by Moni Mohsin
By the same author
RANDOM HOUSE INDIA
Published by Random House India in 2009
Copyright © Moni Mohsin 2008
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EPUB ISBN 9788184002218
For Faizi, my very own Kulchoo
What? What do you mean, ‘who am I’? If you don’t know me then all I can say, baba, is that you must be some loser from outer space. Everyone knows me. All of Lahore, all of Karachi, all of Isloo—oho, baba, Islamabad—half of Dubai, half of London, all of Khan Market, and all the nice-nice bearers at Imperial Hotel also. But since you seem to be an outer-space-wallah, an astronot, alient or whatever you people are called, chalo, I’ll ignore karo your ignorance this one time only, and tell you about me.
I live in Lahore. In a big, fat kothi with a big, fat garden in Gulberg, which is where all the khandani, khaata-peeta types live. And don’t listen to the newly-rich cheapsters who live in Defence vaghera and say that, ‘No, no, Defence is Lahore’s best locality,’ because they are liars. They are just jay—jealous, bhai! Honestly, do you know anything? No offence, but you tau seem like a total paindu pastry to me. Anyways, we have ten servants—cook, bearer, two maids (one Filipina and one desi), two drivers (one for me, one for Janoo), sweeper, gardener, and two guards who both carry Kalashnikovs, wear khaki uniforms and play Ludo around the clock at the gate. All of these people look after me, Janoo—uff, bhai, my husband—and our son, Kulchoo.
Kulchoo is thirteen (or is it fourteen?). Anyways, his voice is becoming horse and yesterday I was noticing he needs threading on his upper lips. He likes doing something called Wee and Bookface. Naturally, Kulchoo goes to Aitchison College, which is Lahore’s best school for nice rich boys from nice rich families. Janoo also went to Aitchison, and from there only he went to Oxford in London, and from there he came back three years later an Oxen. I shouldn’t be saying this, because he is my husband and you are total stranger, but Janoo is very bore. He likes bore things like reading-sheading, watching documentaries and building schools in his stinky old village. Did I tell you Janoo is landed? Well, he is. But unfortunately his lands are not in Gulberg, where everyone could see them and be jay. They are hundred miles away in a bore-sa village called Sharkpur, which I haven’t been to, thanks God, for nearly four years.
Janoo’s mother is a window, sorry, sorry, I meant widow, and I call her The Old Bag. She is fat, bossy, wears Bata shoes and can’t speak English. But thanks God a hundred million times, she doesn’t live with us. Janoo has two sisters—the Gruesome Twosome. They are big cheater cocks and always doing competition with me, poor things. Not that anyone can do competition with me. Mummy (that’s my mother) says I’m unique.
I am very sophisty, smart and socialist. No ball, no party, no dinner, no coffee morning, no funeral, no GT—uff, now I have to explain GT to you also? Get Together, baba—is complete without me. Naturally, if you are going to be so socialist you also need the right wardrope and the right looks. So I have to get my designer joras and visit my beauty therapists and my jewellers, vaghera, na. Just my selfless little way of supporting Pakistan ki economy. Unlike Janoo, who is a zinda laash, I am very gay. I love travelling—to Dubai, to Singapore, to Harrods—and watching top ki films like Sex and the City and Jab We Met and reading Good Times and Vogue and peoples’ sections of all the newspapers.
My bagground is not landed, thanks God. We, baba, are Lahoris through and through. I am convent-educated and afterwards I went to Kinnaird College, where all the rich illegible girls go while they are waiting to be snapped up. (Janoo’s sisters went to Home Econmics, where all the middle-class or purdah types go.) My family, needless to say, is very sophisty. Daddy worked for a multinationalist company and Mummy was his co-operate wife. Mummy’s favourite cousin sister is Aunty Pussy. Her husband, Uncle Kaukab, whom Janoo calls Uncle Cock-Up, was a tax collector. Anyways, they are, mashallah, very well-to-do, with houses here and there, some of which they admit to and some of which they don’t. They have one son called Jonkers, who is twice die-vorced, and we are now looking for third wife for him.
My friends are socialists like me. There’s Mulloo, Flopsy, Furry and Twinkle. Most of their husbands are bank defaulters but they are all very religious and upright otherwise. Unfortunately my friends are also always doing competition with me. But chalo, I suppose help nahin kar sakteen. After all, it can’t be easy knowing me…
The Butterfly
Lahore, 2008
Taliban threaten to destroy all statues
Floozie runs off with best friend’s husband
Haw, such a big scandal in our group, na! Tonky’s wife, Floozie, has run off with his best friend, Boxer, who is married to Floozie’s best friend, Dropsy. Just look! What a tamasha. Everybody is talking about it at weddings, darses, parties, everywhere. Floozie’s name is mud. Worse than mud. Mud mixed with cow shit, like the pheasants in Janoo’s village use to make their houses. (Or do they use straw? Khair, whatever.)
Floozie’s name nobody is taking now, except to do gossip of course and to do ‘haw, hai’, which everyone is doing full time. Mulloo tau has announced to everyone that her doors are closed to Floozie forever till doomday. As Mulloo so rightly points out, if she can do that to her best friend what will she do to her best enemas, sorry, sorry, I mean enemies? Nerves meri shatter ho gayee hain, that is why I am forgetting my English. Vaisay tau I am convent-educated. Even got first prize for reading and obedience in class one. But really, just look at Floozie. She’s known Dropsy since KG, when they used to sit next to each other in Little Sweet Hearts School on Jail Road only. Imagine! What a sleeve ka snake she’s turned out to be. Back stabber jaisi na ho tau.
No one is talking about Boxer, though. At least not that much. Because men tau are like this only. Everyone knows. Can’t help themselves, na, becharas, poor things. That’s why also all the girls, Flopsy, Tinkly, Bobo, Furry, are holding tight to their husbands. Their husbands may be bore, they may be crack, they may be fat, they may be ugly, they may be ancient and decrepid, they may be kanjoos makhi choos even, but it’s better than them running off with someone else and the whole world feeling sorry for you. And also wondering what’s wrong with you.
But going back to poor Tonky. A crashing bore tau the poor thing’s always been, going on and on about price of wheat—they have lands near Sheikhupura only—and his tubewells, and his munshis, and his heart problems—he was triple by-passed only two years ago and since then he’d grown so careful, na, wouldn’t even climb stairs, had moved downstairs into guest bedroom leaving Floozie upstairs in case he got breathless and all.
I would’ve thought that after twenty years of marriage, Floozie must have got used to. But I should’ve guessed that something was up when she started getting liposeduction done on her bottoms and her chins, and started wearing see-through clothes in winter also. After looking like an ayah for all this time, why would she suddenly change into a champ, I mean vamp, overnight, if
not to phasao a man, hain?
Poor old Tonky. He came to our house last night looking like I don’t know what. Unshaven, food stains on his shirt, dandruff on his jacket. Bechara, itna Tonky ne feel kiya hai, na, Floozie’s running away.
Janoo tried to comfort him in his own sarrhial way. ‘The best revenge on a man who runs off with your wife,’ he said, ‘is to let him keep her.’
Tonky laughed like a hyena but there was a mad gleam in his eye. I think so he’s going to have a nervous breakout. I told him to go on Prozac fatta-futt. In fact while he was sitting with us only, I sent the driver to Fazal Din’s and told him to bring six packs of it. Tonky took the pills home but now I’m worried keh what if he overdouses? I wonder what happens to you if you take a whole pack of Prozac at once only? Do you die laughing?
But look at Boxer. He’s sixty if he’s a day. Mummy says when she got married he already had broken voice and stubbly chin, so big he was then. Squirting people with a water pistol and making nuisance of himself. Vaisay he hasn’t changed. Still running around with his hair transplant, his leather jacket and tight jeans—so tight that every time he bends down to pick up something, his face turns purple and his eyes look as if they’re going to pop out off his head. Must be male menoapplause. Somebody asked him why he’d run off with his friend’s wife.
‘What to do, yaar? My marriage was empty.’
Humph! As if marriages are thermoses, empty or full. Crack jaisa.
Taubah, baba, this shows you should never trust anyone. Not best friends, not husbands, not anyone. Except your plastic surgeon and your darzi.
Restoration of assemblies in March likely
Butterfly attends six parties in two days
Hai Allah, I’m so excited na, so excited na, keh bus. Why? Haw, on which planet are you living? Apollo thirteen? Don’t you know about Basant? Vaisay there too they must know, I’m hundred per cent sure. How can they not know, when all of Karachi’s coming and all Isloo also? Bet they’ve got their satter-light dishes or cable or whatever it is that they have on Apollo thirteen fixed on all the fun in Lahore. After all, everybody who is everybody is dissenting on Lahore. The party groupies like Samir and Muddy and Sana Hashwani and Abbas Sarfaraz and Tariq Amin and Choo Choo and Bunty were tau anyways coming, but now even serious political types as well. I can’t name names just yet, but wait and see on the day and then tell me if I was wrong.
We’ve been invited to six parties. First tau there’s the bash at Nevernew Studios; then there’s the do on top floor of Imtiaz Rafi Butt; uske baad there’s Royal Fans walon ka function; and aur pata nahin kya-kya but finally we’ll go to Yusuf Salli’s tamasha at the haveli. Voh tau must hai, na. Particularly this year because a PTV film crew is coming there only. They will be doing interviews with family and close friends. Vaisay it would have been so much nicer if it had been BBC, then whole world could’ve seen my yellow Shamael jora. How women all over the world from China to Chilly would have sarrhoed! Chalo, anyways, we should do Allah ka shukar for PTV. And they, becharas, will also get a break from bore politics.
French polo team is also here these days, na. One of them is really cute. All curly hair and haraami smile and fat-fat muscles. Not that a respectacle married woman like myself would karao him any looks. But you should see the Available Aunties purring in their slinky saris and plunging necklines. Bhai, I tau say, everyone has their izzat in their own hands. Whether you want to look after it like old china or you want to throw it around like a steel degchi is up to you only. Anyways, then there’s the big polo ball at Meter Mahal given by Rakshi and Bashir. I think so it’s going to be in their garden, all eliminated with fairy lights and diyas and all. Vaisay they could easily have it inside also, so many big-big rooms they’ve got.
Then Nadia Jamil’s getting married. Suna hai lots of celebs are coming. Madhur Jaffery (voh kaun hai?) and somebody else and somebody else. As Janoo says, the roll call of the Good and the Great is about to be taken. I think so he means Basant and parties-sharties. It’s getting harder and harder to understand what Janoo means any more. He’s started making such elliptic comments. Recently, he’s been firing off letters to Mush and Bush about burning of that newspaper, Frontier Past. Uff, I said to him, why bother? It’s not as if it was your father’s paper. Why are you taking it so personally, baba?
He gave me nasty look and said, ‘Why don’t you go fly a kite?’
I think so he means Basant. Bechara, doesn’t even know it’s not this weekend but next. So out of it he is. Then his friends came around—yes, he has two or three, belief it or not—and he told them a joke about Bush, who asked one of his AIDS (imagine employing people like that in White House) why Pakistan and India were fighting over a sweater.
They all burst out laughing and when they stopped, I said, ‘Must be expensive sweater from Harrods only.’
Everyone fell silent, even Janoo, who was staring at the floor. I bet he never thought that I could chup karao everybody like that. He has always underestimated me. That’s his problem.
Kashmiris decline talks with all leaders
Butterfly slaughters sheep
Life’s so bore. Basant’s also over. Soon Muharram’s going to start and then summers will come and everyone will get sealed inside their AC’d rooms and then parties-sharties sub khatam. Bakr Eid came in between, but frankly, yaar, it was so dearie, I mean dreary, that I can’t even be bothered to write about it. Janoo wanted to send money to charity, to Edhi Foundation or a hospital or something.
‘No need to do bakra,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I may be convent-educated and sophisty and everything, but one thing I won’t compromise on—Kulchoo stroking the knife before we do a bakra in our backyard. Stops bad nazar.’
Janoo sighed and said, ‘If you insist. But in that case I’ll send the money to my mother in the village and she can have the qurbani done there.’
‘Never!’ I said. ‘She’ll khao the money and the bakra also.’
‘Are you accusing my mother of being a cheap embezzler?’ he asked.
‘No, ji, an expensive one. A good bakra, if nothing, must be at least ten thou.’
So we had a big fight and now I’m not talking to Janoo. And now he’s just come into the room, so I’m going to put away my diary and sit here looking hurt and wounded until he says sorry from the bottoms of his heart for being so sarrhial.
Pakistan, Iran agree on broad-based government for Afghanistan
Butterfly contemplates career as novelist
Yesterday we did an after dinner drop-in at some friends. They all started talking about Benazir’s chhutkara and how koi expect nahin kar raha tha. Janoo said that there’s no substitute for a two party system.
‘Haan,’ I said, ‘Bilkull theek. As long as one party’s in the morning and the other in the evening. Otherwise one gets very tired showing face at two-two places in one night.’ Hai, sub log itnay impress huay keh there was complete silence for two minutes full.
I’m so clever I think so I should write a book. What shall I call it? I know: My Urban Fraud. It’ll be about a rich karobari type, import-export wallah, who’s been married thrice, dyes his hair, is sixty five but still has a thurki gleam in his eye. I fall madly in love with him and marry him, even though he’s beaten all his wives before and beats me also. I have four or five children with him while he has affairs with all my friends, does a huge ghupla, lootos three banks, and runs away with the maid while I’m left on the janamaaz praying. And then I write my book and tell everyone about how I had a horrible mother, horrible sister, horrible friends, went to a horrible school, married a horrible man and had a horrible life but still stayed innocent and trusting and religious.
I was still thinking about it when I went to Bapsi’s reading at Crow Beaters Gallery in Lahore. Bapsi? Oho, baba, Sidhwa na, writer of Nice Candy Man and sister of my favourite Uncle Minnoo of Murree Brewery. Everyone listened so carefully to her reading. Bus, I decided ho na ho, I’m also going to be a wr
iter and give readings to which I will invite everyone except the people who have been horrible to me. Now who would that be?
Well, to start with, my KG teacher who used to make me stand in a corner for calling her ‘kameeni’. And the people who came to check me out for rishtas when I was at college but never proposed. Kuttay jaisay. And Mulloo, for not inviting me to her last dinner when she called our whole gang except me. And Flopsy for copying my dining room furniture, and Teensy for stealing my Filipina, and Janoo for calling me a ‘talent-free zone’. And of course, Janoo’s whole family—The Old Bag, the Gruesome Twosome, and their cheapster husbands and cheapster children for being themselves.
Anyways, to come back to my book, I asked Mummy to give me intro to an old friend of hers who studied at Queen Mary’s before it was partitioned. She once wrote a book. Lives in India only. Grey-se hairs, sari, glasses, chappals, bindi. She was here for holidays, visiting her old house on Lawrence Road—it’s a school now—and visiting her old school, which I don’t know is what now.
I asked her what I should write about—‘Story-vory, plot-shlot, please koi idea dein na, aunty.’
She peered at me over her bifocals and said, ‘Write about something you know.’
Didn’t tell Mummy, vaisay, but I minded her comment. Kehti hai, ‘Something you know.’ Sarrhial jaisi, as if I know nothing. I know so much, so much that if I start telling, half of Lahore will have to flee Pakistan. Who knows Mulloo’s real age, hain? Kehti tau hai she’s thirty nine only, but my foot thirty nine. She’s at least forty five. I know because her waxing-wali told me. She’s seen her passport. I don’t know how, but she has. And who knows how Furry sneaks out in a Suzuki early in the morning (lest she be recognised in her Merc) and buys her sabzis herself from the mandi only? And pretending never to shop anywhere but Pace and Al-Fatah. Jhoothi. My cook caught her in the mandi red-handed, haggling like a dhoban over the karelas. I also know where and with whom Dubboo, Flopsy’s husband, went when he said he was off to do umra to say thank you to Allah for his new flower mill. His travel agent is Mummy’s third cousin’s niece and she told me he got two business-class tickets to Dubai and made booking in name of Mr and Mrs D Khan at the Humaira Beach Hotel Complex. One room only. Double. With jacuzzi. So don’t tell me I don’t know anything. Luckily for everyone, I’m too khandani to say…