So this happened back in Fall 2013 when I was working as a Lab Engineer at SMME, NUST and was conducting the Computer Programming lab for batch ME-05.
On that day, I was supposed to cover the topic of Strings. So the lecture started out as something like this:
Title Slide: Lab 10 Strings
Me: "Good morning class. In today's lab we are going to cover the topic of Strings."
Next slide: Showed a picture of Bilal Maqsood and Faisal Kapadia.
Me: "Strings is a Pakistani band which was formed in 1988. They released a couple of memorable albums before breaking up in 1992. Thankfully, they got back together in 1999 and have been producing hits after hits ever since. (Turning to the class) So does anyone know any songs of Strings?"
A bunch of hands rose up in the air. I pointed to a guy and told him to start. He started singing and the class hummed along playfully.
Then suddenly the door of the lab opened up and the head of the institute, our Principal (Prof. Dr. Abdul Ghafoor), walked in.
The guy who was singing was reaching for a high note at the time and on seeing him, he suddenly stopped. It sounded something like:
aaaaaaaaaaaa....ohhhh....
I froze in my place. The whole class looked at the principal, then looked at me. Suddenly there was a pin drop silence in the class.
The principal smiled and asked me, "aap abhi lab kra rahay hain idhar?" (Are you conducting the lab here right now?). I smiled back, "ji sir! lab kra rha hoon" (Yes sir! I am conducting the lab).
The principal turned around and started to leave. At that moment, I picked up my courage and resumed the lecture: "So that was Strings in Pakistan. But in Computer Programming, Strings is a data type which consists of a sequence of characters......"
As soon as the lab door closed and the principal was out of sight, I collapsed on my chair, bowed my head, and said: "Guys!! I could not have imagined that this would happen in a million years!". The class representative chimed in: "Sir! the timing was just incredible!!".
Recently, I got in touch with a couple of students from that class who are doing really well as professionals ma.sha.Allah. Talking to those guys made me recall that fateful day 10 years ago when I showed the Principal of SMME what Strings are!! 😄
P.S. Prof. Ghafoor never mentioned this incident to me again.
P.P.S He saw it.
P.P.P.S Humayun Asif, one of the students in tha class, manages to find that slide on "Strings".
