This blog is no longer being updated. Last post was “Farewell”.
Hmm… lemme take the time to calculate the number of days I have been absent here…
OK, I know it would end up with a figure containing two digits, so let’s forget it for the moment. Anyway, so my holidays are here, finally here, and I am enjoying them, right?
Wrong.
Let me tell you that this always happens with me. Whenever my holidays are going to start, my plans start to pop up in my mind. As I had just yesterday repeated my list of plans to Imran, so let me do it again:
So you see I have created many a challenge for myself. And as I know that it’s useless making plans for myself, so there’s no need of taking them seriously. Well, not for the time being.
So I was saying something about my absence. No, I was saying that I am not enjoying my holidays. But something does happen to keep me busy, and thus enable me to get energized a bit. For example, those encounters which I have had with the staff of that post office:
My Abbu ji had to get his driving license renewed, and as I am on holidays, I was the one who was going to get this task done. Now if you are a Pakistani and you have had a driving license with you, you should be familiar with this “token” system. Whenever your driving license expires, you have to go the relevant post office, pay some token-fee, and get your license stamped with a new token. Abbu ji handed me his license, told me the address of the relevant post office, and I was on my way.
When I reached that post office, I paused. What I was looking at was a single room, with its gate similar to the bars of a police lock-up. A table was placed just after those “bars” and a man in his late twenties was sitting at the other end of it. With the back wall were placed some steel cup-boards, and I wondered if I would be able to pick their locks up. Three more persons were present, and were chatting in Punjabi.
For some moments I stared at that room, which was supposed to be the post office. Then I shrugged my shoulders, and stepped forward towards the bars. Everyone in the post office suddenly went quiet and stared at me.
“Er… I need to renew this license,” I said.
“Come tomorrow, the time is over,” was the reply.
Then they told me that I can come tomorrow anytime, before 1 pm. I thanked them and returned.
Next day, I was there at 11. This time there were only two guys present. One was the same guy of late twenties and other one was a fairly chubby fellow, with a beard that suited his face quite nicely. He took the license from my hand and examined it.
“Is it yours?” He asked.
“No.”
“Then?”
“My father’s.”
“Acha. Have you got the E-form with you?”
Meray farishton ko bhi khabar nahin thi ke what an E-form was.
“E-form?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Woh kiya hota hai?”
“It’s a form needed to be filled by the licensee when his license is being renewed.”
“And where would I get this E-form from?” I scratched my head.
“From 6th-road.”
“Khubsurat!”
How I managed to discover that E-form is another story, blended with some other stories. Azam, my buddy, was with me in this quest, and we used his Vespa scooter for transport. Finally, we came to know that there is an old man who has those E-forms, and who sits outside the Taj Mahal Plaza with many other persons sitting there who fill up people’s passport forms for a fee. Each one of them have got their own stories, and you can’t guess how many problems they might be facing in their personal lives.
Azam and I reached the place where that old man was supposed to be found, and we did find an old man there. I was sitting at the scooter’s back seat, with the tower case of Azam’s PC balanced on my leg. (Why I was carrying that tower case is one of those blended stories.) While getting on my feet, that tower case collided with the spare-wheel mounted on the back of the scooter and I tripped.
Luckily for me (and even more luckily for Azam’s tower case) I managed to balance myself again, finding that old man smiling at me.
“Jawani waddi da’di cheez hondi hai puttar!” (Youth is a very cruel thing, son!) He exclaimed.
We collected the E-form and went on our way.
Hmm… looks like I have just written the longest entry in my journal, and I wonder if anyone would read it completely. If you have, then let me tell you that I have finally calculated how long I have been absent: 10 days.
9 comments
zobaib ali
Aug 24, 2003 at 12:26 am
haaye re jawani … the ardenaline rushes , the flowing charges .. himmat e mardaan .. josh e zamana ….
Jogia
Aug 24, 2003 at 3:48 pm
C++ ahhh its nightmare, they say c++ comes naturally, if you cant get it now you wont get it later on!
it’s really sux when you have to go pay a bill or renew a license and you end up in a looong line and when its your turn its time up!
sal
Aug 24, 2003 at 8:46 pm
ahahahahhahaha e form LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL 6th street oh man i cant stop laughing at that..sorry for some reason it was ..funny..the way u wrote it yea
Saadat
Aug 24, 2003 at 9:51 pm
Yeah Jogia, C++ does come naturally, and I am lucky enough in this matter … but I thought some practice won’t let me thrown out of the business. And those loooong lines, although they’re irritating, they are a great source of people-watching!
Sal: well … I laugh too when I recall those moments … they actually ARE funny!
Sara
Aug 26, 2003 at 5:05 am
You could’ve got a driving lisecence 2 years ago and you didn’t?? I would die to have one and you didn’t even when you can!!
Saadat
Aug 28, 2003 at 12:46 pm
LOL, yeah Sara. I guess my Abbu ji is all correct when he says that I am so careless…
And here’s a little news that my monitor has crashed, so my updates would be more late from usual … *sigh*
sal
Aug 30, 2003 at 10:31 pm
get it fixedededed then!`
Moi
Sep 2, 2003 at 8:20 am
lol Books are good. Plans usually go awry to one should plan to not plan..but that sometimes doesnt wrk out vry well bc sitting around in one’s nightclothes all day isn’t fashionable or hygenic…ahh nevermind
Haha. Hope ur license deal goes well
Saadat
Sep 4, 2003 at 12:37 am
Nightclothes? I wonder if I can call my t-shirt and that sports-trouser as my nightclothes. But yeah, they are certainly not fashionable, can’t say if they are hygenic, but they are way comfortable!