'Beyond the Horizon': There's more to it...

Chapter - 19

***

"Chalo bus aa gayi hai..." Nawaz announced moving a little ahead from his waiting seat, eyes searching for their father to call him back for they had to board the vehicle wheeling towards their destination.

The journey from Karachi to Delhi has been anything but exciting this time. It was only downheartedness that was spread across their otherwise happy selves when they usually travel to India during other occasions. They all had a night's stay at Jaipur as they took a train from Delhi to here and were seated at the waiting hall rather an outbuilding near the bus stop waiting for their connecting bus from Jaipur to Mumbai. The usual travel route for them was from Karachi to Amritsar and then to Mumbai via Delhi through train, with less time to plan for all of it, they weren't able to find the tickets for their usual train and hence the long, time-taking route to their destination. Flights with sky-rocketing fares, again due to the short-term planning, were not at all an option at the times of inadequacy, a materialistic one. Few days of discomfort was bearable then to have the hard earned and much needed monetary be splurged when they have other ways to achieve it without investing much.

They were all sensible knowing well about what needs to be valued more between comfort and obligation. Not that they couldn't afford even after the loss, yet they had bigger and more important things to plan and plough money into.

"Tere Papa ji Kitthe reh gaye...? Nawaz ik vaari chakkar laga ke aa putt...chhut na jaaye gaddi..." Their mother spoke in urgency, checking for all the luggage, looking here and there in search of her husband.

It was an early morning travel for them. They have had freshened up at the lodge and had just helped themselves with some 'pyaaz kachouri and chai', a combo out of very few available food items in the only eatery on run this early.

Nawaz swiftly moved towards the direction their father had moved a little while ago. In no time they were back and were boarding the bus with all their heavy bags set and arranged at the trunk in back, as they settled inside the semi-sleeper seats. Not too comfortable for an almost twenty-hour journey but again they couldn't call for any better than this.

The bus's terminus was at Jaipur only and so they got the seats of their choices at the first few rows itself. Few hours into it and there was this 'the time's hit' movie 'Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam' in play on a small TV screen equipped at the center where the walking aisle of the bus started, right behind the driver's coach. Some pirated, repeatedly played DVD it seemed, which was time and again freezing while it was in run. The piracy and copyright acts were already operative yet was not taken seriously by then and hence the copied content of a relatively new released movie so openly shared and showed to the passengers. The drawn window curtains were giving a theatre effect inside the moderately dark ambience. Some of the clips were an exaggeration of emotions still a much-needed distraction from the depressing part of their own lives for last few days. The film was based on a musical background which was rather more interesting for Shehnaaz than the storyline for it seemed anything but natural.

The vibrant, transfixing shoot location in display, the picturization, dresses they wore, were all so fascinating to look. The actress she remembered from the 'Eye-Donation advertisement', who had been crowned the Miss World few years back, the pageant title best suited for her dazzling beauty gracing the screen, captivating everyone's heart around. It was their sister country's winning moment even then they had felt the similar pride as their cousins from India. Everyone in her school would talk about it, about her gorgeousness, about her deserving victory.

It reminded her of an occasional exchange of views between her sisters and their friends, when Shireen was adamant to prove her point that this kind of competition should not be given the importance it garners in the public eye for it could only bring complex to other females across the world for the various beauty standards set by the so-called title holders. That they mostly focus on the physical attributes of a participant more than any other behavioral characteristics.