Every day (or every other day, depending on my availability), my siblings and I take the car and go visit my mum in the hospital. It used to be that every year, the three of us and my mum, we would pile up in old faithful and ride out to almost every area of Karachi, where we had relatives and wish them a happy Eid. I wouldn't like to say it, but they probably looked forward to our visits since the rest of the year, everyone is too busy to come by to their little corner of the world to just chit-chat and Karachi isn't exactly brimming with activities to fill up the days of retired citizen. In Karachi-logic, if you're lucky enough to be alive, relatively healthy, secure and with the creature comforts of a television and air conditioner, you should consider yourself pretty lucky and quit whining about how you have nothing to do.

Anyhow, returning to the topic at hand: our little road trips. I wouldn't admit it, but I enjoy those few hours we spend in the car each day, navigating through the various degrees of traffic in the city and arguing good naturedly about the "no trance in the car rule". When at home, we all have our own spaces, our little corners where we can get privacy. When you're young, you're not at all hesitant about grabbing your brother or sister and dragging them to some activity you want to take part in but need a second person around for, like a seesaw or building a lego model. As we get older, we stop imposing on each other's time in that breezy way we used to, which is just sad.

Now, though, the only time we get to actually talk about anything, pick any topic out of the air and put it up for inspection by the other two, is in the car. On those long trips with the radio blaring, three words and you have everyone's attention. "You know what?" Instantly, a slender finger will turn the radio down. And you talk, just talk, and for once everyone's listening.