Sixty Minutes in a Strange Land
The driver stopped the van, I thought he might ignite the
engine again but observing the passengers’ movement I understood that the
driver had deceived me. Deceived me by saying that he will take me to the last
stop. “Come on you boy, aren’t you going home?” he said, swirling his head,
pointing at me with his pointy chin. “But you had said that you’ll take me till
the last terminal”, I said with anxiety. “Come on boy, you can take a rickshaw
for no more than a hundred rupees and you’re at your home”, he said being sure
that I was new to travel to Karachi, easy to deceive.
I smiled and moved out of the van. And there I was in a
strange place. “This isn’t Karachi”, I thought in an agony, my face almost
washed with sweat. It was risky for me to open my bag and switch my mobile
phone on and call home. Helpless and hopeless I stood there waiting for a
rickshaw to come and take me home.
After five minutes or so, I encountered a rickshaw. I was a
bit relieved, gathering fake confidence, smiled reticently. “Will you go to
Garden chacha?” I asked him. “Where is that my son?” he asked strangely.
“Karachi West,” I said. “I don’t know that baita”, he concluded and rushed on.
There and then I understood, that why I didn’t see much
traffic on the way, there weren’t any markets on the way and it was all barren
land around. “That driver has brought me to a place out of Karachi”, I thought
with grief. I too started believing that this world has been full of selfish
and greedy people. Believing that for money people can do anything. They can
even harm others for money. All my optimism vanished with a single disastrous
experience.
Now I didn’t know what to do next. The only thing I could do
was wait. Wait for someone, wait for something to happen. After around
twenty-minutes, a hand from behind tapped my shoulder. Bewildered and shocked I
looked back. “Where are you going?” he asked, his eyes gleaming with full of
sympathy. “Karachi, but . . . ”, I didn’t say the whole thing. “ . . . but you
don’t know the route, right?” he asked with a gentle smile on his face. For a
moment I was afraid, afraid that this person too might not deceive me. I agreed
with the least expectation for help.
“I am also going to Karachi, I will make you reach there”,
he said. Thoughts after thoughts hovered in my mind. Should I trust this
person? What if he too deceived me. I was merged in these thoughts, utterly
confused. Then he held my hand, picked up my bag and pulled me towards a bus.
Having no other option, I surrendered. “This is the only bus for Karachi from
here”, he said, gasping heavily, after we were inside the congested and chaotic
bus.
It took thirty minutes to reach Karachi’s main highway. The
man then told me many things about Karachi, how to deal with people, whom to
trust and whom not to. His stories didn’t end but I reached my terminal. That
man whose name was, Shahid, also followed me. We then called for a rickshaw.
After inside the rickshaw, I said thank you with a gentle smile, received the same
in return and went on.
I looked back and saw Shahid crossing the road. Then I
understood that he was helping me. He wasn’t coming to Karachi. He will now
take another bus to go back. Another bus? Or the bus that just dropped me?
“This is the only bus for here”, he had said. “Now he will wait for the return
of that bus”, I thought. I heaved a sigh and got tears in my eyes, tears of joy
by the way.
However, in those couple of hours, I experienced two
opposing realities of the world. The first reality that this world is
self-oriented, full of greed and terror. The second reality that human beings
are still out there. That hope and help are still available. There still are
people, who give their hand to people in need and want nothing in return.
People who share their smiles and expand the bondage of love. Shahid was one of
the examples. Who, didn’t even say that he was coming to Karachi to drop me,
didn’t mention that he was helping a stranger, whom he will never see in his
life again.