weekend cometh

A long weekend is upon Pakistan, a most welcome break from the evil cluthes of work.

Home i be heading tonight.

I do hate the 6-1/2 hour bus ride to home, it totally destroys my back, those damned seats are NOT comfortable at ALL. Imagine sitting in a bus for 6-1/2, like once i thought that enough is enough, and started going on those fokker flights, would take me 2 hours, that was bliss, yet expensive , they charge a one way 4k form Lhr to Pesh. And then they stopped the fokker flights after the crash in Multan, so back to 6-1/2 hour drive. Then they started those new ATR flights, new planes, small as a fokker, maybe 2 inches longer. Ticket went up 1k. so took that once. then one day i needed to get back to lahore in a hurry, so booked a flight, this is around 6 months back, so that day their was too much rain the flight was canceled, anyway, again after a few weeks i thought why not utilize the ticket, i call em up , get a booking done, and i reach the airport , flight canceled again. 3rd time same thingy happens, 4th time after 2 months i decide to again try it out, i get the flight , get on the plane, it takes off, 15 mins to landing "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your captain speaking, due to heavy fog in Lahore, we would be taking this flight back to Peshawar". so i call home,Abbu: "Reached safely" ? mE: "Yup, safely back in Pesh, tell my lil bro to come pick mE up" So after 5 tried on the same ticket ive decided that that ticket is jinxed, so i will be returning it , but im too lazy for that , maybe i will give it a shot one more time.

This reminds me of another incident not so long ago with PIA, i believe it was Nov 2004, me and a couple of my colleagues had gone to Khi for work, we spent there around 2 weeks, in which our work routine was chaos, we would get up at 9 in the morning and reach the hotel back at 3 or 4 on the next morning and would again start at 9 next day, for two weeks without even weekends we worked, on a sunday we got a flight back home, it was around 6pm, that flight which reaches Lhr by 8:30. So anyway, we are waiting in the lounge and we see the Customer regional manager walking in and i say to my two other colleagues "You better pray before we board this flight, like this guy has gotten soo many bad wishes from others specialy us in the last 2 weeks and he is onwith us ". So we board the plan and im extremly exhausted and i dont wait for even the plan to taxi before i sleep, a while later the colleague sitting next to me shakes me up "listen the plane is making noises", im like "Butt sab, it just the sound engines make when they are working , now please let me sleep" , he has fear of flying so i didnt pay any attention. And then started the turbulence, we are only 30 mins after take off, and some serious shaking starts, meanwhile this guy keeps interupting me that plan is making weird noises. And then there is an annoucement "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your captain speaking, due to some techinical dificulties we are going to turn back and try to land in Karachi"...and i sprang up, looked at my colleague and ask him "did he just say TRY to?? as in TRY to land back??" and then the real turbulance started , anyway, after another 30 mins we safely landed back , as soon as we touched down, there came clapping from the back side of the plane. like imense intense clapping, and we were like "emotional Pakistani bhai ", later when we went to the lounge the other colleague who was sitting back told us that out of the two engines , the left one had fire and smoke coming out of it, that is why there was that clapping done when we touched ground. We left in the same plane 3 hours later.

Did i mention how umcomfy this journey i nthe bus ride is ? i did ? well it is, it is. its 4am now, around 7am i will reach my destination, so far the two aunties sitting behind me have dicussed and shared some intense 'facts' about certain fishy relationships in all of their relatives and associates with half of the bus in their 'low' voices. The writer from bold and beautiful would have been ashamed of his plays if he had been here. The guys on the seat next are marveling at the bus service and how it is catching up on the late departure and how greatly we are progressing in infrastucture, motorway should be worshiped, the hostess has made it a point of bumping into my shoulder whenever she is passing so that my half alseep mind is jerked back to reality every 5 mins,like its not my fault that i have broad shoulders is it? . Thank God there is no kid on the bus tonight who will cry the hell out all the 6 odd hours.

And i be home now, its around 8:40am, and now i am gonna hit the bed. Sweet dreams,