The Diary of a Social Butterfly

by Moni Mohsin

  ‘In case it’s escaped your notice,’ he said through gritted teeth, as if he had a quinine tablet tucked into his cheek, ‘you are the mistress of a sprawling great farm in Sharkpur that you have not deigned to visit for four years, and since you mention a cosy-sa, chota-sa farmhouse, my ancestral home…’

  ‘Oh, that pile of 300-year-old rubble!’ I pooh-poohed. ‘Only a loser would want to go to that Godforshaken house, which doesn’t even have a home cinema or a gym even.’

  ‘It’s an authentic haveli, not an ostentatious nouveau mansion with Doric columns and Palladian façades masquerading as a farmhouse!’

  ‘You’re just jealous because nobody likes your stupid old Sharkpur or your paindu pastry family or your crumbling old house, while everyone just adores Bedian,’ I replied.

  Anyways, there was a lot of tu-tu-main-main, and now Janoo and me are not talking.

  But imagine what knives walked over my heart when I saw Liz Hurling in Bedian (hai, so nice she looked in that white sari with sequences) with that Arun Nayyer in his crackling shalloo (oho, baba, shalwars), thinking that had I had a farmhouse in Bedian, I too could have invited her and been a dignified-si, salacious-si hostess. And kal ko when Kulchoo got married we could have had a mehndi for him there only. By then all those bore prescriptions that this spoil spot government has put on shaadi festivities and food would also have lifted, and we would have given a big khaana without having to call the mehndi ‘rang’ and the valeema a ‘to meet’ ceremony.

  But none of my dreams are ever going to come true, and you know why? Because I’m married to a killed joy, kanjoos loser called Janoo—that’s why!

  37 dead as terrorists bomb London

  Butterfly wonders whether she will ever get a UK visa again

  Look at these spoil spots, these bombers! Going and blowing up the tubes in London. And almost all of them Pakistanis. Honestly! So mean of them, so selfish. The least they could have done was to think of us, sitting here sarrhoing in the heat of Lahore. Already it was so difficult after 4711,I mean, 9/11, for us to get visas to London and New York; now tau it will become impossible. Visa officers will hit hundred-hundred shoes on our heads when we ask.

  I’m not saying they shouldn’t be allowed to kill themselves—oho, baba, bombers not visa officers. If they want to, they should be our guests, or rather, Allah Mian’s guests. No one’s stopping them. But they should have the decency to go hang themselves from a tree or jump off a tall building or into a well or whatever. Why take along computers, I mean commuters, who don’t want to go, whom you haven’t asked even? Haan? Maybe they don’t want to go to paradise just yet, nahin?

  I asked Janoo. I said, ‘Since you’re Mr Know-All, please tell this to me. Why are these suicide types such spoil spots, hain?’

  He muttered something about cultural animation and econmic delusion and political powerlessness and other bore-bore, stuppid-stuppid things like that, but when he saw me yawning, he said, ‘It’s like this: they feel that nobody cares about what they think and so they feel ignored and angry. And this is one way of making themselves heard.’

  ‘You mean with a bomb? You mean make such a loud explosion that everyone goes deaf? That way you’re going to make people hear the things you want to say?’

  And then the more I thought about it, the stranger it seemed to become to me. I mean like if Mulloo didn’t invite me to her parties and didn’t care about how angry and ignored I felt, would it make sense for me to arrive uninvited to her next do, push myself in with all her guests and then blow myself up in her sitting room? No, because not only would I not be invited to any more parties—because I’d be dead and dead people don’t get invited anywhere—but even poor old Kulchoo’s social life would also die. Janoo would be unaffected because he tau never had a social life in the first place, but Kulchoo and I would be toast, as they say in Hollywood. Khair, I tau would be toast in more ways than one, but who knows, even Mummy might find herself deluded, I mean excluded, from her bridge group, and even Aunty Pussy might find herself a person non granta.

  And Jonkers tau can forget finding another rishta ever. They will say, ‘Haw, don’t you know, he comes from that family, only. The one with suicide bomber. No, baba, too dangerous.’

  And also, as I pointed out to Janoo, if I kill the same people that I want to be invited by, then who’s left to invite me, hain?

  For once he agreed with me. ‘Well, yes,’ he said. ‘You do have a point.’

  Honestly, so simple and straightforward it is. If only the bombers had consulted me before, none of this would have happened and we would all have been fine with visas in pockets and Pakistan’s rep—oho, baba, reputation—intact. I think so, I should set myself up as consultant. Bomb consultant and explosives expert. Kaisa? Maybe I should put that in the bit where it says ‘profession’ in the passport. It would impress the hell out of visa officers, nahin?

  Jihadis running for local elections

  Butterfly’s darzi departs

  He’s left me! Dekho zara! Imagine, after all these years, after all I’ve done for him, he’s gone without even a backward squint. Who knew his name, even? Hain? Tell? I brought him out, I made him famous. And this is how he replays me. Mummy was right: Never trust a man. He’ll always double-cross you in the end. Leave you hanging high and fly. Aadmi zaat is like this only. He’s gone to Dubai. Thinks he’s going to make it big there. Who does he think he is? Some Russian senorita with golden hairs and blue-blue eyes?

  Once my Iraqi dinars make me rich, my jooti won’t even care. I’ve bought so many-many, and that too dirt cheap, that I’ll be the world’s richest person. I won’t even be needing the Grand Ayatollah Sistani to maro show. I’ll also become a famous oil magnet, a typhoon like John Paul Betty or even Bill Gates. I called Mummy and poured out my brain to her. Didn’t take very long. But Mummy koh dekho, so selfish she’s become. Majaal hai keh zara bhi sympathise karein? Any other mother would have been so heart warning.

  ‘Don’t you think you’re overreacting to his departure?’ she said. ‘After all, he was only your darzi.’

  ‘Darzi?’ I screeched. ‘Darzi? Master Bashir wasn’t just a darzi. He was my shrimp. I used to tell him everything and he used to advise. You know how he used to bring his machine and come and sit in the house and watch all the aana-jaanas with his beady little eyes and then advise me on how to kaato the pattas of The Old Bag and the Gruesome Twosome. And he was my spy. If it wasn’t for him, how would I have known that Mulloo’s husband’s car was seen parked outside a new house in XX Block in Defence four nights in a row when Mulloo had gone shopping to Singapore? Also, who will sow my sari blouses in the Kajol-style now?’

  ‘I know, I know,’ she soothed, ‘but I still think you’re over reac…’

  ‘Over? Me? Over? What do you think you are in your maroon platforms and maroon jora and maroon hair? Over! That’s what. So, so over!’

  Silence. And then Mummy said in a tight little voice. ‘I think after this little outburst you and I are also over.’ Click. She’d hung up.

  Uff! Aik tau after her memo pause Mummy’s also become so sensitive. Zara sa bhi kuch keh do, tau she flies off the candle. Now I suppose I’ll have to go and manao her with a Swiss voile ka jora. And then I’ll have to khiskhao Master Ramzan from Fanny—bhai, nahin hai that smart-si woman, Farnaz. So much of jaasoosi I’ll have to do, so underhand I’ll have to be and so much of expense I’ll have to go through. Janoo will hit the ceiling. Better call Mulloo first and find out if they’ve found oil in Iraq yet.

  Hurricane Katrina strikes New Orleans

  Jonkers wins Butterfly’s respect

  You know, na, that I’ve always thought Jonkers was a bit of a bonga, a loser, a bechara. Dekho zara, Mummy has me—sophisty, smart, connected—and poor Aunty Pussy has Jonkers—shy, shabby, disconnected. I mean, koi comparison ho sakta hai? From anywhere? But then this dakoo thing happened and I tell you, he went up a hundred-hundred times in my steam. So much of ghairat he has, so mu
ch of honour. I tell you, he’s kept the whole family’s izzat.

  Haw, what do you mean, ‘Which dakoo thing?’ Which planet are you living on, baba? The sun?

  You know, na, that Aunty Pussy and Uncle Cock-Up had gone to Peshawar for some fautgi last week? Bhai, Jonker’s paternalistic family is from there, na. So Jonkers, who as everyone knows is between marriages once again, was all alone at home. Anyways, the servants had given him dinner and gone off to their quarters. (Aik tau they have also become so kaamchor, running off at the smallest excuse to watch TV in their quarters. I tell you, their celeries should be halved.) Anyways, Jonkers hadn’t got anywhere to go, even though it was Saturday night, so he’d gone to sleep. Bechara, such a social failure he is, not like us who have to refuse 20-20 invites every night.

  In the middle of the night, he felt someone pushing him roughly. At first tau he just mumbled and rolled over because, poor thing, he’s being used to being pushed around, but when he felt something hard pressed against his forehead, he woke up with a jolt. He reached for his glasses and put them on and discovered that there were four dakoos in his room. One, kameena jaisa, had put a devolver to Jonkers’ forehead and was demanding that he open his safe. And he was not using very nice language also. No ‘please’, no ‘kindly’, nothing. Pehlay tau Jonkers nearly fainted with fright but when they grabbed him by his pajama jacket ka neck and marched him to the safe, Jonkers, poor thing, compiled.

  Thanks God, Aunty Pussy is a kanjoos who never ever airs her jewellery (or whatever’s left of it, after Miss Shumaila ran off with all that stuff), so that was all safe in her American Express locker. When Jonkers finally managed to open the safe with trembling fingers and a gun prodding him in the back, he found a single brown lifafa. The chors ripped open the lifafa and discovered only a pathetic 5000 rupees in it!

  ‘Only five thou?’ smeared the chors. ‘And you call yourself a seth?’

  Now, so far all of this badtameezi Jonkers had taken in his usual chup-chaap, shareef way. But now tau his blood boiled. This was too much. Imagine! Questioning his seth-ness.

  ‘How dare you?’ he shouted. ‘Take me to your car at once!’ (He would have used his car, but Aunty Pussy had gone on it to Peshawar.) Riding with the dakoos in his striped pajamas and slippers, he took them straight to an ATM and took out all the money he had in it (I think so, kam-az-kam, fifty thou). He slapped the crispy notes in the hand of the chief thief and shouted, ‘Here! A present from a seth!’

  Ab Jonkers ko admire na karoon, tau kya karoon?

  Pakistan’s worst ever earthquake devastates thousands

  Butterfly sacks her maid

  I’m firing Shanaz. Bhai, my maid, you know the one who was called Shameem but Mummy changed her name to Shanaz because she didn’t want the maid to share her name, otherwise how was she going to call her ‘Bewaqoof Shameem!’ Yes, that one only! You know what she’s gone and done now? Shanaz, baba, not Mummy.

  Mulloo called up yesterday after lunch. Shanaz picked up the phone and when Mulloo asked, ‘Begum Sahib kya kar rahi hain?’ she replied, ‘Voh paat par bethi, su-su kar rahi hain.’

  Imagine!! I heard her with my own years from the bathroom. I tau nearly had a cease fire—sorry, I mean seizure. Honestly, these people are so crude! So I charged out of the bathroom like a heat-seeking missile and, grabbing her by the wrist, hissed: ‘How many times I’ve told you that if someone calls and I’m in the bathroom you are to say that I’m taking a shower?’

  ‘But you weren’t taking a shower, you were doing su-su, I could hear it through the door!’ she whined. ‘I’m never doing su-su, you understand?’ I screamed. ‘I’m never doing su-su or anything else on the pot. I NEVER sit on the pot. I only ever take a shower or wash my hands. Yes, you can say I’m doing vuzoo for namaaz if Sahib’s mother calls. But I’m never doing su-su. Never, ever!!’ And then I sacked her.

  Haw, look at this earthquake. So bad, na. We were watching it on TV last night, all those people sitting outside their wrecked homes, when Kulchoo came into the room and gave Janoo a lifafa.

  ‘What’s this?’ asked Janoo.

  ‘My pocket money and all the Eidi that I’ve saved. I want you to send it to the people who’ve been affected by the earthquake.’

  So Janoo hugged him and promised to send it right away. And then he said that he would hire a truck and fill it up with medicines and blankets and food and water and powdered milk, and he’d take it up to the mountains himself.

  So Kulchoo looked at me and said, ‘And you, Mummy, what will you do?’

  ‘Me? I’ll call up Mulloo, Fluffy, vaghera and tell them how much we’ve given.’

  Commonwealth summit warns Musharraf over uniform

  Butterfly celebrates Halloween

  Janoo, I think so, is having nervous breakout. All day, all night, he rants about bore-bore things like Talibans and Al Qaedas and jihadis and wahabis and suicide bombers and ISI and God knows what-what else. He says fundos are everywhere and while Gulberg and Defence-wallahs are attending fashion shows and planning weddings, they are quietly organising the biggest GT ever, which, whether we like it or not, whole country will have to attend.

  ‘You watch!’ he says. ‘You just watch!’

  At first tau I ignored, but after a while he got so much on my nerves with his damn fool fatwas that I also exploded. ‘Uff, baba,’ I screamed, ‘if I hear Al Qaeda-Shaeda one more time, I’ll scream.’

  ‘You’re already screaming,’ he said quietly.

  ‘So where are your Taliban, under this table? Where are your bombers, behind this sofa? ISI in the cupboard? For God’s sake, they are in Waziristan, a thousand miles away. No one is in Lahore. Gulberg is safe, safe, safe. Okay?’

  ‘Dilli door-ast,’ he said wearily.

  See? Crack hai keh nahin? Here I am talking of Waziristan and he’s banging on about Delhi.

  I called Mummy and she said he must have had kala jadoo done on him and I must immediately give bakra and have Quran read. So I sent the driver to the local mosque where the Maulvi Sahib wears a green turban with a long tail, and paid him to do a Quran reading in our names. Obviously I didn’t tell Janoo, and nor did I tell him that I’d given The Old Bag some dosh also to do bakra in Sharkpur in his name. You know what he’s like, na. Communist jaisa.

  Anyways, to cheer myself up after that I organised a Holloween party. After all I’m also human being, no? Got a party organiser—sweet-si girl who Flopsy knows—to do up house. She went and draped it with cobwebs and put big hairy-se spiders who look just like The Old Bag and splashes of fake blood on the walls and brooms and melting candles. I made the servants dress in black with ashes put in their hair. I also told guests they must dress scarey-scarey. Mulloo asked what she should wear and I told her to come as she was, because she looked like a witch anyways. I don’t think so she’s coming any more. God knows why.

  Party was at 11 and at 8, bell rings and who should walk in but The Old Bag. Straight from Sharkpur to tell me about the bakra. Bearer opened the door in his torn black clothes and ashy hair. The Old Bag took one look at his face and then behind him at the blood-splashed walls and cobwebs and dark-dark lightning and she screamed, ‘Ya Allah bachaa!’ And she pulled out her tasbeeh from her bag and started purrhoing and phookoing and backing away from the door. Kulchoo came just then, but he was also dressed as skeleton and when she saw him she tau passed out. So I had her sent home like that only. It took four men to lift her and put her in the car and I had a lovely Holloween party.

  Musharraf for Islamic renaissance

  Butterfly buys fake Rolexes

  There’s to be a dinner at our house. Big sa, boring sa. With whole of Janoo’s family. The Old Bag is coming with her 1000-year-old maid; the Gruesome Twosome are coming: so Cobra, her loser husband and children, and Psycho with her crack husband and tribe of children and a thousand bore-bore, ugly-ugly rellies whose names I now forget. Why? Because he’s the son and the head of the family and it’s his duty to gather all the members
of his loser family under one roof at least once a year. That’s why. Aagay-peechay when it comes to doing rishtas, vaghera, and standing for elections, nobody is giving him even this much of importance but when it comes to lena-dena and doing big-big expensive things, he becomes head of family.

  Now look at Psycho, she’s gone and done a rishta of her daughter with this very paindu but very rich family from Faisalabad, you know, the kinds who have fridges in the dining room and cases of mangoes under their beds? Well, apparently the savaal was done ages ago and the karas were also put on last year on her fat wrists, but they told us only when the engagement cards were being printed and pretended keh everything has been done bas, abhi-abhi. And look at The Old Bag, such a snake in grass she’s turned out to be. She kept it from her own son since she knew that Janoo would object because he has soft spots for Nicky—or Nikki, as her name is, you know, ‘small’ in Punjabi—who he thinks should study more and become something. Well she is going to become something, I told Janoo—a big, fat, paindu Begum with fat gold karas on her wrists and a case of mangoes under her bed!

  Well, Psycho was dropping hints left, right and centre that Janoo should have family ka dinner in his house and also invite Nikki’s in-laws. And I bet they will want Janoo to shower gifts on boy and girl. And who do you think will pay for the gifts? Janoo, of course. Snatch crusts of bread from his own poor Kulchoo’s mouth in order to feed gulab jamans and luddoos to nasty Nikki and her nouveau husband. Over my dead buddy.

  But, one thing Mummy and Aunty Pussy have taught me. Never do open fighting. Instead do clever hidden fighting, like a gorilla. So this is what I did: I got Mulloo, who was going to Bangcock, to buy me two watches—fake gold ki Rolexes from the Sunday market but in nice-nice, real-real looking boxes, for ten dollars each. I told her they were for the servants.