Seven(teen) Years Till The Last Line

Wanted to share my experience at Preston University Ajman. Completed seven years on 9 January 2010. These seven years have been rewarding and enriching beyond description. It was a very small University. With very good work by all the team members we have come a long way.

There were about twenty five staff members with fewer regular faculty members. Today we have over 50 teachers. There has always been a tradition of Daily Meetings. We meet for ten minutes everyday in the morning to share some ideas and carry out some follow up. There was, however, no tradition of recording the minutes of those meetings earlier.

As a new staff member I used to sit at the very back of the Conference Room – always apprehensive of any questions being asked by the Head of the Institution. Wasn’t able to speak with any amount of confidence in front of all. All the words and expressions slipped my tongue and I cursed myself - afterwards.

It continued for sometime. Gradually in my own small way I started thinking about the ways and means to improve the Department of Islamic Studies. It led me to think of the University, too, gradually. After a while I thought why not to record the minutes of the meetings. Spoke to the Director General. He agreed and in fact appreciated this idea. I took my laptop computer to the Conference Room the next morning – 6 June 2006. Since then I have been recording the minutes (a total of 680 pages till date). This is not important. What is important is the fact that I conduct the meetings now. The Director General mostly comes to the meetings only once a week. I set the agenda and carry out the follow up and get the feedback and ideas from the colleagues on various issues – every day.

Till here it is not that important. What is important is the visit of one of my teachers from Jamiatul Falah during the month of Ramadan. Had not interacted with him for a very long time and had no idea about his thoughts for about seventeen years. He, however, opened my eyes. I felt so bad about the whole situation thinking that even the head of an institution is where he was, mired into negativity and emotionalism – all this while. With such a mind-set we will not be feeding the opportunities and will not be starving the problems and will not be going anywhere.

The above experience brought back all those agitating thoughts to my mind which I had forgotten for a number of reasons. I never thought I will ever be going back to the same ideas (concerns) again. I had written an article in the Nation And The World on ‘Intellectual Sclerosis’ and another on ‘Psychology of Education’ in EPW – both over ten years ago.

All this while, however, I have been thinking that I needed a direction. I needed to find a higher goal in life – higher than working and earning a living (which is extremely important undeniably). Still don’t know much about it. I just want to remind the upholders of the beautiful ideals in my homeland of the (whole) vision of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan. Moving forward in that direction isn’t possible without a critical and scientific approach.