The Diary of a Social Butterfly

by Moni Mohsin

  So in keeping with Basant theme, I’m all ready with my sunflower-gold jora. Last year I had lemon-yellow one and the year before that butter yellow and the year before that a sort of jaundice yellow and the year before that mustard and the year before that—I’ve forgotten. Anyways, point is one should keep changing, na, otherwise people think you are struck in a grove and they start taking you for granted and aik dafa aap ko log for granted take karna shuroo ho jayen, tau bus, might as well give up then. So this time, knowing that surprise is best element of attack, I’ve also had my hair dyed a sort of sunflower yellow to keep up the surprise elements.

  Now I’m all set for Basant. Let the count down begin…

  Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry suspended

  Butterfly rages over shortened Basant

  Two days. Just two measly days of hulla-gulla, shor-sharaba, mill-jull. And then bus, thup! Everything finish, everything over. Khattam shud. Shutters down. Lights out. So unfair. So selfish. So spoil spot. So rondoo. Who? The fundos, baba, who else?

  They went and shortened Basant to two days. Can you imagine? It comes after a whole year and then we can only celebrate for two days. And why? Because it is un-Islamic. Well, what else is Islamic then, hain? Cricket? Hockey? Did they used to play that back then? Bedminton? Football? And what about riding in cars and planes? The mullahs should ride on camels, then. And rocket launchers? And cruise missiles? Did they use that for doing jihad back then? No, they had arrows and swords. So let them fight the Americans with arrows and swords in Afghanistan. Why do they use bombs, hain? Bloody hypocrites, liars. I tau tell you, am so fed up. So up to here with their constant lectures and sermons. The minute they see someone having a bit of fun they come down on them like a cruise missile. Reminds me of Kulchoo’s monopoly: ‘Go to jail, go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect 200 pounds.’ Killed joys. Sarrhials. Bores. Losers.

  But one good thing the beardos have done. They’ve brought Janoo and me together. Yes, promise by God. They’ve done the impossible. This is what happened: I came back from the second day’s parties—you know Izzat Majeed’s do at his farm and Asif Jah’s haveli function and, of course, a quick hello-hi at Yusuf’s and Bali’s farm thing at Bedian, where incidentally Mush also came—and came home and wrenched my yellow stilettos off and hurled them across the room.

  Janoo, who as usual was sitting reading some bore book, looked up mildly and said, ‘Anything the matter?’

  So I started abusing the fundos, of course. At this he put his book down, crossed his arms across his chest and said, ‘Do I see the stirrings of a political consciousness here?’

  ‘I don’t know what you see, but I can tell you how I feel. FED UP. Itni fed up, keh bas pooch hi na. I mean, why can’t the beardos go off to some island like Green Land or Blue Land or something and make their own bore kingdom for themselves, where no one is allowed to laugh or fly a kite or sing a song or wear sleeveless?’

  ‘Might be a bit nippy to go sleeveless in Greenland. Global warming notwithstanding,’ he murmured.

  ‘What? Who’s without standing? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said hurriedly. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Haan, why can’t they just go off and leave us alone to sarrho, pay for our own sins and to answer Allah ourselves? It’s not as if I’m asking anyone else to jump into the fires of hell for me, am I? So why can’t they leave us alone?’

  At this he looked at me in wonder and said, ‘Madam, I salute you!’ And then he took me out to dinner. At Cosa Nostra. Candle light. Roses. Bliss.

  Countrywide protests for Chief Justice

  No Thai soup for Butterfly

  So much of trouble poor Gen Mush is in. And why? Because he threw out a judge. Big bloody deal, yaar. People throw their husbands and wives out and nobody turns a hare, tau what’s all this fuss for a judge, hain? I tau think it’s very unfair the way they are taking out jalooses and doing hartaals and being so mean to poor old Mush.

  Quite apart from the fact that I haven’t been able to go down the Mall for a little bit of Thigh food at Royal Elephant—that soup of theirs, Sum Yung Guy, is sooo delish—because of the jalooses that these spoil spot lawyers are taking out, I really think that they should have a little bit of lehaaz for a man who’s allowed us fashion shows and satter-light TV and New Year’s Eve parties. I mean it’s not like he was like General Zia or something, who wouldn’t let us wear sleeveless and dance at New Year’s, haina? Honestly, Mush tau is my favourite general. So nice he is. You should ask the Indians, so jealous they are of us for having him. And that nice Shock Aziz with his nice, smooth-si voice and his nice, smooth-se manners and his nice, smooth-si sherwani. Honestly, that’s our problem, never do enough Allah ka shukars.

  As usual, I had a big fight with Janoo about it. Yes, I can hear you say, what’s new? What’s new is that we hadn’t fought for a while. Part of the reason is that he was in Sharkpur for ten days—so he wasn’t there to fight with—but part of the reason was also that we were not talking since our last fight. But anyways, we had a big fight over Mush and cricket.

  Janoo, of course, is behaving as if the sacked judge was his own chacha and is taking it all very personally, and when I said, ‘So what’s the big deal?’, I thought he was going to have a heart attack like poor old Bob Woolmer. And he said if our team played with even half the commitment with which they pray, then maybe we could win ten World Cups. And I said that he was just sarrhoing because he’d bought a new wall-mounted TV for the World Cup and now he has to watch Australia win in double size.

  Actually, poor old Mulloo and Tony had booked tickets and made hotel reservations and everything for World Cup, and had been maaroing show for the last three months about how they were off in the first week of April to Carib Iranian. And now they have gone all quiet and the goss is that they are trying to get their money back and can’t. Serves them right for being so shoda!

  Anyways, I said to Janoo, why didn’t he buy a book or something and read it to forget his sorrows about cricket and Bob Woolmer. And he said it was rich coming from me, considering I couldn’t name a single book if he asked me. So I said, what nonsense he was talking.

  And he said, ‘Go on, then, name one book you know well.’

  And cool as a cucumber, I said, ‘Cheque book!’ Kaisa?

  Lal Masjid students kidnap foreigners, threaten mass suicide bombs

  Butterfly participates in anti-extremism rally

  I went. Janoo went. Kulchoo went. So did Mummy, Daddy, Aunty Pussy, Fluffy and Mulloo-Tony. Even Jonkers went. Where? Uff, taubah! Where are you? To the anti-fundo rally, of course. On April 14th in Lahore. Everyone I know went. Yes, yes, I know, I’m not the jaloosiya types and yes, I know you think I did it only for shughal and getting my pictures in papers, but you can think whatever you want, because I damn care. I know why I went, and that’s all that matters. So why I went?

  I went because enough is enough, baba. For the last twenty years, ever since bloody Zia, I’ve been turning a blind cheek and the other eye. Chalo, I thought, if the fundos want to grow beards and carry Kalashnikovs and wear their shalwars to show off their hairy ankles, and put their women in burqas and their sons in madrassahs, tau let them. Mera kya jaata hai? They want to go and fight in Kashmir, tau let them. They want to die in Afghanistan, tau let them. Live and let live—or in this case, die—I thought.

  But it’s not like that. Because the fundos are not prepared to live and let us live. They tau are control freaks, yaar. Like class monitors, they want to tell us when we can talk and when we can’t. When we can go to toilet and when we can’t. When we can sit down and when we can’t. Today they are saying that I can’t wear sleeveless and must wear dupatta on my head. Tomorrow they will say I must wear chaadar. The day after they will say I must cover my face. Then they will say that even behind my niqab I can’t wear make-up. Then they will say I can’t even wear lipstick at home, or cut my hair, or wear sent, or paint my nails. Then they will say I can’t dri
ve. And nor can I sit in a car alone with a driver to whom I am not related by blood. Then they will say I can’t go in mixed company. So I can’t go to Al-Fatah to do my shopping, or go to Dynasty Chinese, or even to Tariq Amin’s for my highlights and facial.

  Parties tau will be completely out. Not even GTs will be allowed, so you can forget balls. Also going to London, Dubai, Singapore, vaghera, will be band. Then they will say I can’t read English books or watch movies or listen to songs. Not even Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. Then they will say I can’t inherit property. So Daddy’s house and all his shares vaghera will go to his brother’s sons and all I’ll inherit from him will be his blood pressure and diabetes. Then they will say Janoo can marry however many times he wants, and I can’t say no to him. Then they will say I can’t die-vorce him. And if I don’t do as they say, then they will say that I am asking for it, and they will march me to a stadium and, in front of thousands of other beardo control freaks they will behead me. So you see, mera bohat kuch jaata hai. THAT’s why I went to the march. Because I’ve realised there’s no turning a blind eye with fundos. Because they won’t let you.

  Stalemate over Lal Masjid

  Butterfly leaves for London

  Mulloo came to my house on the day before I was leaving for London—packing-shacking, everything was done—and said, ‘Haw, are you crack or something, going to London?’

  ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Why am I crack?’

  ‘Uff, taubah, so much of garmi there and no ACs and no pankhas even. So behind they are, na. We tau went last year and did taubah after. This year tau we are going to Thailand, where everything, even the swimming pool, is AC’d. My tau shoe even wouldn’t go to London in summers. Not even if you paid it, baba.’

  But thanks God, I didn’t listen to Mulloo. Such a sarrhi boti she is. Tony is in trouble with the banks, na. They are calling in their loans and Tony is playing hide and seek all over the place with them. The Porch is gone and so is the second Prado. And last week I saw Mulloo’s diamond earrings—the three-three-carrot-wallay drops—at Goldsmith’s. She pretended they’d come to be fixed but Iqbal Sahib told me himself only that she’s asking sixty Ls for them and ‘not an anna less’. So I think so they can’t afford London and becharas, they are having to make do with Phookit. Maybe they can’t even cuff up the 25 thou for the British ka visa.

  But we can, and it’s so nice here. So cool-cool, so breezy-breezy. A bit of rain, but Janoo keeps complaining and grumbling that he can’t see Wimbledong but I tau damn care. Vaisay I think so the monsoon has come here also. In their Northern Areas tau there has been theek-thaak flooding-shlooding. Places like Badford and Leads and pata nahin kya. Where their Taliban types live. You know, the ninjas in their burqas and trainers and the mullahs with their beards down to their knees, who say, ‘khuda hafiz, innit?’ Them only.

  But why spoil my holidays by thinking about all of that bore stuff? Particularly when so many nice, khaata-peeta types are here these days. At Deutsche Bank ki rich desis party last week there were Naseem and Sehyr Saigol, Saira Lakhani, Qadir Jaffer, Gillo Afridi, and also I hear Habib Fida Ali is here and Mian Sheheryar also, and Meliha and Sikander are coming and Monty and Amina have just gone and Popity is coming and so are Irfan and Gullie. Hai, so much fun, just like a huge desi GT in London. And poor Mulloo is sitting all by herself in boring old Phookit… Ya kismat ya naseeb.

  Lal Masjid sacked by troops, dozens killed; mass violence in Karachi

  Jonkers has a narrow escape

  Look at MQM! Look at Musharraf! Look at the army! Look at all these stuppid district councillors who pushed their poors into buses and dragged them all to Isloo for Musharraf’s tit-for-tat jaloos with the lawyers and judges. Shame on them! Stuppids! Not the poors, the councillors. Honestly, hud hoti hai of shamelessness. It’s like Mulloo inviting me to tea and then expecting me to bring my servants to serve. And bringing all the chai ka samaan on top. And me going along doing yai, yai like a besharam and taking them all along in a trailer holding samosas and cakes.

  Talking of Islamabad, I heard on Al Jazeera last night keh government has finally seedha karroed the Lal Masjid crazies. But why be all lovey-dovey and ‘Ji huzoor, no problem, burn as many video shops as you like’ with them in the first place, then? Why promise to rebuild their mosques and let them treat that public library in Islamabad like their own sitting-dining, then? Janoo says Mush has lost the plot. Which one, I said? A four-star general like Mush tau gets so many. And not just residential plots but agricultural lands also. In Sharkpur all of the biggest zamindars are now generals.

  I tell you, the CJM (no, no, that’s Convent of Jesus and Mary), the CJS (haan, I remember, it stands for Chief Justice of Supreme Court, but then why isn’t there another C at the end?), haan, I was saying the CJS is my new hero. Shame he doesn’t look more like Brad Pitts, but he’s still my hero. Janoo tau is one minute up, one minute down, just like the mouse in the clock. Pehlay he was so excited, so excited keh poocho hi na. He kept banging on about the reassessment, or was it reassertion, anyways something important of civil society. He took part in every single jaloos, every single protest in Lahore, and wrote hundred-hundred letters to the newspapers on top, asking for chief justice to be reinstalled. But now he says lawyers are beginning to act like a political party. They are electioneering instead of lawyering.

  ‘Just make up your mind,’ I said, ‘instead of running up and down the clock.’

  He looked at me as if I’d gone mad. I think so he didn’t understand my illusion to the mouse in the clock. Poor thing, he is not poetry-minded like me.

  But it was poor Jonkers, really, who got it in the neck. He was in Karachi that day, na, when CJS was expected to give speech there in big jaloos but wasn’t allowed to step into the city by MQM. That’s when MQM went off on that killing spree. (Janoo should give a thousand thanks that I only do shopping sprees.) Haan, so what was I saying? Yes, Jonkers in Karachi: Aunty Pussy has a plot just on the backside of Drigh Road and she’d sent him to find buyers for it. So anyways, you know that Jonkers never reads the papers and on TV also he only watches the film channel, so he didn’t know CJS was expected in Karachi. So he arrived at the plot where he had appointment with a state agent and he waited and waited but no one came. He said the streets were a bit quietish and a bit emptyish and also a bit spookyish and he started feeling a bit worried-sa.

  For a moment or two he even considered going home but then the thought of Aunty Pussy’s ghussa was even more scary, so he stood and stood but still the state agent wouldn’t come, wouldn’t come. Finally he saw a motorbike coming slowly towards him, and he was so reliefed to see someone at last that he was about to run and throw his arms around them, but as the motorbike got closer he saw there were two men and one had the lower half of his face covered by a handkerchief, like, you know, thiefs and murderers in cowboy films, and the other was carrying a Kalashnikov and looking as bloodthirsty as Dracula, honest by God.

  Jonkers tau poor thing was so terrified that he dived into the bushes of his old house and sat there hunched up, shivering and shaking like Aunty Pussy’s upper arms. Luckily the motorcycle-wallahs didn’t see him. But he saw everything. All the khoon-kharaba and the murders and the firing and the killing that took place on that street that day. And the police standing to one side, picking their noses. He was there in the bush for nine hours, poor Jonkers. Itna trauma hua hai becharay ko keh poocho hi na. So shame on Musharraf, shame on MQM, shame on all the stuppids who did this to bechara Jonkers. And, oh yes, I must remember the poors who died also.

  Musharraf and Benazir in secret talks in Dubai

  Bob Woolmer’s death from natural causes: Butterfly

  So sad. So, so, so sad. Such high hopes I had of Mush. In fact, everyone had. Mulloo, Tony, Aunty Pussy, Mummy, Fluffy, even Jonkers, who, bechara, after all his broken marriages had stopped being hopeful altogether. And now Mush has gone and bashed all our hopes. We never thought he’d go conkers like this.

  Only Janoo, sarrh
i boti, in his usual doom and bloom way, always said, ‘Mark my words, however much he might bang on about enlightened moderation and however liberal and open he might seem, a general is in the end a general. He doesn’t know how to share power.’

  Such poocho tau, I tau damn care about power shearing, as long as he keeps us happy and rich. House prices were rising (ours is for ten crores now, mashallah), international supermarkets were coming, Americans were happy with us, olive oil was flowing in Al-Fatah, and after all these years, shopping in Delhi’s Khan Market had become so easy. What more does anyone want, haan? Okay, I admit, there were a couple of little things, like that Red Mosque phudda where he let the chicks with sticks hold all of Isloo to handsome for weeks and weeks before blasting them off the face of the earth, and then there was the punga he took with the Just Chieftess, but really, these are such choti-choti things when you compare them to the big-big things like house prices vaghera, that I tau feel that we should forgive and forget.

  I said to Janoo when he was going on and on about Mush, ‘Just look how much of freedom Mush gave to the press! Good Times, Begum Nawazish Ali, Zainab Can’t Cook, Sunday…’

  ‘The army must learn to let go,’ he said. ‘Musharraf is stifling civil society. And it won’t work. It just won’t work.’

  ‘Maybe it’s the heat,’ I said. ‘If ACs are melting, maybe his brain is also melting.’

  ‘His political system is certainly in meltdown,’ said Janoo.