by Moni Mohsin
General Musharraf prepares for referendum
Butterfly dismisses her sweepress
Ek tau main itni fed up ho gayee hoon, na, of servants and their crooked taur tareekas. So much of lies they tell, and so much of bakwaas they do. Constantly trying to pull the wool over our flies.
Now look at my sweepress. On Monday she maaroed another chutti. When she rolled in on Tuesday, bold as Brasso, I asked, ‘Why you didn’t come yesterday, haan?’
‘Because Musharrat had borrowed for himself the minibus I take from Dharampura to Gulberg,’ she replied.
‘Why would Musharraf need your minibus?’ I shouted. ‘Doesn’t he have a hundred-hundred Mercs to ride in?’
‘For his rally in Minar-e-Pakistan,’ she whimpered. ‘All the buses, minibuses and even the traalas they took for Musharrat’s rally.’ (Aik tau these illiterates keep calling him Musharrat instead of Musharraf. I think so they confuse him with Musarrat, as in Musarrat Shaheen the actress.)
‘Who took?’ But before she could answer, I shouted, ‘Sub jhooth! I’m going to throw you out because you are a liar. And you came late.’
‘But Bibi,’ she wailed, ‘I’m not lying. I swear on my dead mother’s head.’
Uff, aik tau they do so much of drama also.
‘The same mother who died three times last year, and for whose every death you took ten-ten days off? That mother?’ I asked.
But just imagine, the cheeks! Now I know for a fact that Musharraf came to Lahore by helicopter, which landed on the Minar itself. It said so in the news, even. Which damn fool crack would take a sweepress’ minibus when he had a helicopter at his disposable?
So I told her very quietly that I was deeply disappointed in her attempts to befool me and the one thing, the only thing (apart from Janoo’s family, of course), that I wouldn’t tolerate was liars and schemers. And she should be ashamed of herself after everything I had done for her, giving her ten days off every time her mother died and not even cutting her days off from her celery as Fluffy or Mulloo would have, and not even deducing the cost of the cut-glass vase that she broke last month, which my sister-in-law had given to me. (Actually, I’d always hated that hideous thing that Janoo’s horrid sister, Cobra—okay baba, Kubra—had brought for me from Jeddah and was sooo reliefed when it finally broke, but of course I wasn’t about to tell the sweepress.) So I said to her that I was a good, kind-hearted sole, whose only fault was that she was too good and kind-hearted and so everybody takes my advantage, but I have my limits also—and Janoo always says I’m very limited—and bus, enough is enough, aur bohat ho gayee, and with that I kicked her out. One has to take a stand with these people, na, otherwise they take walks all over one.
When I tried to tell Janoo about it next morning, he completely ignore karoed me, so busy he was with his new newspaper, The Daily Times. Honestly, he read the paper like it was a Jackie Collins novel, from cover to cover. But I myself didn’t like it. No fashion, no gossip, only news about bore-bore countries like Middle East and bore-bore things about Musharraf’s Preferendum.
Anyways, when finally Janoo put down the paper, I told him about my principaled stand with the sweepress.
‘She was probably telling the truth. Didn’t you know that Musharraf’s toady district councillors had confiscated all public transport for the day? So they could bus in their constituents to Musharraf’s historic rally? You should read the papers sometimes,’ he said disgustedly.
It was on the trip of my tongue to say keh, ‘Fox dekh-dekh keh behosh ho gayeen hoon,’ but there was no mention, no nothing of Preferendum and minbuses in it, and then I thought, forget it. It will only lead to a tu-tu-main-main.
Next day when I woke up at my usual eleven o’clock and saw the house, I noticed that it was beginning to look dirty with so much of dust everywhere. So I sent a message to the sweepress to say that I’d forgiven her, because I was a good, kind-hearted sole and she could come back. Let’s see, now, whether she comes. Aik tau so much of nakhras these people do and so spoilt they are! Honestly!
India gives Pakistan two month deadline
Butterfly ponders the essentials of a chic bunker
Hai, hum ne itna enjoy kiya, na, Murree mein. Janoo’s Oxbridge society had a GT (oho, baba, how many times I have to tell you, Get Together) at Saigol Lodge in Murree only. Everyone came. Pehlay there was golf, then lunch, and then sub se best, gup-shup. I was sitting there with my sunblock on and my dupatta pulled over my face—in case tan na ho jaoon because mountains pay the sun is very strong—and chatting to Mulloo and Frisky, when I felt my chair shake.
‘Hai Allah, earthquake!’ I shrieked.
Mulloo, who was applying her lipstick, looked up briefly from her compact.
‘Don’t worry, even if it is an earthquake, it’ll only affect the poor parts of town. Earthquakes are very considerate that way.’
‘But what if it’s a bomb?’ asked Frisky. ‘Bobo says war honay wali hai.’
Yeh tau sun keh, I felt my colour go fak. All this time I’ve been telling Janoo ke chalo, let’s go to London early this year. Why do we have to stay here and take all this tension-vension when we could be in Shelfridges enjoying their Bollywood ka Season and meeting Amitabh and drooling over Dimple’s bedroom, which Totty told me (who’s just come back from London and all), has been flown out pura-ka-pura from Bombay only. Imagine, seeing the bed she sleeps in and the table she sits on to do her make-up! Also, they’ve got all those designers like Rohit Ball and Shyam Someone. And all the clothes that Hrithik Roshan and Kajol and my favourite shweetoo-sha darling, Shahrukh, wore in their films. But Janoo refuses to go.
‘I’m not deserting my country in its hour of need,’ he said flatly.
‘And what about my hour of need?’ I replied. ‘My Dr Seebag cream is gone, my YSL Rouge Eclair is finished, my La Perla bras have become dheela—size, Allah ka shukar, is still same but elastic’s gone—and my shoes are looking so last year.’
Janoo looked at me as if I’d gone mad. ‘Does it not matter to you in the slightest that we may be on the verge of a nuclear war?’ he asked.
‘Of course it matters,’ I yelled back. ‘Issi liye tau I’m saying let’s go. Why would I want to stay here and become a suttee when I’m not even Hindu?’
‘I’ll build you a bunker in the back garden,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘You can sit there and apply your make-up every day, while planes zoom overhead.’
‘I’m not going in any bunker which doesn’t have AC and generator and cable TV and three-three phone lines and marble bathroom and jacuzzi. And I don’t want to be tucked away in the back garden where no one can see me. I want to be in the front, by the rockery.’
‘In that case, you’d better go to London,’ Janoo said. ‘Kulchoo and I’ll be better off without you here.’
‘And have everyone say that you are having an affair while my back is turned? And become an object of pity? No, thanks. I’m going to sit here on your head and eat your brains from morning to night, every day, till you agree to come with me.’
Osama not here: Musharraf
Cousin Oscar Hake here: Butterfly
So much fun I’m having these days. A nephew of mine is visiting from America, na. His name is Asghar Haq but he’s lived so long in Mary’s Land in Washington that he calls himself Oscar Hake. His father, Ayub, has big halal meat business there. He’s a millionaire I don’t know how-how many times and that too in dollars, not stupid rupees. But he wasn’t always like that.
When my cousin Minnie got married to Ayub, everybody said, ‘Haw, hai, bechari Minnie’, because he wasn’t from Karachi or Lahore but bore, backward Gujranwala and he had a small-sa meat ka business. Mummy used to call him ‘Mayub the butcher’. But what to do, na? Minnie was getting quite aged—at least twenty-nine—and rishtas weren’t coming, so her mother married her off so that people wouldn’t say, ‘Haw, hai, bechari Minnie. Us ka nahin hua, na.’
But then they migrated to America because his lottery came in American Consulate—in
the good old days, before the Americans became all mean and kanjoos and stopped giving visas—and there he set up his business. Before we knew it, they’d bought a mention in the suburbs with a swimming pool and land-escaped garden and guest house and servants.
Minnie tau changed overnight. Bechari used to be quite plumpish and quite shortish. And darkish also. Ab tau, she’s so thin, spends all her time in the gym and has a personal trainer, and I think so thori si liposeduction bhi karwai hai. Also I think she’s had chemical peel done because her colour has become creamy-creamy jaisa. I don’t think so it’s just Jolen ka kamaal. And she wears killer heels and killer clothes, all designer, and looks tabahi. And of course, Ayub bhai tau is sooo nice, na. He’s invited us all to come and stay. Mummy says she’s going first, because she’s always respected Ayub bhai from the bottoms of her heart.
Khair, I asked Oscar what his mummy is up to these days.
‘Mom?’ he said, rolling his eyes. ‘Aw, she’s either playing bridge with some other frustrated housewives or off having her colon irrigated.’
I must tell Janoo to get his crops done the same way. If Minnie’s doing it, it must be right.
Anyways, Oscar is sooo funny and sho shweet. Calls himself The Dood. I think so he means dud. Sara waqt apne baaray mein jokes crack karta rehta hai. So self-defecating he is. And so considerate also. Spends hours in his room and when he comes out it smells so, so… sweet and herby and strange. Like the smell Peshawar bazaars have. And he smiles all the time and speaks slow-slow and is a little bit bonga, to tell you the truth, with his uncombed greasy hair and his huge, baggy-si jeans hanging down from his bony hips, as if he’d done potty in them. But I tau haven’t said even a word. Baba, mind na kar lay, and then if he tells his father he might take back his invitation.
Janoo says he’s just an ABCD loser. ABCD? Haw baba, don’t you know? American Born Confused Desi. But Janoo is just jealous because he doesn’t have anyone half as rich or half as sophisty as Oscar in his paindu pastry family. So as usual I ignored.
Shweetoo, Oscar’s so worried about the bombs-shombs. Innocent jaisa. Just like a foreigner. Vaisay how awful Karachi is, na. Imagine, poor Sindh Club members playing tennis and suddenly having an arm flung in their faces after the American Consulate bombing. Chalo, thanks God, didn’t happen during a party on the lawns.
Must rush. I’ve given a khaana to show off my trendy new nephew to Mulloo, Fluffy, vaghera. Unko bhi pata chaley, in how much water we are.
Bangladesh welcomes Musharraf’s regret for ’71 war
Butterfly regrets her woeful lack of a British visa
Look at Aunty Pussy, honestly. She’s managed to get a visa, not only London ka but also a Shagging Visa, which means she can go to France, Spain, Italy, vaghera. And poor Mummy’s been refused. What I want to know is how Aunty Pussy’s getting it. I think so she’s doing something from inside-inside only. On top she pretends to be so innocent jaisi.
‘Haw, you all are not going?’ she asked me, knowing fully well that poor Mummy’s been refused and I’m reapplying next week. ‘I thought they were giving visas out like laddoos only,’ she said.
Actually, it’s all Mummy’s fault. Who told her to go and stand in the queue at the embassy with sunblock, sunglasses and head-scarf? Naturally, they thought she was a hijabi fundo and mistooked her for Al Qaeda. Now, who’s going to explain to these polaroid gora visa officers that all Mummy was trying to do was avoid a tan?
Vaisay honestly, these stuppids should be given lessons in what’s what and who’s who in Pakistan before they are posted here. I mean, they should know from just looking at us with our Jimmy Shoe shoes and the two-two-carrot diamond solitary studs in our years and our nice-nice, fair-fair skin that we are nice, rich, khaata-peeta, khandani types who’ve been to London hundred-hundred times. We are hardly the types who are going to become runaways in London and get jobs in their crash’n carrys and marry cockney goras and become kaala angrezes who live in Councillors keh houses and eat up the state. Nor are we beardo-weirdos who are going to drive planes into their buildings. They don’t even know this much, these stuppids.
But obviously, lots of peoples are getting it even apart from Aunty Pussy. Look at Irum and Amo, Yusuf Salahuddin, Salman Taseer, Sheila Saigol, Raunak Lakhani, Abbas Sarfaraz—all going mazzay say to Harrods sale. I’ve tau even stopped going to Al-Fatah, in fear that I’ll be spotted and pitied for being stuck up in Lahore. Last weekend, I sneaked over to Karachi to get all the essentials at Agha’s—sunblock, La Prarry products, latest Vogue, Hagendaze and Oral ki cookies for Kulchoo. And guess what? Bumped into Zarmeen, who lives in London and is the only person who comes in the opposite direction in the summers.
Before she could say anything, I said, ‘Hi, how are you? I’m only here because I’m flying out from Karachi to London, na, rented a flat there, na, right on the back side of Albert’s Hall.’ Luckily, by then it came her turn at the till and I ran off. Just about managed to get into the car before bumping into anyone else.
Can you imagine how my nose will be cut if I don’t get the visa now? I’ll never be able to show my face in society. How Mulloo will laugh. How Topsy will titter. There’s only one solution. If I don’t get it, I’ll have to go and hide in Sharkpur for a whole month—uff!—and pretend that I got a Shagging Visa and went to Berling and Burn where Janoo had some kaam and we were treated like royalty. I’ll never get caught out because nobody ever goes to Berling and Burn…
Indian Air Force bombs LoC
Butterfly gets a dose of culture
Uff! Itni main exhaust ho gayee hoon, na, after this three-city tour of that small Indian god, Aruna Dhati Roy, which the TFT-wallahs had arranged. Ek tau I don’t know why people keep calling her a small god.
I’ll never forgive the organisers, but. Kanjoos jaisay, they never sent me a card even. First, I tried pulling stings. Aunty Pussy’s best friend’s son is a district counsellor, and when he didn’t listen, I just called them myself and said: ‘Why aren’t you giving, ji?
Don’t you know who I am?’
Guts dekho, some chaprassi there said, ‘Why don’t you email in your request like everyone else?’
I felt like replying, ‘Because I’m not everyone else.’ But then I thought, why do arguing with chaprassi types? So I begged Kulchoo to do an email for me.
‘What’s the point?’ he asked. ‘You’ll never be ready by 2:30 pm, which is when the event starts.’
Thanks God for Janoo, though. Chalaak jaisa, he had emailed in his request and got his ticket. Luckily, I saw the card when it arrived. I went barging into the study and shouted at him, ‘What is this? Akele-akele? I also want!’
‘But you have no interest in writing or books or politics or activism,’ he said. ‘Or anything worthwhile, for that matter.’
‘Why, ji? Don’t I have interest in society? Don’t I have interest in hotels? In events? In going out and about? Anyone who’s anyone will be there. Mulloo’s going, Topsy’s going, even Mummy’s got a ticket. If I don’t go, all my social cred will go up in smoke. My reputation will be in totters. Mujhe naheen pata, get me a card!’
So anyways, he filled in the email for me, and where they asked for ‘profession’, he wrote: ‘lead actress in soap opera’. Let him do as much bakwaas as he wants. I’m least bothered, as long as I get the card.
Achha hee kiya, because EVERYONE was there. ALL of Lahore. Mummy and Aunty Pussy, Mulloo and Tony, Fluffy and Flopsy, MT and VD, Jonkers, Bobby, Baby, Bobo, Nikki, Sammy, Tammy. Even Janoo’s sisters, the Gruesome Twosome, and their hideous husbands had weasled their way in. Vaisay there were lots of people I didn’t know also. Wonder who they were and how they managed to get in?
It was nice event but problem was there was too much of talking. Long-long, bore-bore questions and long-long, bore-bore answers and long-long, bore-bore speeches, vaghera. Loved Aruna Dhati’s sari, vaisay. Janoo cried when Aruna Dhati finished her speech. So emotionally unstable he is. But thanks God he had the decency
to weep silently and not bawl out loud and shame me in front of everyone. Vaisay what there was to cry about, I don’t know. It was hardly as if someone had died or something.
Chalo, despite of Janoo letting me down, I did my bit of culture. Now I don’t have to do for another three years.
US planning war in Iraq
Butterfly planning peace with India
Hai shukar thousand-thousand times summers are going. I tau give shukranay ki niaz every time September comes. Have you seen Come September? Such a lovely film with Frock Hudson and Gina Laylosomebody. Old, but nice. And made for Pakistan, only. Honestly, this summer was so bad, so bad, keh main tau bilkull boil ho chuki thi, not to mention bore. GTs are okay but they can’t take the place of a tabahi party. Also, Aruna Dhati vaghera’s coming for the TFT bash is also all fine, but all said and done, she’s a bit serious and a bit bore, nahin? Vaisay between you and me, I tau was quite disappointed with her. I mean Nobel Prize winner (or was it the Bookish Prize? Khair, whatever!) and she wasn’t even wearing a designer jora!
Now, look at Danielle Steal. So nice she looks in her soft-focus photos with her big-big diamonds and her high-lit, blow-dried hair. And Barbara Cartland, who was older than Aunty Pussy even, only had her false eyelashes prized off in her coffin. So vain she was. And it’s not as if Aruna Dhati is not pretty or something. She could look quite nice with high heels and ironed, streaked hair and some of YSL’s Touché Eclair and Landcomb ka mascara and MAC ki lipstick, vaghera. But if she is least bothered, I can’t do zabardasti with her. I suppose live and let die. Vaisay such a waste. Haina?
Hai, I hope so we can make friends with India. Imagine hopping across to Delhi every time you need a new outfit, or a new earrings ka set, or even a new party. Imagine being invited to the Tatas and the Godrejs and ringing up Shobha Day for hello-hi whenever I want. Uff, mazzay! Then maybe even Janoo can get a life instead of sitting in front of the TV all day and watching all this 9/11 tamasha with a disgusted look. If only he was a committed peacenik like me, he could be enjoying in Bombay on Judo beach, and running up and down the hills in Gulberg in Kashmir, and buying saris in My Sore. (Mummy says best ones come from there only.)