Sometimes, sitting in  the Professor's office at one of the most prestigious medical institutions of the country, I get a chance to reflect back upon my journey.
It wasn't easy, but it was certainly meaningful... 

My mother raised me as a single parent, as I lost my father when I was only two, and I owe all my success and accomplishments, to the sacrifices of that venerable lady, who is not here to witness the results of her efforts.

Back in 1997, I was studying at Nasra School (Malir),  I was the Head Prefect, and I wanted my name on the honour board at the entrance.

I was diligent, but I lacked some of what it took, so I passed my Matric exams with one mark less than the A+ grade.

A teacher said to me, this will remain a lesson for life, and he was right. 

It was not over for me though,  and more than two decades later, my profile got featured on the Memorial Calander of the  School's 70th Anniversary asa a shining alumnus.

Sometimes, things You desire, You do not deserve at that time, but if You persist long enough, You get more than what You asked for.

I am now a frequent guest on School functions, I often get a chance to talk to the students, and inpsire them for becoming the best versions of themselves.

DJ Sindh Govt. Science College was my next station.  it was a place I wanted to be at.  It has a beautiful, historic building, and with some luck, I got admission.  There I met some of the finest teachers of their time and learned from their wisdom.

Not only the subjects they taught, but at the same time their teaching methods and their style.

Most inspiring among those were Professor Muhammad Rizwan (Physics), Professor Rizwan Hyder (Zoology) and Professor Moosa Kamlani (English).

Professor Moosa was a meastro in the class, he knew all the textbooks by heart.

I still remember the first day, probably  it was 17th January 2000.

I was standing right at the place where the clockpost is, wondering, where I am, do I belong here or is it somebody's mistake?

The life had taken some strange turns.  For me, it was more than a miracle that I had qualified.  As I was going through my intermediate final exams, my mother had passed away after a breif illness, and I had to leave the place I was living at.  All this turmoil had affected my performance, and passing through a long period of uncertainty, I had finally made it.
I was there, standing bewildered at the most prestigious medical institution in the province, not knowing what lies ahead...

Next six years went fast.  While studying at Dow and going through the  internship, my personal life took several turns. 

I had started teaching at a local Institute in the evening.  "Meritorious Education Center" was my first exposure to the world of teaching.  I spent one year there and moved on to other institutes.  I did not thought of that, but that was the start of a life-long journey.  

Later on, I joined "Meritorious Ispahani Campus." lt morphed into Merit 'n'  Merit after some time, and remained my second home for more than a decade.  I met some wonderful people there, who were excellent teachers with strong grip on their subjects.  Some of them, you can see in the picture on the right.

By the time I was done with my internship in 2006, I had  already married and we had a baby daughter to care for.  

We were both stuyding and working at the same time. 

While I was going through the mid of my internship, the Government annouced Faculty Development Program and invited applications for PhD from abroad.  I applied for Dow University and University of Karachi.  After a few months, I received a call for the test and interview, which I cleared and received confirmation from the Co-ordinator of PhD (Foreign) Scholarship Program with the instructions to secure admission in a suitable University.  

I felt my self lucky and blessed, as I had just graduated months ago, and here I was, on the verge of getting a scholarship to study for a PhD from any of the best universities.

However, not everything goes as planned.  I received a call from the University for one more interview, there were only five people, who had reached this level among the applicants.  They filtered one out, and that was me.  

My hopes got shattered, I wanted to pursue teaching as a career and was not much interested in Clinicals.  

Unfortunately, we still do not have a teaching track in the Higher Education in 2022, let alone back in 2007.  

Research was the only option.  So I appeared in the admission test of Dr. Panjwani Center for Molecular Medicine and Drug Research, got admitted and was assigned to the Meritorious Professor Dr. Anwar Waqar (Late)'s group.

This was a forced marraige and it lasted for about a year.

In Dr. Waqar's lab, I worked for an HEC funded project "Allergies and Asthma in Paksitan" , as a part of which we were studying pollen allergens.

PCMD was not my type of the place, or I was not among the type of people who could survive there.  I was bored to the core.  

Finally, I decided that this was not working out for me and I dropped out of the M. Phil Program.

I was utterly confused.  The Coaching Center in the evening was paying well, but it was not a career.   I was trying for a lecturership in different medical colleges, and I finally got interview calls from two of them.  Baqai Medical College and Liaquat National Medical College.  I wanted to join LNMC.

In the mean time, I had qualified the GRE type Graduate Assessment Test with a 99.35 Percentile score.  I was hopeful that I might secure a scholarship.

This time, I had some research experience, and a couple of publications to show off.

Those were blessed days, I received two calls on the same day, one from Dow University for the test for PhD Scholarship and other from LNMC confirming my appointment as a Lecturer.

Three months went by... 

These three months are a distinct era in my life..

I met some wonderful people at LNMC.  

Professor Javaid Altaf Baig was the finest teacher of Biochemistry, I have ever met.  Dr. Mukhtiar Baig was too encouraging and would always push me to apply for upcoming opportunities  Mr. Sultan Ahmed was the one, who made me stand in front of the whole class for my first faculty lecture.

I also met some brilliant minds, who are now consultants in their fields.  Some of them are still in contact, and I love to see them progressing.

During this period, I was able to qualify all the entry requirements of the Foreign scholarship program and was offered a position at Dow.

"Do You have interest in TB?"

"I don't have it, but I will develop..."

This was the first conversation with the then Director of Dow Diagnostics Research and Reference Laboratory, Professor Rafiq Khanani.

The scholarship did not continue for the fourth year.  I chose to come back with three years of labwork, and pending thesis writing. 

I was sent to him.   He placed me at the Provincial TB Reference Lab.  It was being developed as a BSL3 facility.  It had a yearly culture load of >5000 with > 12000 Microscopies.  I had a staff of about 30 people to manage with a lot of coordination between the TB control Program and the University.

I also had financial issues, since the University made me join at the previous position of Research Assocaite.  I was managing the lab in the morning, working in the evening and trying to focus on the thesis in the remaining time.

It took me a year to complete.  And it was another difficult year.

In 2013, I went back to Glasgow to defend my thesis.  

Defending three years of intense work in three hours was a tough task.

Viva went smooth, and as per Professor Mitchell, I wish I still had that email saved somewhere....

"I spoke to Dan about it, and he told me you did a very good job!"

I was lucky enough, that on my way back, a selection board was about to take place.  I got through it, and was appointed Assistant Professor on Tenure Track.  

Later on, I felt I was not able to do justice with the position becasue of my administrative load, so I applied for a regular position, and shifted from Tenure track to the regular BPS position.

It has lesser perks, but I felt more satisfied.

Now I was performing my academic work, along with managing the Provincial Tuberculosis Reference Laboratory and the TB Section of Dow Diagnostic Research and Rererence Laboratory. 

Sometimes You are able to create an impact by virtue of companionship.

I shared the office with Dr. Shaukat Ali, who was the first principal of Dow College of Biotechnology.  The BS Biotechnology was his brainchild.

When it came to the two subjects of Social Sciences, I was able to convince him to include Marketing, and offered my services to teach it.

Since then my students have created amazing project mixing their knowledge of Biotechnology and Marketing.

These can be seen here.

Professor Kashif Shafique has been my batch mate at Dow.  He has been a dear friend,  confidant and advisor throughout.  

He needed a faculty member to teach Medical Genetics at SPH to MPH Classes, he asked me and I volunteered.   I taught Medical Genetics for about five years.

I also taught Nutrigenomics to BS- Nutrition classes.

Human behaviour has been my deepest interest.  As I completed my Postgraduate Diploma from the virtual University in Applied Psychology, I requested the University to allow me to teach Organizational Behavior to the MBA classes.  

This request was turned down.  

However, I was offered to teach Psychology to BBA.

I taught there for two semesters, and remained the best scoring teacher on student evaluations.

If I could take a rebirth, I would become a Business Psychologist.

A friend once said, "You don't get it, if You don't ask for it."  At times You have to design the future You are looking for.

I wanted to start an MBA, IoBM was the best option available.  I gathered a group of friends and applied for an MBA Health Management.  With some discussion, we were also able to get a group discount, as well as some exemptions.  However, again, things don't always turn out to be as You wish for.  Somebody got insecure, thinking of us joining IoBM as students.  Some disinformation was generated and we had to drop the idea, just before starting the MBA.

Sometimes, better things are waiting for You.

Through this adventure, I got acquainted to Dr. Asima Faisal, who was heading the Health Management Program at Institute of Business Management.  She offered me to to teach "Primary Health Care."  I did not like the subject, but to put my foot in the door, I agreed.

In the next semester, an opportunity arose for teaching "Management Issues in Health Psychology."  I gladly accepted the offer, and that was the start of a long-term relationship with IoBM as Visiting Faculty.

Health Psychology was my signature course.  I also taught Healthcare Marketing and Healthcare Leadership there.

I did not like the intense administrative work at the lab.  All requests to move to a pure educational setup were turned down.

During these depressing times,  Sundays at IoBM served as "breathing space" for me and trickle down effect kept me going through the weeks.

I was to determined to start an MBA.  There were few reasons. I was managing a lab and I wanted to do my administrative work more efficiently.

I wanted to do something useful with my evenings.  There were offers from a couple of labs, but I did it as an obligation to the job and I did not want to do something I dont like for the evening as well.  

I wanted to teach in the evening, I was already teaching at IoBM on Sundays, and it could serve as a good foundation.  I was also interested in learning more about Marketing and Communication.

So I applied for an MBA from Iqra University, and got enrolled and was able to secure an admission.

The apparent misadventure at IoBM was a blessing in disguise.  As all those years spent at Iqra studying, I was now teaching at IoBM simultaneously.  During these years, I got to meet some amazing teachers.  Dr. Shahnawaz Adil, Mr. Raheel Bhagar, Mr. Noaman Ashraf, Mr. Tehseen Javaid, Mr. Asgher Raza, Mr. Sohail Majeed, Dr. Amir Adam were among the best, who left a mark.

This time, I was a bit weary becasue of my previous experience and I also wanted to study Psychology in more depth. I got myself enrolled in a Masters of Organizational Psychology at the Virtual University.

I  already knew that the Higher Education Commission will only recognize one of the two simultaneous degrees, but I wanted to play safe and also wanted to  get myself hooked to a system, so that I can study Psychology at a predetermined pace.  

Studying simultaneously at Hidayah Academy, Iqra University and Virtual University was a challange, but I was able to get through, and complete the three degrees.

To me, this raises some questions on our system.  If someone is happy to put their time, effort and money to work extra and enroll in more than one degree programs simultaneously, why stop them?

Mehwar-1 got published in 2019.  

By this time, my writings on Personal and Professional Development were making some impact, and I was constantly receiving feedback, that they are helping the youth find their way.  

I later on released the book on Pdf, so that it can reach to anyone, who might get some help from it.