The Diary of a Social Butterfly

by Moni Mohsin

  Peace keh aur bhi faiday hain. I hear servants are soooo much cheaper in India. You give them a 500 rupee tip and they do jhuk-jhuk ke salaam or namaste or whatever it is that they do. Here tau they look as if you’ve done their insult unless you give at least a thou. I tau am thinking of firing the whole lot of mine and getting everyone from over there only. Nice-nice Biharis, sweet-sweet Sylhetis. Or are the Sylhetis from Bangladesh? Bhai, whatever! As long as they just do what they’re told, I don’t care who they are.

  If we become all peaceful, I suppose Kashmiris will also become friendly, nahin? And they can start knitting shahtooshes again. Ab tau prices of any decent shawl have gone so high, so high, keh bas. My shawl-wallah told me that it’s because the Kashmiris have put down their knitting needles and picked up guns instead. I think so it’s very selfish of them, but who listens to anyone these days? Except me. Sometimes I think I’m the only decent, obedient, Godfearing, law-abiding, kindly, nice, honest person left in the whole world. Me and Mummy. Bas.

  Pakistan, India test missiles

  Butterfly goes to sleep

  So bore. Nothing’s happening. I’m going to sleep till November.

  Washington: MMA entering coalition an ‘alarming development’

  Butterfly and Mulloo fall out

  Mummy’s right. It’s a curse to be sensitive. Take me only. So much worrying and anxiety I do, keh I can’t sleep at night. I told Janoo about my sleepless nights.

  ‘Good!’ he said. ‘Since you are up all night you can keep watch on the house and we can dismiss the guards.’

  ‘Ji nahin!’ I said. ‘Do I look like a servant to you? And anyways, I refuse to be the only house in Gulberg without S&M security-wallahs. People’ll think we are either kanjoos or can’t afford it.’

  ‘You mean SMS?’ he asked, grinning like a baboon.

  Anyways, to cheer myself up, I went to see Mulloo, who’d just come back from Bangcock. She was sitting in her back veranda, her face covered in asli malai and her head encased in a helmet of mouldy-green drying mehndi. I don’t think so she was expecting company. Poor thing, she was never pretty but ab tau, taubah, taubah, one shouldn’t say, but she looked like an extra from Kulchoo’s favourite film, Star Wars.

  So I clapped my hands, giggled and said, ‘Haw, Mulloo, you look just like an extra from Star Wars! You know, one of those creatures with a trunk like an elephant’s and three-three eyes and ears like palm fronds and skin like an alligator’s.’

  Forgot, Mulloo has no sense of human. Joke tau voh bilkull take hi nahin kar sakti, na. She got so angry that the cream nearly curdled on her face. ‘I’ll have you know,’ she spluttered, ‘that all my son’s friends call me Yummy Mummy.’

  Dil-dil mein, I thought they must be calling her ‘Return of the Mummy’. But this time I didn’t say in case she bust a blood vessel or something. ‘Haw, but why have you put asli malai on your face?’ I asked. ‘Are you about to eat fruit salad?’

  Again she hit the ceiling. ‘It’s for making—no, keeping—my skin smooth and supple,’ she shrieked. ‘And if I were you,’ she continued, ‘I’d buy the Nestlé Milkpak factory to keep you in enough malai to erase those deep trenches you have around your eyes.’

  Look at her! Yeh koi baat hai karni vali? And to someone who’s so sensitive. My hand flew to my face. ‘Oh these tiny, feathery-si lines,’ I laughed. ‘These are tau only laughter lines.’

  ‘Nothing is that funny,’ she snapped.

  So I stomped out of her house and called Mummy and cried my heart out to her. And thanks God I did. Mummy had just then only heard of a wonderful new medicine that everyone’s taking. It’s an injection that you put it into your face and all the lines and things vanish, and your face becomes plump and smooth like an inflated cushion. I forget the name of the dawai. Haan, I’ve remembered, it’s called Buttocks. Bus, I’m ordering two crate-fulls tomorrow. And then I’ll see what Yoda says!

  Pakistan fully supporting war against terror: US

  Butterfly appalled at unreliability of PIA

  You know my friend Moni—haw, bhai, Kasuri, aur kaun? Whose husband is Foreign Ministry and who runs Baconhouse School. Anyways, Moni ko tau Allah ne bachaya hai. She was coming from London in a plane and as they were driving down the run away, suddenly there was a loud crash and the whole plane trembled and quivered like a new bride. And then the driver braked hard and told all the passengers that they had to go back because the nose of the plane had fallen off. Talk of naak katna! So the driver (he hadn’t become the pilot yet, because the plane hadn’t taken off) asked Heathrow Airport if they could give him a new nose and, of course, goras being the sarrhial goras that they are, they said that they don’t do nose jobs and particularly not on a Sunday. So the plane and everyone in it was standed for two days in London. Just imagine, how Pakistan’s naak has truly been cut by PIA.

  But maybe, becharas, they weren’t to blame. I’m sure it must have been Al Qaeda or even RAW who did our naak katai. I swear…

  Or maybe it was Masood. (Voh kaun hai? Hai, bhai, kya ho gya hai? Israeli secretive service nahin hai?) Zaroor, they must have done it. They are capable of anything. Everyone says Masood did the Twin Towers and the Pantagone and the Penny Sylvania crash also on 9/11. Also, please don’t forget one of the Israeli planes was just fired at, na, in Kenzania or some place in Africa, so this must be their tit for tit. Very laraka they are, that way.

  Anyways, I said to Moni, you must give sadqas and read lots of nuffles because really, you’ve bachoed baal-baal. Imagine what would have happened if the plane’s nose had fallen over the sea or something worst. These days tau I feel so unsafe that I don’t even leave the house without reading surats and quls five-five times, and blowing hard on myself and Kulchoo. I don’t bother with Janoo because he says he is an antagonistic. So why waste my prayers on him, haina? After death I’ll go to God and he’ll go to Lenin.

  But I’m not sure whether even Lenin would bother with him. Voh tau bechara khud, he’s fallen on such hard times. I hear no one even gives this much for him in Russia anymore. Nobody bothers to do a khatam or read the Bible at his grave even. At least they could do church service for him and sing carols and hims, vaghera. But no, not even that much they are prepared to do. Vaisay look at the Russians, how ungrateful, haina? These days they are all doing bows in front of that new man, Putting, or is it Yell Skin? Whoever, bhai. I tau damn care. But I didn’t tell poor old Janoo all that because I didn’t want to make him disheart.

  So bas aur kya? Nothing much except keh balls aa rahe hain and by hook or book, I’m going to Merry Adelaide. See you there, darlings!

  US sends desert force to Gulf

  Butterfly bemoans the lack of good New Year parties

  New Year’s was so phhuss. J&S events-wallahs went off to Karachi, and as a consequent there was no big bash in Lahore. All there was were little-little GTs here and there. Azam and Amber had a little dinner, Nuscie and Jeelo had a little dinner, Seema had another little dinner and Ena had yet another little dinner. Bus, we went here and there eating little-little dinners and doing hello-hi. I told Janoo I won’t rest till at least fifty peoples have seen my Rizwan Beyg outfit, so we had to party-hop. Janoo kept grumbling but came along because I told him it’s New Year’s and it comes only once a year and that too right at the end. If I hadn’t told him I don’t think so he would’ve known. Also, with what face would I meet Kulchoo next morning if we came home before him?

  I belief there was a party at the haveli, oho, baba, Central Party Head Quarters, Yusuf Salli’s house in the Old City where everyone from Mick Jagged to Aamer Khan has been intertained (honestly! This much also I have to explain). But it was a bacha bash with a few desperate uncles lurking in the shadows scoping out the teenage girls. There was a tabahi do at Ramzan Sheikh’s farm; we were also invited, but Janoo put his feet down and refused to drive through the fog all the way to Bedian near the Indian border at 2 am.

  And this morning Mummy woke me up with a call at the creak o
f dawn saying I must go to hospital immediately, because Uncle Kaukab (whom Janoo calls Uncle Cock-Up) has taken a turn for the worst.

  Poor thing! He’s Aunty Pussy’s husband, na, and in his time such a big shot he was. Tax inspector he was with a big house full of TVs, VCRs, stereos, cars, fridges and servants. He told me once that God helps those who help themselves. And he helped himself for about thirty years to everything that was going. And not even going.

  Anyways, when Mush took over and started that accountability tamasha Uncle Cock-Up panicked, quickly sold one house and sent the money abroad. That money Aunty Pussy investigated in a motel in Ontarion started by her cousin. How was she to know that cousin would khao their money? Then the other house, which they’d put on rent, there the tenant became a swatter and wouldn’t pay or leave. Uncle Cock-Up threatened the tenant but discovered that although he looked very shareef, with thick glasses and dentures, he was related to a big goonda who runs a huge betting business, and he sent his badmashes to Uncle’s house and they dragged him out into the drive away and beat the living headlights out of him. Becharay!

  He’s in Javed Akram now, and if he doesn’t improve we’re putting him in Aga Khan. It clean skipped my mind that I’d offered to get him two bottles from Janoo’s sisters. They don’t know yet, but the least those two fat cows can do is give some blood to poor Uncle Cock-Up. Main khud hi de deti, because after all he needs blue blood, but kya karoon, I’m so ameanic that I can’t even give to an ant.

  Musharraf asks US and Iraq to give peace a chance

  Jonkers re-enters the marriage market

  Jonkers was always a problem child. Now he’s a problem man. Poor Aunty Pussy is at her split ends. But what to do? Seeing as he’s her only son and all. Kiss nay kaha tha to do that marriage of inconvenience with Miss Shumaila, the telephone operator—or was she a secretary? But he is also stuppid and gulliver, I mean gullible. All she had to do was to message his ego a bit with ‘Hai, aap kitnay handsome hain, bilkull Amitabh jaisay’, and he was eating out of her grubby little hand with the chipped nail polish. And then she had to matkao her polyester-clad hips at him a few times, flatter her eyelashes and bus, he was ready to do nikah with her and hand over everything that his father, Uncle Cock-Up, had cheated so hard to make and Aunty Pussy had fought so hard to hide.

  I told him a hundred-hundred times that Miss Shumaila was a gold-dogger and that she was after his money but would he listen? Taubah! Screamed and shouted at me and said I was jealous and cyclical and didn’t recognise true love when I saw it. After that I didn’t say anything because baba, apni izzat, apnay haath.

  ‘Poori operator nikli,’ poor Aunty Pussy told Mummy when Shumaila ran away on the day after the valeema with all the jewellery and things. Aunty Pussy had tried to hide the jewellery in her safe, but Jonkers brought a pistol and threatened to blow his brains out if she didn’t give it to him. I told Aunty that she should have let him. What brains does the poor thing have to blow, after all? But back to Miss Shumaila, she didn’t even leave Jonkers’ keh gold buttons from his sherwani. And oopar say she drove off in the new fully loaded Corolla Salon that Jonkers had gifted to her on the morning after, as moonh dikhai.

  Now, museebat, we have to get Jonkers married again. We’ve seen so many rishtas keh it’s not even funny. Sometimes Aunty Pussy ko koi problem hota hai, sometimes Jonkers ko. ‘This is not right and that is not right,’ they say. Meri tau nerves shatter ho gayee hain. The way they make demands on me, as though I have nothing better to do… It’s been at least two weeks since I had a facial, visited my darzi, or had the girls over for a coffee party. Par, majaal hai kay Aunty Pussy zara sa bhi appreciate karein?

  On top, Janoo’s no help at all. He keeps asking, ‘Has Jonkers met his next ex-wife yet?’ I swear, he really needs a tight slap.

  Anyways, I told Mummy and Aunty Pussy keh we’d better decide Jonkers ka rishta before Muharram, since I’m extremely supercilious and they say it’s not a good amen to do rishtas during the month of moaning.

  So last evening we went to see Aunty Pussy’s sister-in-law’s cousin’s neighbour’s daughter, who’s slightly darkish. Also, they’re saying she’s twenty nine, which means she’s at least thirty three. Vaisay tau Jonkers also is thirty seven and twice die-vorced, but he’s a man so it doesn’t count.

  Hai, don’t you know about his first marriage, which was to Poncy Mamu’s daughter Pinky? She was a bit simple, poor thing, with lots of property but Jonkers is also crack, na, and when Pinky refused to change her name from Pinky Poncy to Pinky Akram, Jonkers threw a fit. Bus, one thing led to another and before even six months had passed, she ran and took a die-vorce. Just like that. Mummy says they probably didn’t make any sex appeals to each other.

  Then there was Miss Shumaila and now we’re looking again. I think so the darkish girl will work out because, becharas, they’re not as effluent as Aunty Pussy and all, and you know how poor people get impressed with money and property and things, na.

  Allies reach Baghdad airport

  Butterfly tells the US to shove off

  I’ve chup karaoed everybody—The Old Bag, the Gruesome Twosome, Janoo, even Bush and his English chaprassi, ‘Tony the Phoney’ as Janoo calls him. I’ve chup karaoed them with my anti-Iraq war jaloos, which has come on CNN, BBC, even Fox. After all, five thousand women and children marching through Gulberg is no joke. And all khaata-peeta, khandani types, who are doings it for their principals and not for the hundred rupees the rent-a-crowd types get. Nobody can say after this that we Gulberg-wallahs don’t stand out and speak up—or was it stand up and speak out? Khair, whatever. Sab ko hum ne impress kar diya hai, and that’s that.

  At first I wasn’t getting involved. You know, na, how I am the shy, retired type. Not at all like those shameless types who are forever pushing themselves forward for every small thing. And also, just between you, me and four walls, I thought in the jaloos it would be just those ten or twenty handloom NGO-walis and Women’s Action Forum types, raising naaras and getting arrested. And honestly, one doesn’t want to be lumped with that NGO crowd, na, with their undyed hair and their ethnic cloth bags and their dirty silver jewellery. Because, after all, one is different. But then I went to a coffee party at Mulloo’s, and everyone there was discussing keh who-who is going and turned out almost everybody was. Haw, hai! How could I be left out of the social scene? So I immediately pushed myself forward and said keh I tau all along was wanting to be one with Iraqis.

  On the day I sun-blocked my face, neck and hands, donned a new cotton jora (can’t wear silk on jalooses, I’m told, it gets very sweaty), put on my new Channel ki sunglasses with the huge rhinestone Cs, and laced up the bright white Nike boots I’d bought from Al-Fatah the night before. The whole world shook when we marched through Liberty Market raising naaras and posing for TV cameras.

  When I got home, I strode into the sitting triumphantly and announced to Janoo where I’d been. He switched off the BBC, stared at me for ten minutes full and finally asked, ‘Why?’

  So I glared at him and said with my head held high: ‘Because main Iraqis keh liye feel karti hoon.’

  ‘Hmm, interesting,’ he said. ‘More than you’ve ever felt for Pakistanis, obviously.’ And then he looked at my Nikes and said, ‘Marching against American imperialism in your new American shoes, I see? Still, I don’t mean to belittle your efforts. Well done.’

  Sarrhial jaisa.

  Only problem is where to go this summers? US is out of question. Poor Mulloo’s son, who is at university in Taxes, is having such a tough time keh poocho hi na. His parents have told him, ‘Pretend you’ve got Larry-gitis so you can’t speak at all if anyone asks you whose side you are on.’ And Kinky’s younger sister, who is in an all-girls’ college in Messachewsits, is wearing both a big cross round her neck and a bindi on her head so nobody thinks she’s Muslim.

  But look at that traitor, Tony! Oho, not Mulloo’s husband but Blair. How will we go to London now? First thing is, will we get visas?
Honestly, so unfair he is! After all the money we’ve spent in London on flats-shlats, car-vars, shops vaghera, least he could do was let us go and enjoy. Our money’s welcome but we are not. Now take Bobo and Baby, you know they spent three million quids on a flat on the backside of someone called Albert Memorial and Bobo bought a Porch, which he keeps garaged in a garage there, which is more expensive than monthly rent for a kothi in Cantt—and now they can’t go and use. And why? Because their passports are green and that’s not Tony’s favourite colour any more. Dekho zara!

  India slowing peace process: Pakistan

  Butterfly plans Kulchoo’s birthday party

  So bore these weeks are: parties khatam, balls khatam, life khatam. Nothing to keep me going except for a bit of goss here and there. Suna hai, MacDolands ne change hands kar liya hai, but in Lahore only. I’m planning to rent out Main Boulevard branch for Kulchoo’s birthday party, but I think so I’ll have it transferred into a jungle for a Mowgli themed party. I was telling Mulloo how every aira-vagehra has birthday parties in MacDolands (her daughters Zebunnisa and Falaknuma also had theirs there only), and thora sa difference tau must hai, na, to extinguish myself from the paindu crowd.

  ‘Haw, jaani,’ said Mulloo. ‘Trust you to think of it. You could switch off the ACs and make it all hot and sweaty and junglee. Then you could also get the management to take the bijli off the bill. What a big saving that will be for you! And instead of going to all the expense of a Kitchen Cuisine ka cake, you could just plonk a bunch of rotten bananas on the table. And also, Kulchoo can wear a red chaddi instead of a decent pair of Ralph Lauren ki kiddies ki jeans. But tell me, what are you going to do about the animals? Inflatable ones from Icchra, that downmarket bazaar where all the penny-pinchers go?’