WARRIS KA FLAT

MEMBERS

ACTIVITIES

The story goes back to November 1990 when Mr. Warris Hassan Ansari came to the metropoliton city of Karachi from Hyderabad in search of education. He got admission at FAST ICS in Bachelors of Computer science. This institution proved to be the breeding ground for so many friendships. Initially he was seen with the poet Mr. Muslim Hassan Rizvi, a thin tall guy who had just left NED and joined fast. They were seen together and Muslim used to recite poems to a group of three girls where as Warris used to watch. There was another group coming up at that time and that was of ever lazy Mr.Asif Raffat Khan and Mr. Shiraz Ajam. Mr. Shiraz owned a Vespa of which he was a master. He used to live in Gulshan and dropped Mr. Asof daily on his Vespa who used to live in Gulberg at that time. Another guy was the ever charming Mr. Imtiaz Ali from Clifton, a handsome and well built guy, used to hang around with the two groups, his famous ?acha bean chood? became a standard for this abuse for the years to come. The next group of this community was of the Lover boy Mr. Zia Rizvi and myself, Mr. Junaid Hameed Khan. Both of us used to come together on a bus as Mr. Zia lived on my way to the institute. Initially nobody from the rest of the groups talked to me, thinking of me being a Panjabi. The mastermind of all times Mr. Warris Hassan Ansari led this stance. It was by accident that they found out that I was not a panjabi and was admitted to the group.

The friendships grew stronger and we startrd meeting at restaurants and homes, at that time there was a group called the dirty dozens of 12 people, but we later found out that few of the members of that group were not capable of this community and were left alone. The most promising place of our meetings was flat in Block13 of Gulshan-e-Iqbal. It belonged to an Uncle of Mr. Warris who later became his father in law. As Mr. Warris?s family was in Hyderabad so he used to live here. The children of his uncle, which included Mr. Warris?s wife to be also used to live there. All the meetings of stupid ideas led by Mr. Warris used to take place. It was a strange place, once anybody landed there, he used to think many a times before going home, our king of laziness used t sleep there for days and did not see his family while remaining in Karachi. This place was termed as Warris ka flat by all of us.

Time passed and at the end of first year we all had realized everybody realized the value of Warris Ka Flat. The juniors came in the next batch and along with them came the three musketeers, Mr Farhan Ullah Siddiqi, Mr Kashi Ahmed, and Mr. Adnan Hussain. Mr. Farhan was known as the Donald Duck for the magnificient mimicry and was fond of a multicolor eyes cat whom he fed daily for the rest of his stay at FAST. Mr.Kashif was noticeable for his clothing and I still could not figure out the color of one of his trousers, it was maroon or burgandi, no one knows. Mr. Adnan was a charmer and hell of a guy, a grammarian who loved cricket and was noticed for his game.

After three years of fun and God Knows how many sleepless nights at Warris Ka Flat few of us graduated but still the bond of friendship was there and even after graduation met regularly at Warris Ka Flat. Two of us, me and Mr. Zia joined IBA and missed every bit of FAST and that is probably the reason why both of us never made any friends like the ones we had at FAST. The rest were still in FAST and had joined the batch of the three musketeers, the bond strengthened there. It was a play after which Mr. Warris became the Daddy of the three musketeers and in turn we came their uncles, a family structure we still follow.

I must mention the collective goof up of these guys and that was Imagine Software house, straight from college and all of them opened a software house with an aim to excel in this area, it did not prove to be a good idea, but it surely made a lot of people and taught a lot of people, it served as a temporary replacement for Warris ka flat but after all original is original.

The year 1997 saw the disbursement of these guys with everybody walking into the professional life and getting busy but still there were meetings at Warris ka flat, but in 1998,99 things changed a bit, Zia left for Tokyo, Asif went to Amsterdam, Farhan went to States, and I myself was in the Middle east most of the times. It gave us a very few occasions to celebrate at Warris Ka flat and everybody started talking about when will we meet and have fun.

It was on 5^th of July 1999 that the foundation of Electronic Warris Ka Flat was laid, I was stuck in Kuwait for more than a month and one night from my hotel room sent a mail addressed to all these guys, with the subject, ?Who is ready for Kashmir?? Somebody replied and talked about all the volunteers, who were actually the friends out of Karachi and when will they come back and have fun together. To this the idea of making the net and this group of email addresses the new version of Warris Ka Flat emerged, and was widely accepted. It is going on for more than 7 months now and has changed our lives by all means, we may not see each other anymore so frequently, but it all looks so close and happening as we are always together and has really helped in making this bond stronger.