Last month, it was the end of my degree, and I had to come home. So I decided to travel by air on a domestic flight from Karachi to Sialkot. My Flight timing was 9 am, so I had to rush to the airport early in the morning.
It was an early morning, and I was not fully awake yet, if I am being honest. I was sitting in the backseat of the car, head leaning slightly toward the window, watching Karachi do its thing outside. And Karachi was doing its thing very well that morning. The roads were already busy even at that hour — motorbikes lined up at every signal, rickshaws squeezing through gaps that did not really exist, cars honking for no clear reason, pedestrians crossing wherever they felt like it. Just a normal morning in this city. I have seen it a thousand times, but somehow it never gets boring.
We drove through some quieter streets, too, before hitting the main road. Big trees on both sides, old houses sitting behind high boundary walls, the occasional stray cat watching us go past from a wall top. The morning light was soft, and everything looked a little golden. I was taking pictures from the car window without even thinking about it — just pointing my phone and clicking because the city looked nice and I knew I was leaving it for a few days.
That is always a strange feeling. Leaving Karachi. You are excited about where you are going, but there is also this small, quiet feeling inside that knows you are leaving something familiar behind. I cannot really explain it better than that.
We reached the airport, and I could already spot the Fly Jinnah plane on the tarmac from inside the terminal.
White body, clean and bright, with that bold red tail that you notice immediately. There were a couple of planes out there, and I was trying to figure out which one was mine. Something about seeing your plane for the first time always makes the journey feel real. Like all the planning and packing, it suddenly comes together into one actual moment.
Check-in was fine. Security was fine. I grabbed a seat near the gate and waited. Around me, people were doing what people always do at airports — scrolling their phones, buying overpriced water, chasing their kids around. I just sat and watched and felt that pre-flight mix of excitement and calm that I actually really like.
Boarding started, and I found my seat without any trouble. Window seat. I was happy about that. The cabin filled up, the doors closed, the engines started building up that familiar sound, and then we were moving. The runway, the speed, that moment when the wheels leave the ground — and then Karachi was below us and getting smaller, and then it was gone into the haze.
I immediately turned to the window.
The view after takeoff was something else. Below the plane was the dry landscape of interior Sindh — pale brown, flat in some places and crinkled in others, with dry riverbeds running through it like old scars on the land. No green, no water, just the earth in its most honest form.
I took pictures, but I already knew they would not fully capture it. When you see your country from that height, it just hits differently. It feels ancient. It feels massive. And for a few minutes, you forget everything else and just look.
And then I started reading the Emergency instructions just placed as printed hard paper in front of my seat.
That is when breakfast arrived, and honestly, it came at the perfect time.
The crew placed the tray in front of me, and I opened the red foil lid to find a really decent English breakfast packed into a silver tray. There was a soft omelette sitting on top of baked beans, two golden hashbrowns on the side, and some greens in the corner. A small green sticker on the tray said "Western Combo" — Fly Jinnah branding on everything, even the food label. I liked that. The food was warm and filling, and I ate every single bit of it without leaving anything behind.
But the real star was the black tea. It came in a red ribbed paper cup with FlyJinnah written on it in white letters, and it was strong and hot and exactly the kind of tea you want when you are sitting at altitude watching clouds go past outside. I held the cup with both hands — which I always do with hot drinks — and just sat there looking at the wing cutting through that deep blue sky, the red wingtip at the end of it, clouds floating way below. It was one of those moments that feels small but stays with you.
After the meal, I kept looking out the window, and slowly the view started changing. The dry brown of Sindh began disappearing, and something greener started taking over. The fields of Punjab. Neat little squares of crops in different shades of green, divided by thin muddy paths, small villages tucked between the fields, everything softened by a layer of morning mist that made it look almost unreal. I pressed closer to the window because I did not want to miss any of it.
This is what I had been waiting to see. This view meant we were close. It meant home was right below us somewhere in all that green.
The plane came down smoothly. The wheels touched the runway with a soft bump. The engines quieted. And just like that — two hours after leaving Karachi — I was in Sialkot.
I picked up my things, walked off the plane, and stepped into that cool Punjab morning air. It smelled different from Karachi. Greener, quieter, cooler. It smelled like home.
Sometimes you do not need a long journey to feel like you have truly travelled somewhere. Two hours, a window seat, a warm breakfast, one cup of strong black tea, and the sight of Punjab's green fields from above — that was enough. More than enough, actually.
It was a good flight. And it brought me exactly where I needed to be.
