The Rickshaw Chapters: 1

Chapter 1: "Girls should NOT be Trusted!"

Yes, I live in Lahore. Its been five years since I gave up the privilege of a daddy financed, chauffeur driven, air conditioned car and moved to Lahore from Islamabad to study. Ever since then, life has been nothing but an excitingly colourful, distastefully kitsch, romantically poetic, bumpy "Richshaw Ride".

The other day, I was standing on Ferozpur Road, near Model Town hoping to stop one of the million rickshaws, or Ricky as I like to call them, that jaunt around, cruising the heavily used main road, so I could go visit a friend. To much of my surprise, just that evening, they all probably decided to take another route. I couldn't catch one for what seemed to be long enough for me to have buffed my nails in the mean time!

At lengths, a dishevelled structure approached me and I thought to myself, "Oh! The ray of hope".. though it was just the ricky's headlight, right in my face! It stopped near me and the ricky dude asked me where I wanted to go.
"Bhai saab mujhay Askari 10 jana hai."
"Nae ji!" - and with this determined statement, he drove off!

I stood there in disbelief! This day, too, had to come when rickies would decide who their passenger are going to be, and I'd get rejected in their decision making -  so much for public transport. I looked around to check if anyone had seen this rather unfortunately embarrassing episode happening with me, and then I pretended to not care, rolled my eyes a few times and told my self, I wasn't going to take that creaking dinosaur after all.

All of a sudden out of no where, a super excited voice from behind startled me with a statement which, I'm still not sure, had the intention to offend me or was a consolation: "Koi nae, aisa hota hai! Kahan jana hai?"  I turned around to find a spick and span, perfectly manicured ricky parked behind me, and a young ricky boy in a flashy, studded Diesel shirt, with hair bleached to look blonde, looking daggers at me with a grin more deadly then that of the Cheshire cat! I told him where I wanted to go and he asked me to hop in.
"Kitnay lo ge bhai saab?", and I just knew what he was going to reply to that with - "Jo munasib"
"Batao phir bhi?"
"Aap beshak kuch na dena, may aap ko le jta hou."

Sounded tempting to me, though I was obviously going to pay him, I reluctantly got into his ricky and we drove off. Half way through a very comfortable ride, ignoring, of course, the ricky dude's occasional out of tune, full of intense expression singing "sanu ik pal chain na aawey, sajna teray bina", he slowed down and turned around to ask, "Bhai, aap say aik personal sawaal poochou? Aap ki koi girlfriend hai jis say aap pyar kertay hai?"

I told myself, this couldn't get worse! I wasn't going to discuss my love life with a ricky dude, so I bluffed.
"Jee meri to shaadi ho chuki hai"
"Acha, to is ka matlab us nay aap ka dil nahi tora!"

I sighed and decided to not respond. He refused to take the hint and continued. "Meri girlfriend hai na, wo kehti hai wo mujhay pyar nahi kerti! Kehti hai ussay koi or pasand hai."

"To phir to wo tumhari girlfriend na hoi na."

"Nae hum 3 saal se aikathay hai, aik doosray ko sub kuch batatay thay. Meri saari kamai zong ke cards may lag jati hai takay may us say baat ker sakou. May jahan jata tha us ko call ker ke batata tha, laiken ub wo suna he nahi chahti."

"Allah behtar keray ga. Us ko koi or pasand hai to ussay chor do, tumay bhe koi or behtar mil jaye gi."

"Girlfriend hai, koi train to nahi ke aik gayee to doosri pakar lounga."

I was speechless yet again, till he decided to break the ardently required silence saying, "Aap se pehlay wali sawari ko bhi may ye hi bata raha tha! Girls should NOT be trusted!
I was surprised by the sudden profoundness of this random floating statement, and his knack to emphasize on it in english, or should I say ainglish. The surprise was short lived, since it was topped by the statement that followed, "Aap bhi apni begam to trust ne kerna! Kahi ka nahi choray gi!" And with this he started weeping!

I dug out and handed handed him a crumpled cleenex from my pocket and pep talked him into believing things were going to get better, hoping he wont erupt again with his unsolicited life advices. Though, really, I had him moan and whine about how this one heartless girl had messed up his life, for endless hours till finally my friend's house was close! I started giving him directions to the house to distract him from mewling away about his oh-so-terrible life. Sadly, I failed. "Meray paas ub siraf ye rickshaw he reh gaya hai, may is ka khayal rakhta hou or ye mujay kaam may masroof rakhta hai. May ub us larki ke khayalon may gum aik minute nahi guzarounga! Khush rehnay ka ye he tareeka hai, achay kapray pehno or acha rickshaw challao!"

He continued till I got off at the gate and gave him money to shut him up. He refused to take them saying I was too kind to him and that this ride was therapeutic. He said he was roaming around in his ricky just to take his mind off her and I had helped in keeping him distracted. All I could think was "HARDLY - how could he have had his mind off her when she was all he went on and on about through out the way!"

I stuffed the money into his palm and said, "Ye rakho, or itna na socha kero. Allah behtar keray ga!"

"Shukariya bohat aap ka. Meri baat ka bura na manana, magar ye baat humesha yaad rakhna, Girls should NOT be trusted! Ub aap jao apni begam ke pass!" and with this he drove off... As for me, I think I learnt my lesson for the day - Never waste a cleenex on a ricky dude again!