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waiting for.
Truck drivers in Pakistan are philosophers in grease-stained shalwar kameez. They live half their lives on the road, and when the road closes, they do what philosophers do best: they sit, sip tea, and talk.
One of them beckoned me under the shade of his truck. It was a long-nose Bedford, decorated in the kaleidoscopic Pakistani style: tin flowers curling around the fenders, birds and crescent moons painted across the bodywork, and chain tassels jangling from the bumper. Even parked, the vehicle had the look of movement, as though it were straining to leap forward.
The driver’ s name was Ghulam, from Multan. He poured me chai into a chipped enamel cup, its rim worn smooth by thousands of roadside refills. Around us, fires smoked beneath blackened kettles. Men squatted in circles, breaking chapatis, passing cigarettes, and swapping rumours about how long the stand-off would last.
“ Two days, maybe two weeks,” Ghulam shrugged.“ We don’ t know. Only Allah knows.”
The blockade was led by locals from Harban, a settlement destined
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