Message of Mr. Arshad Bokhari

President, Old Ravians Association, UK & Europe

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to view our website for the Old Ravians Association UK and Europe based in London.

Most of us are aware that the word Ravian and Old Ravian have been in use for at least 125 years, all of our predecessors have been nostalgic about this remarkable institution which did create some traditions from the outset for incoming generations of Ravians to follow and just like the unwritten British Constitution, new ones as well.

Now it (GC/ GCU) is around 145 years of its existence and its ‘offshoots’ are spreading all around the globe and forming their own Union/ Associations to hold functions/ gathering to share their time in the Alma mater.

In UK such organisations have been in existence at Oxford, Cambridge, Birmingham, Manchester, and Edinburgh. In London, one the most effective Associations was formed in the President ship of Mr. Muzaffar Piracha in 1980’s (exact date have to be verified), Mr. Nisar Ahmad became Vice President and Mr. Shakeel Ahmed was entrusted the responsibilities of Secretary of the Association and Mr. Ashraf Qazi, the late Khalid Anwer and the late Jawed Saeed Mirza were responsible for the financial matters. All the above gentlemen with their spouses ran the Association with great zeal and were successful in creating a nostalgic atmosphere with most of the traditional stuff - speeches; jokes by Nisar Ahmad and music by Mr & Mrs Khalid Anwer were the salient features of the Old Ravian functions; and every year one or two functions were organized beautifully and they became like family get together events. Then in 2001, all the Old Ravian suffered a sudden loss of a very special lady, Mrs. Tahira Nisar Ahmad, suddenly diagnosed Cancer, and in a very short spell of time, she was taken away and the loss of Nisar Ahmad became the collective loss of Old Ravian Association. This effectively crippled the Association and Nisar Ahmed confined himself within the four walls of his home.

At the start of January 2009, Mr. Shakeel Ahmad was persuaded by other Old Ravians to re-launch the Association and called me, asking for my suggestions. I told him that Mr. Daud Ilyas would be a befitting President and anyone would feel privileged to work with such an eminent Old Ravian. I was assigned this task to request on everyones’ behalf to take up this position. Mr.Daud Ilyas refused this and pushed it towards me to take up the position and the same message I had originally delivered it to Mr. Shakeel Ahmed, who unfortunately agreed with Mr. Daud Ilyas and put this responsibility on my shoulder and the rest is history….

..I knew the work and my failing health, but my passion with the Alma mater gave me the strength to start it without any further delay. I was given Mr. Mohammad Suleman to be the Secretary; I requested Mr. Zafar Iqbal to be the Vice President and appointed five further eminent Ravians to form an Executive Committee which being in the field of Finance Mr. Hamid Masoud Qazi, from the field of media my choice was Mr. P J Mir, who was a famous sportsman of his time, Mr. Shakeel Ahmad and Mr. Nisar Ahmad from the previous administration having tremendous amount of experience, Dr.Javaid Ahmad Sheikh and Mr. Gul Hameed being people of exceptional qualities.

My gratitude goes to Mr. Suleman for his sheer hard work compiling the list and getting in touch with the members to ascertain their contact and those in spite of regular advertising, some are very reluctant and question if it really exists? Someone labelled it as ‘Dads’ Army’ - that all old people are trying to form this association and no young blood are given any responsibility, in response, I have assured everyone - let us put the foundations which should give a permanent feature in the lives of those who are permanently residing out of Pakistan and oceans away from our Alma mater.

Our Vice President, Mr. Zafar Iqbal has given me and benefited the Association from his wealth of experience and his partnership in this Association will be cherished. Mr. Hamid Masoud Qazi, has been a great help in stabilising this Association.

And now I must put on record my sense of gratitude to Mr. Harris Bokhari, the designer of this website, what can I say? When it comes to websites, I am totally illiterate and had no concept how to put one together, how it’s done, what material is needed and the most important, how long it takes? No idea, but Harris has spent day and night to bring this up to such a high standard. I have received many calls from different places who have admired that a non Ravian, British born and educated could create such website, which have everything like Ravian; Well done Harris.