Story Of THAT Car!
CAUTION: This is a long story written out of extreme boredom AND I suck at story-telling.
It was a Thursday night and time was not on our side, so wasn’t luck. Things were getting tougher as the deadline drew near. As I recall with my bad memory, only a week was left to finish off the task before flying out. There was uncertainty about the end but the determination was rock-solid. We weren’t aware of the time, day or night. Only one (maybe two) thing was on our minds – victory (and defeat too).
On this particular Thursday night we decided to go out to eat, as we usually did at some point of the day whenever we achieved something or failed to produce anything for a very long time. As I said, time was of essence hence eating out in least possible time was always favoured. That meant something close by. The other factor was our light pockets during those days and the debts we had taken from almost everyone we knew (I hope we returned all of them!).
So, if some of you haven’t already guessed, this is a page from the days we were working on the (second robot). I like to call that period The Robotic Age. Anyway, PNEC being situated in a prime location – Karsaz, the obvious choice to eat was Mohammed Ali Society. Perhaps, the cheapest place there was Ideal Restaurant (ideal, indeed). I don’t remember how many of us went there but I’m sure about three (including myself). The other two included Atif (the guy in the video) and Munzir (deserves a whole post for his achievements and geniuses). On that team of four, two of us had cars. That particular day, I left mine at home (because my father was in Karachi) so we went out for dinner on Munzir’s car hoping that it doesn’t stop midway. The car obliged, and we were relieved, obviously. After satiating ourselves with some nice (and cheap) food and discussing further plans on how to make the night more productive we decided to leave.
The driver (Munzir) turned the key and the engine roared. The car moved, and we were almost assured of reaching back to PNEC which was only a few minutes drive. But then Uncle Murphy had to come in somewhere!! The car stopped, running short of fuel of either kind i.e. petrol and CNG. We tried giving it a push several times, but the car did not respond as if it was comatosed (is that a word?). We shared a few laughs partly because we knew that was likely to happen. In fact, it should have happened earlier!
The car was heavily used during those days to travel to the Co-operative market in Saddar to get electronics stuff including ICs, batteries, MCUs, transistors, wires and other things like wood sheets, bearings etc. So we decided to park it just there in shade, take some of the required stuff for now and get the car in the morning when I would have my car too. So we pushed the car under a huge tree where it was pretty safe and started ambling back to the College.
Reaching Karsaz, I saw a couple of ambulances. A few more followed. And then many more, each stuffed with at least 3 human bodies with blood trickling down on the road. We sensed something wrong, perhaps some firing. I recalled it was Benazir’s arrival that day but we knew she would have been home by then. Still, sensing danger we paced back to the safety of PNS Jauhar. The guard was unaware of anything until then. A few phone calls and the reality dawned upon us. Bhutto was attacked – but survived easily. Many others lost lives, sadly.
We dismissed all fears and started working but tensions started to rise outside. When things became clear, we realized that petrol pumps will remain closed the next day and we assumed the rest. We got home the next morning (at least I did). The next three days were parallysed with no transport and closed fuel stations. This meant the car stayed in the safety of the tree. More importantly the work on the robot suffered, as we couldn’t get to the market. All of cursed Benazir Bhutto and vowed never to vote for her – if we lose (remember??).
When mobilization started in the city, we had more work to finish in even lesser time and so it was decided by Munzir that the car would be taken care of after returning from Islamabad (we were supposed to fly on Thursday [25th]). He was probably right. Nothing could’ve been done IF parents were to stay out of it. But not all of us were aware of this, certainly not me.
We flew on Thursday, with hopes of some achievement. The competition didn’t start well, and we were out first day (another story!). Dejected, the two most hard-working guys (Atif and Munzir) fell on bed, probably after three days. The other two, Anas (me) and Awais decided to get some nice food in Rawalpindi (we were trying to move on).
On our way to some place that was supposed to serve some nice karahi (which it did) my phone rang. A lady spoke in a worried voice that was easy to recognize. It was Munzir’s mom (MM). Now, why did I get that phone call is YET another story. For now, it is suffice to say that I used to get all his calls (because his phone was powered on for only a few minutes in a day of 24 hours). The conversation went something like this:
AI: Assalam-o-alaikum
MM: Walekum Salam. Where is Munzir?
AI: He is sleeping.
MM: Wake him up.
AI: I’m not close to him right now.
MM: And his phone?
AI: The usual.
MM: Do you know what happened to his car?
AI: Hmm yeah!
MM: And where is it?
AI: *silence*
MM: He says it is in the college…
AI: Yes it is!
MM: NO! It is at Bahadurabad police station and they have included it in BB’s attack case!
AI: *realizes immediately what that means and so keeps silence*
MM: *she said few more things before asking me to pass on a stern message and then hung up*
We reached the eating place when the phone rang again and I left it ringing after looking at the number. And then I switched it off, out of fear 
Everyone can guess what happened next. Also, you guys are probably bored of it now but as I said, I’m really bad at telling stories. So I will just end it with a picture of the car in the condition when it was found and taken to the residence.
Actually its pretty clean here. The glasses are clean at least. Damn, I should’ve snapped it with my own cam when we used to check on it everyday for three days prior to flying 
And yeah, I still feel we lost because of BB!!! :@
So, Absar, how many times have you ridden that car?
19 comments
With all of that….that car was a pretty useful thing. it was quite handy….as far as i recalled it got reconditioned around couple of months before this incident.
All i can add is that Karachi was the best i had while staying in Karachi and although it was not in Karachi.
Those were the days….u forgot to mention the delay caused by the fund release for the tickets…. if all that had not happened we might have won
LMAO.Jab tak Munzir samnay na betha ho, maza ni ata is kahani ka
That story was SO cool
:D:D:D
And the important bit is, that you guys participated
Much of this robot stuff has to do with mechanical (programming PHIR samajh par jati hay)….and I remember how difficult THAT was, when we tried to make a lil project on our own in third year…
This is ONE incident to remember.. October 18th and your project ..
Bad timing. All I can say !:)
Nice one..
Do talk about why you received his calls
**grinning**
oh boy…one hell of a story…nice time to remember also…on the URS…
@Awais: There were other reasons too, but this particular one (in my view) contributed the most.
@Talha: true
@Uni: That story about phone calls would involve infringement over some of his private issues
@utp: yeahh..that is what reminded me!
AND needless to say, the driver wasn’t allowed to drive the car henceforth. I’m not sure of the current status of his status to drive … but yeah, he shouldn’t have been allowed to drive in the first place
@Uni: I told these idiots they needed a Mechanical Engineer, per meri koi sunta kab hey!!! :@
@talha: You could’ve chipped in yourself. You needed no invitation!! Oh, and btw, thanks for all the money lending stuff
A clean car is a sign of a dirty mind
there was something like this on some blog which means something like this…. life threatening incidents are the ones we laugh at when life moves on….
This was one of those events…
Believe me it was a very bad situation as Munzir was on the verge of being declared terrorist and we being his team members we were his partner in crime.
I can never forget how Munzir mood changed…remember Anas
here is the link to the blog from where i stole the quote in my earlier post
http://hiragoeson.blogspot.com/
“What doesn’t kill you…..makes a funny story 5 years later”
I really like this quote.
@anas…story for the publicity if its not allowed i won’t post it next time
@Awais: “What doesn’t kill you…..makes a funny story 5 years later”… i guess that applies to me. 2 “funny” accidents during my time at PNEC
.
@Anas: You’re welcome. I did chip in, but I was chipped out
. I don’t exactly know how or when.
Dude! Too many brackets in the whole story!
Yaar you reminded me of our sleepless nights back in those days! I remember our H-bridges were exploding, right, so I fell asleep working on the robot, and Sobi woke me up by keeping a soon-to-explode h-bridge next to my nose. Damn!!
@princefino: thats kinda weird
@awais: yep, read that…and yeah man his mood changed twice that day
btw that food was awesome! and the rented car served us nicely 
@talha: dude ur accidents weren’t funny!!
@absar: yeah u guys had so many small boards to make replacement h-bridges
btw..do u still smoke? i remember u used to smoke dunhill lights during those days 
@anas: They are now
, specially what Sohaib did in the hospital. Where did you get the Karahi?
Lol! No man, that affair was (very) short-lived. DAMN YOU Anas you’ve infected me with your bracketing!
What did Sohaib do at the hospital? When did the hospital come in??
And MAN… we made about a dozen boards for contingency…. we burned through them before we were into our first night
@Absar: The Sohaib mentioned by Talha is not Munzir’s bro, he’s talking about a character from our class.
@Talha: Karahi from a filthy place
but the taste was great!!
lol
there are too many links to other stories!
I remember that night. I’d been predicting a bomb blast would happen and had already planned a day off in the calender but when it did…it was a mixture of joy (day off and irrefutable proof that I was psychic), and guilt at feeling such joy.
The horror struck quite late when the carnage was flaunted on Geo, and when the stories of BB’s car running over corpses reached us.
I’m not sad she died either.