half past nomad

It’s a quick reflex. Lean over shoulder, grab belt, half unseen, pull belt over and snap.
It’s a ritual by now. And that should have been the first indicator of things to come when I got in the car with Hemlock.

I had emailed Hemlock asking to meet up with Marvy Mom & Co. who were in town. But emails weren’t read until after they had left and with that, disappeared any chance to meet them. Worse still, Marvy Mom had no idea that I had been waiting and wanting to meet her.
So another meeting took chance to be, since I needed to go book shopping and time constraints led me to an invitation from “a smarter-than-you-thynk, MBA-in-two-years, practicely-perfect-in-every-way driver” An invitation that I took up and left her gulping briefly in wonderment of its application.

The plan outlined, the rendezvous established, the plot thickened, and cars a chasing, we went a book hunting in Lahore. After a 2 hour neck craning research along the shelves, we realized we had naught to show for. Starving, both our mothers calling in to see what us hip folks were planning to munch, we ended up at a Chinese restaurant, the five of us; mother, daughters, brother and moi. I did the talking. They did the looking, listening, eating, drinking and laughing. Food was good. The bill even better when the waiter showed up, empty cash book in his hands, simply saying “2050″. Bewildered, we asked him to repeat his request which he promptly did. “2050″. In between laughing, the genius amongst us asked for an actual bill instead of the gorilla-gram. The receipt put the total to 2075 rupees. We left having paid, having chuckled and having read the instructions in the washroom on, well, how to use the washroom. Pure Genius.

Wheels away, the car started faltering. A warning light here, a flicker of headlights there and a hiccupping engine finalized things for us. Sitting in front, us two guys concluded in a split second that:
a) We would have to push
b) We would have to push frequently.
And in a casual, hey I love pushing cars around attitude, we clambered out, Hemlock driving, older brother boldly exclaiming at her lack of engine care. Apparently, the car had just returned from the garage two days ago. And that’s all it took Hemlock. Two days. The car alive, gears a going, we chased after it as Hemlock took off. Plans were changed. No longer was I being dropped of home or even at a nearby cab. No. I was suddenly a very much needed and wanted physical resource and would be kept as such, trapped in a tin car with no seatbelts, a dying engine and three ladies in the back who were curiously wondering what the warning lights meant at 1AM. Soon the headlights were definitely dead and the internal lights fast asleep. Far more vital however, was the horn. We surely did mourn the loss of that good friend. We mourned it even more by wanting to scream loudly at cars that we would have instead honked at.

All the way we chugged away on the tiny tiny highway.

At home, life took it upon itself to make up for the lack of mechanical life by re-routing its past, its history, to re-align paths of the yester-generation. And as I now know, Hemlock’s mother has been to my mother’s house during their college years. They went to the same college, had common friends, acquaintances and chances are they even shared lip gloss or whatever ladies shared back then. I don’t know, by now I’ve gone a little too far, wanting to gulp down any drink presented in front of me. Add to that Hemlock and her brothers’ fascination with my cell phone and a younger sister with a beautiful laughter and I’m somewhere in Lahore at 1AM being dropped off by even more strangers and my head is spinning and spinning and running about up and down the blue stairs in my head, passing cars, potholes, construction trucks, home remedies, road trips to Islamabad, special editorials to be written and it’s my turn to speak, yes take that road, yes that a way, yes that’s my house, side gate please, thankyouverymuch.

My head is spinning and I’m exhausted. But I’m home, finally.
With Marvy Mom’s digits.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 25th, 2004 at 3:06 am and is filed under General Lee.