Reinterpretation

Five years back, exactly at this hour and date, we were in search of a working ATM machine. The road was Rashid Minhas road,  and the city was of Karachi. It was crazily rushy on the roads and in my heart of hearts I was petrified to meet something ugly. We had already had some real trouble at the ATM machine they had at the Marriott and picking up omens as I always try to, I was sure that owing to the date, there would most definitely be some glitches with the entire network, something quite a norm in our country.

Had it not been some immediate need, I would have loved to get it deferred. To be honest, I didnt think it to be an immediate need as such..... It was such that I was about to board on a flight early in the morning and I was out of cash.

As we reached the intersection that joined Rashid Minhas road to the main city road, the Shahrah e Faisal, we met a total jam pack. Some government-official's convoy was to pass through the road and they had blocked the road some 15 minutes earlier so that no one moves on the "V.I.P. route". The traffic teemed with excited youngsters not ready to miss any chance what so ever to find a let out of their energies, a very much Karachi thing. And that day, it was the day of the days .... the New Year Night. Voila!

Right then when we were amongst the front rows of the cars at the Rashid Minhas Road, I noticed a car right there in front on the Shahrah e Faisal that ran perpendicular to the R.M. road. It was hard not to notice this car, loaded with young boys of late teens and early twenties, who appeared to be too hyper by any definition of normality. The shrieking car stereo, their loud volumes and accompanying moves repelled like a bad stench. I thought of all kinds of vices that the boys had indulged themselves into before coming out on the road: booze, drugs, etc etc. and I looked away. I was appalled. 

Just then, there was this sound of a siren.

'The convoy has finally arrived', I thought with a sense of relief. But it was an ambulance siren. It was an Chhipa ambulance, its siren blowing loud, the red light on its roof blinking hard, and some patient in it probably breathing his last. The police administering the V.I.P. route protocol, stopped it there on the Shahrah e Faisal. Stopped an ambulance!

My heart sank. We cursed the Police and the Convoy both, and I fell in a silent prayer for that someone battling for life in that ambulance. After all that was all I could do, I thought.

The ambulance stood there in front of us and the siren wailed. We watched and cursed. 

And just then the most unexpected happened. 

The bad bad boy from that indecent troop jumped out. And I heard him yelling. He went to the traffic sergeant and no sir, he was neither quiet nor polite when he took him to task! A few others from the troop joined him as well and they fought for the ambulance to be allowed to proceed. 

They were there, still fighting, when finally the hooters began to blow and a convoy of a couple black Mercedes cars and army jeeps flew past us. Life suddenly returned back from a stand still. With a start the ambulance accelerated towards Jinnah Hospital, and I saw the boys jumping back into their vehicle.

The car moved, amongst that uncontrolled mass of traffic suddenly breaking free. And my gaze never left that car as long as it stayed in sight.

Many a times, when I am stuck in paths, I still think of that car.