This is not the usual tale of terror. Terror’s usual ingredients, the explosion, the recovered head and the severed limbs; the bits and pieces of human flesh are not present here.
It begins in a library and not the one that has been named after al Qaeda chief, Osama Bin Laden. Those sorts of terrors have developed their own digestive mechanisms within the Pakistani media, for the one discussed here, there is still no vocabulary.
The venue for this terror is one the largest state-run universities in Punjab. Thousands pin their hopes on institutions like this one, clamoring to get in, cramming for exams, hoping for jobs.
On the University’s many campuses, all pictured green lawned and well-manicured on the website, are thousands of female students. They are said to be doing far better than their male counterparts, but there are few studies to prove it.
The truths of female superiority are not ones that get much nurturing in Pakistan. The girls are nevertheless there, different numbers adopting different strategies of survival on a co-educational campus in an increasingly segregated country.
Some wear scowls and sullen expressions, others swathe themselves in yards of fabric; whatever works to eke out an education. Theirs are the paths of delicate compromises; with reluctant parents, with crowing clerics, with harassing male students and with apathetic administrations.
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