Gul Agha versus Syed Fouad Ali Shah, a classic case of rivalry between outstanding students

Gul Agha comes from a Sindhi family. He had high expectations of topping the Sindh board examinations of Higher Secondary Certificate 1979. However, his dream could not materialize, as he came in 2nd. Board examinations were topped by Syed Fouad Ali Shah (who works in IBM, USA) from a lowly Delhi college of Karachi. According to his own admission, Gul used to study 18 hours a day in order to top the board. He went into a shock and blamed the Board officials that they topped a guy from a rich family of Sindh, referring to PPP Syeds. Btw, Syed Fouad Ali Shah is a name that definitely seems to belong to leading PPP Syed family of Sindh. He had, however, no connections with them.

Later when Gul Agha found out that Fouad was not Sindhi, he blamed it on latter’s urdu speaking and writing skills. I later found out that Fouad had migrated from Bangladesh to Pakistan in mid-70s and of all his subjects, Urdu was the weakest.

After examination, Gul Agha went to California Institute of Technology on full scholarship always carrying the chip on his shoulder.

Syed Fouad Ali Shah went to Union University in NY on full scholarship (good old days. All these schools used to have scholarships for foreign students). He married his classmate by the name of Allan, who converted to Islam. This extremely nice looking family (now with 4 children) lives in Albany, NY. Both husband and wife team worked for IBM since beginning.

I had the honor of meeting both of them for seeking advice when I was applying for scholarships to IVY league schools in 1989. Although Gul may not remember my meeting him (it was not a pleasant meeting at all arranged by his two cousins Wasiq and Wamiq, where Gul took my pathan ethnicity and nationalism for granted), I was able to meet Syed and his wife. Very religious, patriotic and nice looking, I took Syed for a Pathan, which he was not. His wife saw me carrying long hippy hair and advised that the fashion had changed. I should carry short hair, which of course I did within 3 hours. Afterall, she was a white woman and I was an impressionable lad. My job was to bow down and say yes madam :-)

This would be an excellent memoire for me. I was trying to get financial aid from American universities and visited Pak-American Cultural Centre, traveling all the way from Mardan. Once I reached the Centre my confidence level crashed at seeing smartly dressed Karachiwals. However, the lady in charge there encouraged me to apply to IVY league schools, Occidental College, Swarthmore, Lafayette and Stanford. She gave me the example of Mr. Fouad and gave me his address in Karachi where he perhaps visited his parents for the last time in 1988 (?) to meet him and take his advice.