The First Ride

By Shariq Ali

Valueversity

One never forgets their first ride. In recorded history, ancient humans probably first rode horses and boats. Even in the present space age, these two remain with us. I still remember the sturdy white Volkswagen Santana that an old English farmer in Preston sold me for seven hundred and fifty pounds in 1991. This was the first car I bought with my own earning. For the next seven years, my family and I traveled city to city across England in that car. In ancient human history, around 7,000 BCE, horses were first used for riding in Kazakhstan, evidenced by bridle marks on fossilized horse teeth. Similarly, between 8,000 to 7,000 BCE, humans hollowed out trees to make dugout canoes and undertook long sea voyages. When I finished my plastic surgery training in the UK and booked a shipping container to return home, I contacted Ali Raza, the owner of a loading company in Birmingham. He made a deal with me: if I handed over my Volkswagen to him at the airport, he would waive the three hundred and fifty-pound service fee. My five-year-old son Omar was unaware of this arrangement. Upon reaching the airport, as promised, I handed the car keys to Ali Raza, who then drove away with the car. Clutching my finger, overwhelmed with grief, my five-year-old son, in a tearful voice, asked me, “Did you give our car to Ali Raza? Why?” The story of the white Volkswagen Santana ends with the innocence of a five-year-old and that heart-wrenching question.