Finally, a huge trailer screeched past me and halted. I could not believe that it had actually stopped for me, and I stood rooted to the ground
THE first year of textile studies drew to an end and I planned to spend my summer vacations in Switzerland, simply because there were mountains there. In the meantime, an English classfellow of mine, Johnny, who was a regular vagabond, suggested that travelling by hitchhiking would be more fun.
“Now what in the name of heavens is this hitchhiking, Johnny?”
Johnny replied, “It’s simple, take any public transport to the outskirts of the city and stand by the road showing your thumb to the driver, and with a little bit of luck you will get a lift for, wherever you intend to reach.”
“For free?” it was then a totally novel idea.
“Absolutely, only you have to amuse the driver during the travel, by telling him jokes and things”
“Any Jokes?”
“No, only dirty jokes.”
It’s that simple?”
“Not really but the taste of the pudding is in eating it.”
So I decided to taste the pudding of hitchhiking during my forthcoming travel to Switzerland. But first, I wanted to practise this method on home ground, in England. I was on a shopping spree, rug sack, walking shoes, tent, sleeping bags, Swiss knife etc. Wordsworth’s poem Daffodils, still danced in my mind as taught and explained by great Safdar Mir Zeno to the general public. So I decided to visit the native village of this poet of nature, on the banks of Lake Windermere, in the fabled Lake District.
But immediately there was an obstacle in the shape of a distant relative of mine, Chacha Azmat. In his run down house I was lodged in those days, along with a few dozen Pakistani labourers. This Chacha, who looked after me like a proper Pakistani Chacha, stern but kind, went into a state of shock when I revealed my plans of reaching Lake District by means of hitchhiking.
“You mean to say you will just stand there like a bloody beggar and beg for lifts?”
“That is the general idea”
“I won’t let it happen, over my dead body”
“But why Chachaji?”
“Aren’t you a Jat anymore son?
“I am pure and authentic as good or as bad they come, a Jat”
“But Jats don’t do this sort of thing, begging from people only Kumni Kamin stoop so low”
“Well I stoop to conquer Chacha and I don’t believe in your cast system. I am going to do it Jat or no Jat”
“I will report it your father Choudhry Sahib and tell him that your Crown Prince is begging on the streets,” he threatened.
“I am sure he will be very pleased, I know my father.”
Then Chacha Azmat offered me a bundle of pound notes.
“If you are short of money here, go buy yourself a train or bus ticket to wherever this Worthless or is it Wordsworth place is ...”
“It’s not the money Chacha its the spirit, the freedom, let me explain...”
Finally he gave up and with a heavy heart dumped my rucksack in his Morris Minor and took me outside Manchester on the road leading to Leads and onward, to Lake District. When I stationed myself and raised my thumb, he again pleaded with me and offered to take me personally in his Morris Minor to the Lake District to save the honour of Jats in general. I felt guilty when I refused again as he was doing all this out of sheer love for me. He shook my hand, embraced me then went across the road because he was convinced that by the end of day I will still be standing there without any success and he will take me home. I raised my thumb and kept it in that state for next hour.
Finally a huge trailer screeched past me and halted. I could not believe that it had stopped for me. I stood rooted to the ground when a burly Scottish looking driver peeped from the window of trailer and shouted “Hey Laddie, you wan a **** lift or not?”
I was on my way to the Lake District and the last thing I saw in the back-view mirror of the speeding trailer was Chacha Azmat’s face, smiling and waving.
Finally, a huge trailer screeched past me and halted. I could not believe that it had actually stopped for me, and I stood rooted to the ground 
