We’ve all heard over-exaggerated stories passed down from old folks who liked to spin yarns about how they travelled miles and how they went through water and land to get to school/work.
My dear friends, let me tell you that in the modern world, this kind of thing does really happen, that too, to a bunch of four young people trying to get to office which is approximately only 13 kilometers away from home. (and if you’re anything like me – approximately 450rs away from home)
Have you ever seen those memes which go like “I woke up one morning and chose violence” yeah well in our case it usually is “I woke up one morning and chose car, or tuk, or bus, or train or maybe boat?nevermind, lets just walk!” (Yes we have had that thought cross our minds a lot of times but we are way too lazy to actually go beyond the thought process)
We call ourselves K, S & A + Dehiwala lokka (we actualy don’t, its just the name of our WhatsApp group) and the Dehiwala lokka is obviously me cus “shawdy scene eke” (P.S – if you got that reference do shout “Esketittt”)

And these are some of our travelling chronicles…

Once upon a time when the morning was bright and the flowers smiled at you as you walked past I got a text message “Hurry up and come we are going by boat” I looked down at my phone, read it once more after rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and nearly fell off my chair and spilt milk all over the table, but don’t worry this is typical Aarefa clumsiness.
I informed my mother, ‘hey I’m going by boat’ and ran out before she could properly react. However the funniest was Michelle, my boss. I sent her a message and her reaction was priceless.

“Whenever I get a message from Aarefa in the morning I almost don’t want to open it, but this time, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Only Aarefa” *sigh* – Michelle Gunasekera.

We boarded our boat and went our merry way singing row row row your boat and waving at random strangers who waved back! (It was super exciting)

The next morning, we thought oh okay, we don’t have to cross land and water, we’ll pre book our Uber so it comes on time and takes us to work, little did we know that we would be rejected more than those creeps who slide into your DMs (yes this is my favourite joke to make)

To all you 12 year olds who say my heart is broken and boys are the worst species on the planet, try experiencing four cancellations from your Uber guy when you’re already really late!

Anyway, we got a cab, a Tata nano, a modern day karaththaya you can term it as you please but I swear don’t insult vehicles by calling it one.
It starts creaking everytime someone so much as to shifts in their seat and makes these super weird noises.

Top secret time – Uber once disabled me as a user cus I cancelled everytime I got a Tata nano but don’t tell anyone okay

Long story short – we got to work. Tired, bothered and with one more eventful morning notched onto our collection of morning mishaps.

The best part about our travelling story is the meetings that occur every morning in Amanas living room where we decide our preferred mode of transport. Yours truly generally misses these meetings cus she’s late, so imagine my horror when one very hot day I was told, we have to leave now there are no Ubers, we are going by bus.
Very reluctantly we made our way to a bus stop, got in and then Amana had an epiphany

“This bus is stopping at every stop. I thought this was a faster alternative but this is just an alternative!!” – Amana Iflal,2021.

Clap your hands everyone, we have a genius among us
Either way, I made myself comfortable on Amana’s shoulder and slept when suddenly I was told to get off
“It’s late, we are going in a paare tuk”
“ah ok”

“Honestly I don’t even play an active role in my life anymore, stuff just happens and I’m like oh so we’re doing this now, ok” – nevertooweird.
And that my friends is a literal depiction of our morning. Hope you enjoyed reading about our failed transportation mechanisms each morning, trust that wherever Aarefa goes, the aathal usually follows, even if it’s something as simple as getting to work!

See you next time everyone! Remember “aathal eke hitapang”