A series of fortunate events

As I rushed downstairs for school pick up time, my new driver informed me- ‘baji, no petrol in the car.’

I inquired, ‘why didn’t you tell me before? Now we will get very late.’ He just looked at me. I just reprimanded myself for being perpetually late for home time.

The car wouldn’t even start!

While I contemplated calling careem, my father-in-law rushed the driver in his rickshaw to the nearest pump- and started trying to turn on the car himself. It sputtered to life.

We ran it to that same pump, filled its tank, and got on our way.

I settled my young ones in the car and asked the driver to head off to the other campus.

He turned the key, pressed the accelerator but there was no sound.

On Friday, both campuses get off at around the same hour- so there is very little time for the commute and a whole lot of traffic to navigate. I urged the driver to ask for help since I thought he is only experienced in driving a rickshaw.

He got out, looked here and there, and tried turning the engine on in an acrobatic fashion- putting one foot on the accelerator, one foot out of the car, one hand on the steering and the other pushing the car forward.

It worked!

And then somewhere along the way, the car stopped.

‘Now what?’ I asked.

‘Pata nahi baji.’ He replied.

‘Let’s turn off the AC. It is not even working properly’. I suggested.

Then the car came to life.

My kids were getting a wee bit restless now.

Somehow, one more stopover later, we reached the school.

I hurriedly went to pick my eldest as the school wore a stranded look by this time. And the driver was still trying to fix the car.

‘Should we call a careem?’ I asked the kids. ‘Oh, since it is almost namaz time that will take too long as well.’ I answered myself.

‘Come on let’s say Bismillallah.’ I urged myself to push through.

It was a hot day being a March equinox. We had taken the small car that was in dire need of cleaning- since it hardly got used. The kids were edging towards crankiness and I had plans of arson for this dabba of a car.

Then suddenly it stopped again- right beside a big putrid rotten dump.

I could feel migraine creeping up. The kids were sweaty and complaining. The driver was sheepish.

Oh, bother!

Sixth, seventh and then on the eighth stop, all of us had had enough!

We had been cramped in the car for a good one hour. There was so much traffic, so much noise, so much dirt, and too many stops. My kids were wailing, I was seething and the driver was puzzled. He decided to go ask for help from other rickshaw drivers.

He came back with the diagnosis that there is no water in the engine.

‘Baji, pani dalna paray ga. Gari heat up ho ho kar band ho rahi thi.’

I turned on my phone to call careem then turned it off. Is there something else we can do to while away our time?

I looked around. We were now in a commercial area with lots of shops around. But most were closed.

Oh, look donuts! I gleefully pointed out to my kids.

Some Pakistan day donuts-green and white-colored, cold coffee and milkshake later, we arrived home finally.

You may well ask where the series of fortunate events are.

Well, mishaps are part of life. What could have been a pity party of- why do bad things happen to us, why do we have to ride this car, what bad luck, why am I stuck with this- we chose to actively problem solve and improve our situation.

We could have passively stayed in the car, wailed and complained, focusing only on negatives and skewed our experience as horrible.

Instead, we chose to look at the silver lining. While sitting in the car, I told my kids the story of when, as kids when had a similar adventure and we had to push our car to get it started, again and again. That had my kids in fits!

I remembered I brought the credit card today; the donut shop was very near and open and we could actually turn ‘the series of unfortunate stops’ into a fun and memorable event.

Let’s not waste time feeling sorry for ourselves. Be more creative in demanding situations and always, always be grateful for the donuts live gives, even if the green ones only look good and taste, not so good.