The Road Masters: A Journey of Recklessness, Friendship, and Life

By Mian Haroon Masood, Gujrat-based Pakistani political figure.

We grew up with a beautiful machine a 1962 Chevelle, a manual-shift monster gleaming in white with red markings running all the way down its body. It carried a signature: No. GT1000. We used to drive it around cautiously, especially when shifting gears, because second gear had an uncanny habit of getting stuck almost every time we were behind the wheel. But I had mastered its temperament. I could shift it effortlessly, almost instinctively, with absolute ease.

My love affair with automobiles had begun as early as Grade Two. That same monster was still under my command when I was barely in second or third grade. We had our moments.

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Then came the Dodges, Falcons, Mercedes, Corollas and a succession of machines that became unwilling accomplices in our adventures.

Once, we made it from our hometown to Lahore in barely an hour in a Corolla 1981. We drove at a pace that would make any sensible person question our sanity. There was, unfortunately or perhaps fortunately a senior lady of the family whom we had been instructed to transport safely to her home. She spent almost the entire journey practically airborne, eventually making a safe landing after what had been nothing short of a fierce, hour-long assault on the roads. No wonder she appeared completely zoned out, wobbling her way back to her abode after surviving our idea of transportation.

Inam, Imran, and I were the road masters the mavericks of our time. Very little could stop us from doing things that no sane young man today would probably even contemplate. We were, admittedly, a little crazy. We were fearless, driving dauntlessly and rarely giving a damn about whose vehicle was under our command.

Looking back now, I lament and sometimes deeply regret the way we tortured those machines. Back then, however, we were thrill-seekers. All we wanted was a machine beneath us, ready to burn rubber at any given moment. And so we did it perpetually, relentlessly, and mercilessly.

Our notoriety followed us well into adulthood.

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Some of the most famous victims of our automotive crimes included Talat, Gug Baji, Pupha Jee Fayyaz, Puppoo Bhaijan, and Fooqi Cheeki. We were, in a strange way, somewhat sadistic. We did not even mind inflicting harm upon ourselves. And, in the spirit of what we considered fair play, we were perfectly capable of damaging our own cars as well. Justice, in our peculiar universe, was usually served equally.

Like Dahem, we started tinkering with machines quite early. Visiting mechanics, getting things repaired, modified, experimented with or occasionally ruined was all part of the adventure. Whether the job was done well or badly was almost beside the point. We believed in experimentation.

We probably broke every conceivable record for self-taught mechanical engineering.

On one memorable occasion, we had one of our cars repainted. We transformed it from white into an atrocious shade of beige a truly unfortunate colour that no sensible man with even a modest appreciation for aesthetics would ever have approved. Yet there it was. We had made our choice, and we lived with it.

We fell. We rose again. And perhaps that is the real beauty of life.

Then came the more serious part of our journey. As we grew older, we graduated literally and metaphorically. Having earned law degrees, we discovered that we could navigate the world with a certain confidence: defiantly, valiantly, and, on occasion, triumphantly.

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Election season was perhaps the most hilarious chapter of all an intoxicating mixture of caution, fear, excitement, improvisation, and sheer nerve.

On one occasion, at a polling station, a rather unruly presiding officer was adamantly refusing to let one of our voters enter. I immediately dialled Inam while simultaneously engaging in a heated dialogue with the opposing candidate, who seemed determined to argue with me without pause.

Without wasting a second, I called the returning officer or at least made everyone believe that I had.

Inam was on the other end of the line.

I handed the phone to the presiding officer, who was then given firm instructions by the supposed returning officer to allow the voter inside and let him cast his vote.

The instructions were obeyed.

The man was none other than Mr. Inam.

That was our particular art: improvisation. We had an uncanny ability to handle matters spontaneously, make instant decisions, and act without endlessly mulling things over. We trusted our instincts and somehow managed to turn uncertainty into action.

Yet, for all our recklessness, we were essentially decent boys. We were never drawn to drugs, alcohol, or the other destructive vices that could so easily have consumed young men in those times. Somehow, we survived those dangerously precarious years.

But life was not merely a succession of adventures.

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Along the way, we lost some of our closest friends. We battled enemies. We buried friends. We lost beloved members of our families. The journey was never as simple as it appeared from the outside.

Some memories refuse to fade. Others are simply too painful to revisit.

And perhaps that is why, after everything we have lived through, the lesson of our lives can be summed up in one beautiful Danish word: hygge the idea of creating a life filled with warmth, love, companionship, conviviality, and the simple joy of being together.

To love and to be loved.

Every one of us has lost someone deeply special. Somewhere within each of us lies a quiet wound, a pain that time does not necessarily erase. Yet our closeness, our friendship, and the bond we have maintained through all these years have become a kind of balm.

So, hold one another’s hands a little tighter than before.

Stand closer.

Laugh a little louder.

Forgive a little sooner.

Because the people we have lost cannot return, but the people who remain are still here and that is a gift we must never take for granted.

May the years ahead bring us gentler roads, happier journeys, and better times.

After all the madness, the machines, the speed, the battles, the losses, and the laughter, perhaps this is what we were always searching for:

Not merely a life worth remembering, but a life worth living together.

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