you heard me right.
Build bridges, not WALLS.
I was just starting to think that being a
civil engineer he had remembered some old phrase from his textbook, but then I came
to know that he was actually telling us to keep our options open, not limit
ourselves. Oh so that’s where the wall comes, I thought to myself.
Moving on to his work in the
Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change, he proudly told us that being a jack
of all trades ( Law, Engineering,
Teaching) he could converse with
ease with everyone, as the other men on the panel were so liable to using their
respective field’s jargon. But thanks to being in school since 4 years old, Dr
Adil was able to sail through. This incident was narrated specially to lecture
us on being multidisciplinary (and; this was me thinking, tempt us into
learning all the life; fat chance I thought)
There are smart people in this world. And
there are good people in this world, he tells us. But being smart is due to no
effort on their part, they were born smart. But being good is an art, only few
are able to master.
To be smart is good, to be good is great.
And then came the not so inspiring words
“Make friends on your way up, because you
will meet them on your way down.”
I am sure we were just as confused as he
himself was when his teacher uttered those words. Yet he was right in saying that,
”We all come down sooner or later. It is
called gravity.”
As Dr Adil was so kind to tell us. And thus
another remarkable session with another remarkable scientist ended with promise
of numerous such remarkable sessions brought to you by the so very remarkable
(I will say so, I am an executive member, hell yeah) NUST Science Society.
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