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Tuesday 12 June 2012

Trip to a Holiday Resort

We Sindhis are devotees and lovers of saints — The Men of Allah, who include Pir Fakhurs alive and those whose last abodes are located in Sindh. My family members, parents, uncles and aunties, cousins and my brothers and sisters are dedicated, fully devoted flowers of Hazrat Lal Shahbaz Qalander of Sehwan Sharif. It was the month of June and it was too hot at Karachi and even entire Sindh was burning scorching sunlight. I and my brothers and sisters boarded in an air-conditioned bus of Blue Line Travels at 7 am in the morning from Cantt Station Karachi. On the way we saw Mango orchards on both sides and in same places large number of guava trees, orange and papaya trees and green refreshing banana trees. At some places under desert condition with large number of palm trees loaded with yellow bunches of dares. It was very beautiful. When the bus crossed Jamshoro its A/C arrangement went wrong so the driver stopped the bus and by mobile phone sought the help of mechanics from Blue Line Travel branch located at Hyderabad. The mechanics readily arrived in a speedy company car and it look about two three-hours to repair the A/C arrangement.

We started again at about 12 O’clock and stopped on our way to have this spot we took another connecting bus of Blue Line, which was unfortunately heavily crowded and packed to the capacity. We were made to stand in the bus even my sister did not have any seats. The bus then traveled through sugar cane farms and banana plantations and many green rice fields irrigated by canal water. It was all green and some what green and some what fresh cold breeze was blowing. On the request passengers the bus stopped all the passengers got down, washed their hands and feet in the irrigation stream-lets flowing towards the rice and sugar can fields. About half an hour passed peacefully when 3 kids escaping the sight of the elders plugged into muddy water and sank waist deep into stinking mud. The driver, conductor and cleaners helped to pull the mischief monger children. It became a problem to have their clothes changed and to be washed in the stream-lets water. We reached Sehwan Sharif near sunset. We thanked God for an arrival at Sehwan. We paid a quick visit to the tomb of the Man of God and offered Fateha and went to the guest house constructed nearly for the visitors. Unfortunately it was heavily crowded because the every day lot of devotees come from Thatta. We had no room to spend night there, so on the advice of some elderly servants of shrine management we hired a room in a nearly hotel. It was very old fashioned hotel having old type of cots infested by bad gugs. What a terrible, painful night it was that we spend in hotel. When we left the hotel, hotel manager demanded Rs. 300 for double bed room, which had no A/C arrangement and plenty of water. Originally we had made a programmed to stay at Sehwan for three, four days, but after spending a sleepless night at the hotel we resolved to return Karachi by the first available bus. Hiring a Tanga we reached the bus stand. The first bus was expected to leave Sehwan at about 9:30 am. There was enough time to take breakfast. But it was a misfortune that my sister had forgotten the bulky tiffin at the hotel. My brother went back to the hotel and after an hour brought the information that some other boarders or customers of the hotel took the tiffin away.

No we cannot curse our fate for his trouble. We took the breakfast at the bus stop hotel of Bheal Puri, which costed us, another hundred rupees and went to buy tickets for our return journey. The next bus for Karachi expected to leave Sehwan at 2:00 pm. Apparently in the hot summer we could not afford to wait for the next bus to Karachi. So we caught the bus from Thatta. It was a Sindh Transport bus having no A/C. However we boarded in it because we had seats available when we reached Thatta we caught another luxury bus and reached Karachi at 4 O’ clock. This journey costed us a lot and caused a lot of inconvenience. In fact the Auqaf department of Government should come forward and make proper arrangements of boarding and lodging and transport to provide facilities to the devotees of the saint coming from all parts of Sindh and even from other provinces.

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