12:40 AM: Entering the bathroom, I hastily stripped myself off my clothes and turned on the shower. Unexpectedly, the water was relatively colder and I let it hit me with full force. I dug my head down and watched as the water flowed down my body and flowed towards the drain. I could spot the remnants of fine grains of gray sand…. and with them flowed the sticky sweat that had accompanied my body for the most of the evening.
Ah, the heat of Karachi. Its so humid and so disgusting. And when you travel on the smoke filled roads, you can always expect such a mess. But apart from a full evening on the roads, I also happened to stay on the beach for a good two hours… and that made me look like a total coal-miner.
With those thoughts, I recalled the events of the evening….
That had been the day that I had eagerly waited for almost a month. My best old time friend Hammy was visiting the town and what kind of ‘langotya yaar’ would I be if I had not gone to visit him???, So I begged him to spare a few hours and he graciously agreed (though he continuously kept reminding me of the dinner offer with a bunch of chicks which he turned down to go out with me).
I left office and got to his place around 6:30. Then we pondered over where to go. Since he being the visitor to the city by the sea, he suggested to go to sea and spend some time there and to catch up on things. So, we caught a bus to Regent Plaza, and then got on a rickshaw to reach the sea-view. The time was just right. The sun was streaking low, the sea breeze flowing strong and the crowd in good numbers. We found a wooden bench and started to catch up on things. The central point of discussion was on career movies and the concerns of our respective elders about seeing their son facing the tough world without the company of a partner… lolz.
The sun was setting, I wanted to watch the awesome sight of the orange orb drowning into sun again, but the view was obstructed by the clouds… damn clouds!
When the darkness spread, we decided to get up, took a walk around the beach and went to a nearby cafe to get some tea. Then found a rickshaw to Boat basin to get some dinner. In the dinner we ordered Makhani Handi from Tandoori Hut accompanied by Roghni Naan. Then to digest this huge huge meal, we gulped down kahwa (whose effectiveness I still doubt). It was already well past 11 PM so, we thought about getting back to our respective homes. And guess what? No rickshaw would ever take us to our places without charging loads of money…. in this moment of despair, a van came to us and the driver offered us a ride to a more manageable place for twenty rupees per person only…. We had no choice but to accept the offer.
The driver, was one crazy guy! He drove that Suzuki van like a goddamn F1 car. turning wildly, braking and yelling at its best… but dropped us off to the designated place in less than 15 minutes… phew that was close.
The rest of the journey was uneventful. I dropped Hammy back to his place, I changed bus and got to mine…. and as soon as I reached home, I wanted to just get out of those stinky clothes and wash myself (this is where the post started from)
So, Hammy baby! If you ever read this… Thanks for the wonderful time… just like the old days. This has been the most exciting of our get-together for almost 10 years (since we moved to lands far away in order to pursue our desired lives) I wish we could meet much often, but doesn’t seem likely that we are going to meet again for quite some time now.
Thanks again, buddy! Live long and prosper.
LiveJournal Tags:
Hammy,
Burhan A. Farooqi,
Sea View,
Karachi,
Beach,
Get Together,
Old Friend,
Tandoori Hut,
Makhni Handi,
Roghni Naan,
Boat Basin