An Unusual Set of Circumstances Led to a Memorable Day

Preface
Monday 18th July 2022 – 20:00 Gurumandir, Karachi

I was on a bus, already late to work. Stuck in severe traffic, on one of those monsoon days, I had barely passed some distance from home for like another 28 minutes. Not realizing that I got on the wrong bus until I open Google maps far from my office location, moving in the wrong direction, which led me to the Shahrah-e-Pakistan near Karachi – Hyderabad Motorway. Leaving me stressed and worried about the unknown place. I asked people around and was advised to cross that very busy going road & took another medium of transport (Qingqi – pronounced Chin-Chee), which is a six-seater rickshaw, which is very common in South Asian countries. That day I traveled about 18.4 kilometers instead of 10 kilometers, getting almost 2 Hours late at work tired & restless, with shoes covered in mud and dusty eyes.

Setup
Tuesday 19th July 2022 – 6:10 Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Karachi

It was the last day to collect two of my packages from Daraz.com (the equivalent of Amazon in Pakistan) delivered at their warehouse located in a nearby area, as I was leaving work, I was frustratingly thinking about what I could do to get those packages. I had two options:

1. Leave & come earlier for work that day & collect it. (Major issue: the weather was unexpected so was my routine)
2. Wait till 10:00 for the warehouse to open. (Issue: it’s 4 hours wait, what will I do for that long & where?)

At first, I was to go with option 1 and started searching for a cab. When I couldn’t find one, I started to think about option 2 as I already had a rough day so I just wanted to get done with this one too, and started looking for nearby public places to spend four hours and found Aziz Bhatti Park opened at that time minutes near my office. In a few minutes, my inDriver arrived and I reached the park at about 6:30.

Journey
Morning of July 19th, 2022 – 6:32 Aziz Bhatti Park, Karachi

Entering through the half-open gates of the park, the view of the after-rain greenery in trees and grass looked so aesthetic and pleasing, the walking pathway was also cleaned to its color again. The sky was clear & blue and my sleepless eyes couldn’t stop looking at it.
I walked towards the benches and sat down, unstrapping the bag from my shoulder to relax. There were groups of people doing yoga behind me, mostly old people. Some of them were talking about their business and life while lying on the grass, something about that scene pleased me. On the other side, a bunch of teenagers and young boys were playing football on the grass enjoying the pleasant morning, I sat there for about an hour listening to music and the radio, enjoying the view of both sides, and contemplating the life cycle.
Then I took a walk to explore more areas of the park and at the very end of the park I found a small pond that looked so crystal clear showing the reflections of the surrounding buildings, and the sky getting cloudy was an indication of the rain to happen, after taking some pictures of the lake and laid down on the grass to enjoy the view of moving clouds in the sky with a time-lapse while getting some rest laying in peace on the grass.
While resting, the sky got so cloudy, that in a short moment the rain started and the grass was getting soaked. So, I had to get under cover in the shelter-like place (in the above images). There were 4 of them in the park, and 3 of them had no benches, which is where I was taking cover. One which has benches in them at the center of the park was occupied by the boys who were playing football.
Heavy rain continued for about an hour, I was standing all until the rain slowed down around 8:12, So, I took a little detour to see around the other shelters and got into one where some bricks were laying around there, I used them to make some sitting space for myself and sat there for about another 40 minutes. There were so many ants and insects scattering around collecting particles in the rain.
After a period of sitting tiredly on bricks, looking over to the shelter where boys were playing football, waiting for them to leave. Some seats were available on benches, So, I hopped over to that area and sat there watching the boys play their game on all moist ground, some even barefoot. Now that I have only 1 hour left to wait, I listened to the podcast titled How To Market & Sell Your Product? Ft. Haseeb Khan on Thoughts Behind Things while glancing at the after-rain situation of the playground in which areas were flooded. The rain hopefully slowed down before 10:00 and the sun was shining in the sky. Feeling refreshed, I went out of the park as the park was about to be closed.

I am now walking towards my destination Daraz warehouse located within walking distance of 18 minutes from here, on the way I picked up an energy drink to stay awake and hydrated. Getting to the location I see the shop closed, while the guard there was also waiting for the staff, which took 20 minutes. Gladly I got my packages within a few minutes. As I left, there was a smile on my face feeling proud about the journey that was so tiring and full of challenges. Now I just wanted to get home and sleep, walked to the bus station, and set for home reaching around noon marking the end of the journey.

Afterwards
Chapter of Sickness and Troubles

Upon getting home and all the troubles day full of struggles, I was not able to take rest or sleep and got involved in my daily activities, and the big mistake of not eating enough and drinking left my immune system weaker, it was again time for work, making it 24 Hours of no sleep and resting. Going into work believing all will be better, was a big chance I took, after about four hours in the office, I vomited and was feeling nauseous, I immediately took off from work, and took a leave for another day to get some treatment and recovery. I believe it all grew up from that one bad day that led to all the wrong things, as they say about Murphy’s Law.

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