5:12 AM
Basit Ally
Hey, I want to buy and learn guitar!
I whispered into the ear of my colleague and watched him as he gazed in disbelieve when he said;
“man it’s my dream too, I mean I wanna play guitar too.”
“Wow, let’s do this than!” I said with an excitement.
“yeah, let’s talk about it in the break.” he said with beaming eyes.
As far as I remember it was year 2005 or 2006 and it was a time when I was working as a successful telemarketer in an international call center and was rocking not only my company but was breaking the records of entire telesales industry. It was a time when the call center revolution had just arrived in Pakistan and was conceived like phenomena.
As the call center industry in Pakistan was moving forward so was I. within few months of my career as a telemarketer I became the most earning employee of the company with my untiring and enthusiastic efforts towards my job. The most thriving thing that I found in my job was the opportunity to talk to foreigners. I strongly believed I was going to learn a lot by talking to them as I always used to hear that “Goray” know a lot more than us. And I DID learn a lot that is still, and Insha’Allah will benefit me somehow in my life.
Anyways, I was telling you that I just got this thing in my mind about playing guitar which was never there as I never saw any of my friends or acquaintances having a guitar or talking about it. There was no one in my family who had any link with music or musical instruments.
Nonetheless, that night (we used to work on a Canadian campaign 11pm-7am) I talked to that fellow colleague in the break and when we were talking about going for a guitar, an another colleague came in the cafeteria and took part in the conversation;
"Hey Basit, you wanna buy a guitar, why don’t you buy mine? I don’t play it!" I got stunned as he said this.
“A guitar? You got a guitar? Where did you get it from, and why you wanna sell it, why don’t you play it?” I asked many questions in a row.
”Na, my aunt bought it for me but I didn’t have interest in guitars so I couldn’t learn it and for the last 1 year it has been put in the store room packed in its bag,” he said casually.
“Holy cow, that sounds great man, I have no idea where to get guitars from, just sell me the S**t man?
“Sure man, buy it today, we got our salaries tonight right! And yeah, take it in 1000 bucks only”.
“Are you serious? Only 1000 bucks?”
“Yeah man it has no worth for me but for you it can be very precious as I can see you are very excited about guitars.”
“Ok then, it’s a deal!” I said with excitement and that very morning when we got off from the office, we took bus to his home. Handed him his money as he handed me the guitar which I didn’t really like because of its color and design but I knew no one would give me a guitar this cheap. So that morning I walked into my home proudly with a guitar hanging on my back.
“Is it a guitar?” Dad looked at me glancing from the news paper.
“Yeah”
“And it belongs to?...”
“Us.” I said with a smile.
“Oh, where are you going to learn it?”
“I don’t know, let’s see!”… I said and walked with the guitar into my room to make my dreams come true. I knew it was going to be a long and wild journey…
To be continued…
