Personal Diary © Burhan Rasool

It was late at night on October 25, 2007, I could not let go of the encounter that I had earlier in the evening with one of the Staff members of FAST. All the cartoons, all the emails, all the meetings, all the brawls, all the betrayals flashed back to me.

It had been almost 18 months when it all started but it seemed like yesterday when I was informed about the new rule of compulsory Graduation Fee in the Director’s room. It was around 9PM on Thursday, March 30, 2006, to be exact. I had been trying to forget it for long and to move on with my professional life and career. But I guess, its impact was huge; not only on me but on other stakeholders as well; especially the Staff and Faculty.

The heated discussion with that Staff member in the evening brought back some harsh memories of the recent past including reported incidents of some Faculty members talking ill about me in and outside their classrooms with students and their colleagues… and especially that month-old humiliating incident wherein a faculty member, who had earlier created a scene at one of the Gourmet shops by shouting false accusations at me when I accidentally met him there; interrupted a casual discussion that I was having with my juniors with pinching personal remarks about me.

…

It was torturous to recall, all that I had built over time and worked so very hard for, collapsed just like that, as if it was never there… or even worse.

…

At that night, I decided to rejoin the Alumni Association, get myself elected again as General Secretary, in order to start from where I had stopped and rebuild all that I had lost because of The Convocation Saga.