Van-dalism

By Sidra Rizvi

When I started my first year in the university, my dad called me close and said ‘sweetie now that you are in university you should be more independent’. This was a sugar coated way of saying ‘come to your “auqaat” and stop dreaming that the car would be available whenever you need it’. But since he was aware that while crossing the road he still has to hold my hand, he decided it was unwise to trust me with the transport system of Karachi. Therefore, on my first day he marched up to the numerous van drivers standing near the administration building and handed off my responsibility to them.

Since then the better part of my first year was spent waiting and running after the van. My van every morning would come around 7:50 am. By that time there was hardly any space, if at all, left in it. The only seat was by the door which I disliked because I had to get off again and again to allow more ‘hapless damsels’ to stuff themselves in the back. However by comparison the morning ride was surprisingly less torturous. Very soon we would arrive at the university. My department being the nearest I was carted off fairly earlier.

The real agony started when it was time to go home. Come flood or rain the van’s policy was to leave by 2:30 pm only, even if that meant killing and hour and a half in between. The van would soon start filling up with my fellow ‘van-dam-sels’ and following their suit I would too hurriedly go in and sit by a window. The van then visited various departments of the university ingesting one woman after the other, until the van was so full it could very likely vomit. Nevertheless it proved it had a very strong stomach and bravely gobbled more. Women were forced to sit so close that when one breathed four others felt her lungs expanding.

Tired after a long day at the university the only thing that kept me alive was the thought of my comfy bed waiting for me at home. However, the thought was mutilated by the hour that I had to spend in the van while other lucky girls reached their destinations. Everyday I would pray that at least half the girls would stay home so I could reach my house earlier than usual.

And then there were the songs. Belonging to God knows which century, almost all the girls in my van, as soon as they sat asked the van driver to switch on the ‘tape’ which he obligingly did. And the music that came out from it made one wonder if the world was coming to the end or was it an Indian music artist exercising his vocal cords.

Travelling in a van is not as easy as people think it to be. It certainly wasn’t the thing for me and very soon my dad realized it too. So now he has given up the hope of me ever travelling on my own or in a van and without a word comes to pick me up.