Day of Love and the white pick-up van

On 21st Sept, 2012, after a teary eyed farewell from my parents in Multan, I reached Karachi. I reached Karachi on the "Day of Love" (as it was called by newspapers in the UK), the day when we decided to protest against a movie. Essentially I reached Karachi on the day that no transport was available and children were playing cricket on the roads and pelting rocks at the unfortunate cars that dared to pass by.
At the airport, after finding out that all the available taxis were demanding an ounce of gold to take me to my friends' place, I just waited around for a while and I fortunately ran into Faheem R., a comrade from PNEC, and it turned out that, coincidence of coincidences, he too was going to UK the next day and was going to be at UCL. We hired a radio cab together and set off into the city.
I reached my friends' place, I was greeted with the warm welcome that I had come to expect (Dabang Haleem zindabad). Juni, Madi (or shall I say Ladoo), Core, Mehdi, all of my post-PNEC, PNEC-buddies were there. Due to it being the "Day of Love", we were pretty much deprived of any fun that could have been had in Karachi, but nonetheless my bunch of friends were as awesome as always and we spent the day telling odd ball jokes, come the night we were faced with a conundrum - how to get me to the airport? Due to the situation getting worse thorough out the day, none of the radio cabs were available anymore, and that's when Juni and Madi called one of their friends to borrow his white "garri" (literal meaning = anytype of moving four-wheeler), and he asked them to come over and take it. I expected a car, but when Madi and Juni, came back, I realized that it was a white pick up van, the sort which I had usually seen transporting all manner of goods around the city, from chickens to school kids. And it was in this white pick up van in which I loaded my 40kg+ luggage, the three of us squished into the front and set off into the Karachi night. A more PNEC-esque fun trip to the airport could not have been wished for. We reached the airport, had baklawa, samosay, chai and a sprinkling of gossip. At about 2 am, I said farewell and went to the departures lounge. I am not sure how it was for the protesters on the street, but for me, 21st of Sept was definitely a "Day of Love".
Next stop Dubai...