ON May 4, the College of Physicians and Surgeons held its 53rd convocation at its premises in Karachi which we attended as a family member was getting her degree.

Unfortunately, the convocation ceremony left much to be desired.

Guests had to hand over their purses to an inadequately managed desk that scattered them on a grassy ground around them. Cellphones were not allowed and had to be handed to a similarly poorly managed desk.

Once inside we were lucky to get seats beside pedestal fans, but because we had to sit at the far end of the ground we couldn’t see the ceremony as no TV screens were placed. We scouted for places nearer to the stage and when we managed to find one in the centre there were no fans and soon all of us were drenched in sweat.

As soon as our family member got her degree we decided to leave promptly because it became unbearably suffocating inside.

Retrieving our purses was a nightmare because the lighting around the area was poor and the two hapless men manning the desk were unable to manage the crowd who had decided to take it upon themselves to look for their bags with the help of torchlight from their cellphones. The chances of our losing our bags or getting stolen were needless to say quite high.

We also paid for a formal group family photo by CPSP’s official photographers who were nowhere to be found.

We saw several senior citizens sitting around tables waiting for food to be served, many with probable health issues who needed to have their dinner at a decent hour, but because the ceremony continued till the wee hours the seniors had no choice but to wait it out.

One was expecting the CPSP offiicials to figure out the modalities of convocation ceremonies after 53 years, but sadly that didn’t seem to be the case.

From a disgruntled attendee
Karachi

Published in Dawn, May 19th, 2019