And the handcuffs were really, really tight

My dad often bought old police vans at auctions and he would paint them baby blue and sell them to poor black people.
Maybe there was some kind of poetry in this.
Poor Black people spent their days avoiding the injustice of the police, then they could own a police vehicle, complete with the cage at back. All painted powder blue.
This was his favourite colour for ex police vans and I figure that  in the end there must have been a fleet of lavender vans in the locations.

I once found a pair of handcuffs in one of the vans and it was our favourite toy.

Over the years I learnt to open them with a Bobby pin and it was lots of fun.

When I got back from Pakistan, my little brother Bilaal told me a funny thing , that happened while I was away.

Apparently Ahmed, my brother in law saw Bilaal playing with the handcuffs and he was explaining to Bilaal how tight the police used to put the cuffs in his day.
You see Ahmed had been arrested many times for his political views. So he asked Bilaal to lock him up. And kept saying to Bilaal to make it tighter. Until finally he said, "there, that's how they used to lock us up".
"Now get these off me".

Bilaal who was nine at the time said, "but we don't have a key, and only Mohammed knows how to open them", and I was far away in Pakistan the time.

So, as there was nobody else at home, and the cuffs were really tight they got in the car and rushed off to the fire station. Biloo changed the gears for the driver who had his wrists manacled tightly together.
Anyway when they got there, they had to convince the firemen that they were not on the run from the law.. Fortunate they had a key and it all ended well.
Ahmed didn't like this story too much but we had so much fun with this. Bilaal had quite a knack for reenacting the scene and the look on Ahmed's face when he realised that he had just "check mated" himself with an own goal.

Hamba gashle little brother.

M. Parak Apr 2015