Of a Young Baloch Man

 YAAR Jaan, a proud Baloch from Buleda village, near Turbat, has recently completed his BS in Metallurgy and Materials Engineering from Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering and Technology. He did that in style standing first in the final year examinations. He got two gold medals; one for Best academic performance and the other for Best Overall Performance. I had the privilege to interview Yaar Jan for a job. Here is what I learnt about him. Realizing the amount of effort that he had put in to achieve what he has achieved, my first question was, “What was the driving forced behind all this ?” His answer was no less surprising than his academic record. He wanted to do something which will make his father and his village proud and he realized that the only way to achieve his objective was to get education. Key to education was English language and at a very young age he decided that must learn English. He went to a school in Turbat and remained there till Class VIII. He had to get out of Turbat to study further. He came to Karachi and joined a school in Lyari, his resources would not permit anything else. He passed his metric examinations in flying colors which enabled him to get admission in DJ Science College. He was selected for admission in LUMS, However, he knew that business education was not his cup of tea; he must study science and technology. He applied for admission in GIK and got selected there too. Based on his record he got merit based tuition waiver scholarship from government of Balochistan. He has recently completed a 10 week internship in Corrosion and Energy Storage Materials Laboratory in South Korea. Yaar Jan has not restricted himself to books and studies; he takes part in other activities as well. He got selected for President’s Institute of Engineering and Technology, GIK chapter, and was also selected as the general secretary of the Society for the Promotion of Higher Education in Pakistan. He organized electrical engineering conference and educational expositions at GIK. He was the only undergraduate to present a technical paper at the sixth International Conference on Applied Science and Technology held at Bhurban and participated in a six day Young Leaders Conference held in Lahore. Yaar Jaan has not only made his fathers and village proud, he has made all of us proud. He is the future of Buleda, the future of Balochistan and the future of Pakistan. Balochistan, please send more Yaar Jaans, we need them. ‘Zara nam ho to yeh mitti bahut zarkhez hai saaqui’ It was published in Daily Dawn Opinion section on 23rd August 09, written by Mr S Nayyar Iqbal Raza from Karachi.