The Diary of a Social Butterfly

by Moni Mohsin

  God knows who will come now. Benazir or Nawaz? I am tau so sick of that silly ping-pong. They come, they loot, they go. One is sitting in big, fat flat in London and the other is sitting in big, fat flat in Dubai and talking from there only about what-what they will do, and how horrid Mush is and how lovely they are! And here we are all sarrhoing in the heat with loadshedding on top.

  But one piece of khush khabri. Now goras are saying Bob Woolmer died himself only and that nobody killed him. Dekho zara. After all those suspicious looks at our poor, namaazi, God-fearing players, and all that talk of match-fixing and poisoning and doing DMA testing of them and muttering-shuttering about bribery and corruption. Just because they have big beards and can’t speak too much of English and throw the occasional match doesn’t mean our boys are murderers. I tell you, goras are so racist. If New Zealand’s or Australia’s coach had died, no one would have said a thing. Just because it’s big, bearded, brown us… Honestly!

  Benazir returning to Pakistan on 18 October

  Flopsy gets nose job

  Goss is—and not just aissee-vaissee, everyday goss, but real, reliable goss—that Mush was about to declare emergency but Condi Rice called in the middle of night and told him, ‘Khabardaar!’

  Apparently his finger was two inches away from emergency button when phone rang. ‘Hello? Kaun?’ he said.

  ‘It’s me only. Miss Condiment Rice. Listen, I’m telling to you keh bilkull don’t even think about it. Varna no one will be worse than us. And then don’t say we didn’t say. Okay? Now take your finger out and go to sleep. And when you wake up in the morning go and hunt Talibans.’

  And phone went ‘kharrack’ after that.

  But problem is, what is Mush to do? Janoo says Americans are saying, ‘Go fetch Benazir Bhutto’, but BB is also not maanoing. As Janoo says, she’s no Sonia Gandhi willing to stay in the background and let someone from her party become PM. Na, ji, na, not in a thousand, million years. She’d rather put her dog on the PM’s chair than any of her party members. Did you see the way she became so jay of Aitzaz when he was all over the papers for fighting with Mush over chief justice? Janoo tau thought she was going to throw him out on his ear then and there only. Also, if she doesn’t become PM then how is she going to make more money? Sochnay ki baat hai, vaisay. So God alone knows who’s going to come.

  Bhai, I tau want anyone but mullahs. Even Imran or Nawaz are better, but Janoo says that they are hand-in-glove with mullahs. And because they like to pretend they are not, they are much more dangerous.

  Matric results have come. Our driver’s son got second division pass. He was eating Janoo’s head to get him sarkari naukri. Janoo did some sting-pulling and got him into Forests, but he says he wants Customs or Police and not a bonga job with no money-making prospectus like Forests. Janoo’s told him to go to hell.

  Mulloo’s back from Singapore with a suitcase full of shoes and bags. Flopsy’s come back from New York with a new nose. She swears she’s had nothing done, but in June her nose was a jacket potato and now it’s a french fry. Jhoothi jaisi. Honestly, so full of liars and cheaters this country is. No wonder we are an emergency…

  Suicide bomber targets Benazir

  Butterfly queries Mulloo’s hair colour

  Look at them! Bursting bombs on Benazir’s jaloos and killing so many peoples. You know yesterday I was watching TV late into the night because Janoo tau, you know, he is a news ka junkie, na, and he wouldn’t switch off the wall-mounted 48-inch ka screen in our bedroom which he got for World Cup, even though it was so late at night. And so I was also forced to watch, and one minute it was claps and cheers and dhols and dhoom and the next, smoke and screams and dhamaakas and bodies. Next day, jab pata chala it was suicide bomb tau Janoo immediately announced that it was Al Qaeda.

  ‘Hai, bhai, how you can be sure?’ I asked.

  ‘Because only ideological zealots blow themselves up,’ he replied.

  I wanted to ask him who is Zealot, but you know he makes such sarrhial faces when you ask him any questions keh I thought, keh kyoon apnay aap ki besti karaani, hain? And anyways silent is golden.

  Anyways, next day we went to Mulloo’s for dinner and Janoo was saying what a relief it was that Benazir didn’t get harmed, when Tony said: ‘Haan, khud tau she survived and got so many innocent people killed. I tau think she has blood on her hands.’

  ‘What?’ Janoo asked, open-mouthed.

  Oh God, I thought, now there is going to be tu-tu-main-main. So quickly I said to Mulloo, ‘Hai, Mulloo, your hair is looking so nice, phir se dye karae hain?’

  ‘What do you mean, “blood on her hands”?’ asked Janoo in that soft-si voice he puts on just before he explodes.

  ‘Ji nahin,’ snapped Mulloo. ‘My hair is naturally auburn.’

  ‘So many times Musharraf had said, “Don’t do jalooses, don’t do jalooses,”’ said Tony. ‘Instead, go in helicopter. We know the risks, baba, because we know everything. But would she listen? Never! Ziddi to the last, just like her father.’

  ‘If they knew the risks, why didn’t they give her better security?’ asked Janoo.

  ‘It must be the light, then, Mulloo,’ I continued desperately, ‘because honestly your hair is looking almost carrot-coloured.’

  ‘Problem is,’ said Tony, leaning back in his leather armchair and resting his huge glass of whisky on his paunch, ‘these rich, corrupt politicians, what do they care about the poor man on the street. Hain, ji? All they care about is votes. What does it matter to Benazir if three hundred, even three thousand die? Unlike us, politicians don’t care about ordinary man.’

  ‘My hair is natural,’ shouted Mulloo. ‘I’ve told you a thousand-thousand times.’

  ‘I don’t believe it. I just don’t believe it,’ shouted Janoo. ‘Instead of asking who has killed all these people and why, you are blaming the victim, or at least the intended victim. Have you gone mad?’

  ‘If you are about to blame our God-fearing religious brothers then you can stop right now,’ said Tony, slamming his glass down on the table.

  ‘Who but a religious fanatic blows himself up? For what?’

  ‘How should I know?’ shrugged Tony. ‘Maybe it was someone from within her own party.’

  ‘How can that be?’ I reasoned calmly with Mulloo. ‘Your mother had black hair, your father black. How come you are red?’

  ‘I am a redhead,’ screamed Mulloo. ‘Get that into your thick head!’

  ‘What nonsense, Tony!’ scoffed Janoo. ‘I never heard such bullshit in my life.’

  ‘If we are so full of bullshit, ji, and also if you are going to make mean-mean-se, jealous-se comments about our hair, then I think so we’d better part companies, nahin?’ said Mulloo, with a tight sa smile.

  ‘My thoughts exactly,’ said Janoo, rising to his feet. ‘Come!’ he barked at me, as if I was a faithful labradog sitting at his feet.

  But I couldn’t even argue with him in front of Mulloo, na. Bhai, izzat ka savaal tha. So I followed him out with my nose in the air. Tomorrow I’ll send some flowers to her because she’s having big New Year’s party and my nose will be cut if I’m dropped from the invitation list. But I swear to God, she’s had her hair dyed carrot. It’s about as natural as Aunty Pussy’s teeth.

  Musharraf declares state of emergency

  Butterfly finds God

  Yesterday I said to Janoo, ‘Chalo, ulhumdolillah, shukrallah, thanks God, holy month of Ramzan is almost finished, mashallah. Just one more week to go and then bus, by the grace of Almighty Allah, Eid inshallah.’

  Janoo raised an eyebrow and said, ‘Are you also growing a beard?’

  I tau clapped my hand to my chin where only yesterday I’d had my sixth laser ka dose done. Turning my back on Janoo I quickly felt with my fingers, but no stubble. Not even one or two thorn-like things poking out. And just as well, because I’ve already spent 18 thou rupees on it, yaar, and I’ve still got two sessions to go. My chin was a bit sore, but definitely no stubble. So I swung
back and glared at him.

  ‘What do you mean, beard? Beard hogi tumhari, beard ho gi tumhari maan ki, beard hogi tumhari sisters ki…’

  ‘Metaphorically,’ Janoo sighed. ‘I was speaking metaphorically.’

  ‘Stratospherically,’ I replied in an equally tired si voice. ‘I was speaking stratospherically.’

  Just yesterday only, Kulchoo was telling me that after earth there is stratosphere and it’s very, very high, higher than K-2, even. So I thought: time to show Janoo that I can also do high-high talk. Just because he’s been to Oxford and is an Oxen, doesn’t mean only he can use big-big words.

  ‘Sorry?’ he said, frowning at me.

  ‘It’s too late to be sorry,’ I said, lifting my hairless chin proudly. ‘What’s been said has been said.’

  ‘Look, I don’t know what you’re going on about,’ he said, ‘I was just making a comment, albeit a facetious one, about your new-found piety, and wondering whether you too had become a fully paid up member of the God squad. That’s all!’

  I think so Janoo’s frightened of going to hell. He’s seen me keeping all the rozas this year and saying all my namaazes. Actually he hasn’t seen me too much lately, because he’s been in Sharkpur where he’s been interviewing teachers for his bore school, and I’ve been asleep in Lahore. (I go to bed after sehri, na, and don’t wake till iftaari. Then I do my namaazes all in one lump sum, kazaa you know, and then I go to Mulloo Tony’s for a GT or something, then I come home and watch DVDs till it’s time for sehri again.) Janoo, of course, hasn’t done a thing for the holy month of Ramzan. Not for a minute he’s thought of praying or remembering God or anything. All month he’s been sitting in his bore village in Sharkpur, where he’s built a free school for children, and now he went to set up a library and fit in a computer and hire teachers and things. Imagine! And he doesn’t even fight an election from there. Crack!

  ‘It’s not too late, you know,’ I said. ‘There’s still a week to go. You can keep your rozas and Allah Almighty, the Merciful, the Beneficient, will forgive you.’

  ‘You know something?’ said Janoo, peering closely at my face, ‘As you speak, I can actually see hairs sprouting from your chin…’

  Benazir Bhutto launches election campaign; Nawaz returns from Saudi Arabia

  What’s it all about? asks Butterfly

  Haan, so what’s new? Hmm. Nawazu is back of course, and not in some sarha bussa PIA ka plane, which all smell of socks and saalan, but in King Abdullah’s own gleaming golden plane, which probably reeks of attar and serves Houbara bustard soup and ibex pulao. And then he rode home also in King Abdullah’s apni bulletproof Merc and he probably also called and thanked him from the bottoms of his heart the minute he got home for arranging everything so nicely. Not at all like last time, haina, when he wasn’t even allowed to get off his plane? I tell you, it’s always good to have friends in high places.

  Aur, Imran Khan’s started eating again. He’s no longer on hunger strike. And Mush has stopped being a general but I don’t know how I’m going to recognise him now without his vardee topi. He’s handed his stick to Kayani also so that he can beat us up now instead of Mush. And Jemima has become expert on Pakistan. So much of jalooses she’s taking out and articles she’s writing in London. Shock Aziz is on his way out—no Saudi jahaaz for him, but. And BB? Who knows what BB’s up to? Pehlay tau uss ne join hands kar liye thay with Mush, na, but I think so now they’ve had a separation. God knows ab kiss ke saath join hands karay gee. Nawaz? The Chaudhrys? Imran? The mullahs? MQM? The republicans? Maybe she’s like those Indian murtis with hundreds of hands that she can join with everyone at once without anyone knowing.

  Janoo of course is shouting himself horse. ‘We are not a sovereign nation!’ he says. ‘We’re a joke! Americans are fielding their candidate, the Saudis theirs, the army is sitting on top of us, and we are getting crushed underneath.’

  What else? Elections are coming. Or so Mush says. We’ll believe it when we see it. Meantime, infilteration has become so much so much keh don’t even ask. Servants are demanding pay rise. Dekho zara! They say they can’t afford atta. So don’t eat atta, baba. Eat rice. Or still better, cut out carbs altogether. Do Atkins, like me.

  Uff, it was so nice and quiet when Janoo was gone. Gone where? Haw, don’t you know? Janoo went to jail, baba. High point of his life and you’re asking where he went? He’s sooo proud of himself for being arrested with ‘like-minded, responsible citizens’. Oho, he got bundled into the same van as all those Human Rights Commission Pakistani-wallahs na—the Ali Cheemas, the Meena Rehmans, the Ahmed Hossains and the Bilal Mintos of Lahore. Parha-likha, bore types. So proud he was of ‘standing shoulder-to-shoulder with them’.

  Pehlay tau I got a bit worried when I heard he’d been locked up. I thought maybe he’s been thrown into Attock or Mianwali jail or somewhere scarey like that but when I heard he was sitting in Model Town only, with all those bore responsibles who are sure to make big fuss and get themselves out, then tau I relaxed and thought chalo, he’s having nice time, and so should I. So bus, for next two days I had so much of massages and watched so many of DVDs—Om Shanti Om, Desperate Housewives, Parineeta again (uff, that one tau I just adore).

  But then Janoo came back covered all over with mosquito bites and madder than ever. He says he’s going to throw up (throw out, throw over? Whatever!) Mush now. Lo suno zara.

  ‘Haan, Janoo,’ I said, ‘Zuroor. But don’t you think you should make some friends in high places first?’

  ‘Like who?’ he asked.

  ‘Hmm, let me see. How does Prince Bandar grab you?’

  Benazir Bhutto assassinated

  I don’t feel like going to any parties, any weddings, any GTs even. Why? Because Benazir is dead. I don’t feel like going anywhere or doing anything. I don’t know if I will ever feel like. I didn’t like her, to be frank. She was corrupt and always doing ghuplas and pushing her own people forward. So why am I sad? So, so, so sad? I feel like someone in my family’s died. I miss her.

  Let me end by telling you how The Diary of a Social Butterfly came to be. In the 1990s when I was working at The Friday Times in Lahore, my editor asked me to think of a column that would appeal to women readers. ‘Touching on issues of concern to women,’ he said. ‘Joint family systems, working women, women’s health, you get my drift? But written with a light touch. Light, but not shallow.’

  So I began writing about life as a single woman in Lahore. Called ‘By The Way’, it documented in as light and breezy a manner as I could manage, the travails (many) and triumphs (meagre) of my own life. But after two years I got bored with it and said as much to my editor. My editor was, to use a very British phrase, ‘not best pleased’. The column had grown quite popular and he was unwilling to see it perish. In the end we reached a compromise: ‘By The Way’ could discontinue provided I found a substitute for it.

  I spent the next couple of weeks trying to find a viable alternative to ‘By The Way’. But whatever I wrote morphed into a weak imitation of it. I knew if I was to write anything at all original, I had to make a radical departure from the form and style of that column. But how? With what?

  Just about then I found myself at a very fancy, very big lunch party, thick with the prosperous burghers and behemoth begums of Lahore. As I was helping myself to food, I overheard a conversation between two begums.

  ‘Haan, I bought this shahtoosh yesterday only,’ a lady with rhinestone-encrusted dark glasses and diamond studs the size of rupee coins purred, as she patted the shawl in which she had swathed her ample torso. ‘I had four from before also but they were shorter. So I thought, chalo, no harm in getting one in seven yards also. So I got.’

  ‘I tau don’t wear shawls, baba,’ said the other, who was (almost) dressed in a micro-sleeveless blouse and a slithery, whispery, crepe sari. ‘No offence, but itni thick shawl mein zara sa ayahs’ wallah effect nahin aa jata?’ She tossed her mane of blowdried hair over her bare shoulder and looked pityingly at he
r stodgy lunch companion.

  That was my Eureka moment. I knew then that I should do a satirical column based on the lives of the rich and inane. But how was I to do it without naming names and making enemies? I needed a fictitious character who would not only be my mouthpiece, but also personify all the neuroses and insecurities to which people in her position are prey. Enter the Butterfly. But in order to make her silliness apparent, I needed a counterpoint. Hence, Janoo. Janoo would need a family—The Old Bag, the Gruesome twosome; and so would the Butterfly—Mummy, Aunty Pussy, Jonkers. They would have one child, Kulchoo, and live in Lahore. Janoo would be landed and educated, the Butterfly urban and foolish, and their marriage would be built on mutual misunderstanding. I had my column. Or at least the idea for it.

  When I discussed it with my editor, he was lukewarm but allowed me, albeit grudgingly, to have a go. The column was an immediate hit with my readers. It was new and yet familiar. It held a mirror up to them but was sufficiently good-humoured to cause no—or very little—offence. What’s more, after two or three issues, it even won my editor over.

  In the many years that I have been writing The Diary of a Social Butterfly, the question that I am asked most often about it is this: by whom is the central character inspired? I consider the query a compliment. For it means that my protagonist, the shallow, egotistical, obtuse Butterfly, is sufficiently credible for my readers to feel that she is based on a real person of my acquaintance. Though I often respond to the query with vague denials, the fact is that the Butterfly is based on someone I know intimately: myself.

  The Butterfly is the embodiment of my own ‘hidden shallows’. I may not speak or live like her. I may not even have the same taste in music and film. Nonetheless, the Butterfly is a true expression of my Hello-reading, self-absorbed, frivolous side, exaggerated manifold and unredeemed by any hint of self-doubt and unburdened by any desire for a more meaningful existence. Of course, I cannot claim to be the inspiration for each and every one of her concerns and quests. I simply wouldn’t have thought of them. So, I borrow shamelessly from other people. When I hear of a particularly comic incident, I promptly cull it for the column. Many of the incidents described in this collection, such as the burglary where the burglars lectured their hapless victims on their unseemly dress, have really happened, not to me but to others. Many of the conversations relayed here, I have overheard. And in reporting some of the scandals written up in the diary, I have crossed over from fiction to fact.