Bore, bore, bore! That’s what I am,’’ I told Janoo yesterday.‘‘I quite agree with you,’’ he replied with his sarrha hua smug smile, ‘‘you are an awful bore.’’‘‘I am not bore,’’ I screamed, ‘‘life is bore. No visas to London and no visas to New York, no visas nowhere. All I can do is sit here and sarrho and die in this hubss.’’‘‘Well you have a perfectly lovely cottage in Dunga Galli if only you had the imagination to see it for the enchanting place that it is.’’‘‘Enchanting, your head!’’ I yelled. ‘‘Why can’t you be like everyone else and buy a mention in Nathia instead of a jhonpri in Dunga?’’Hai, I could just have seen myself roaring up the twisted roads of Nathia in our Land Cruiser, exhaust blowing, music blaring, all the windows up to show that even in Nathia we can’t live without AC, and me sitting in back with my Versace shades and silk kurti over tight jeans, diamond tops glinting, hair blowing lightly in the breeze — sorry, forgot windows are up, so hairs can’t blow — latest Sidney Sheldon lying open beside me, so everyone knows I’m parha likha, and Filipino maid in the dicky surrounded by Samsonight suitcases — latest wallay, of course — and Kitchen Cuisine cartons and massive bottles of Nestlay ka paani and on our behind a small Suzuki following carrying cook and sweeper. These Fillis are so proud, they won’t do bathrooms and baba if I don’t have my bath washed down everyday I tau can’t go. So sweeper is must.But I’m damned if I’m creeping off to Dunga with nobody to watch and nobody to make J (uff, jealous, bhai, what else?). Much rather stay puts. Janoo, of course, is threatening to go off with Kulchoo. Go a thousand times, I told him, for all I care. Get off my nerves. It’s all his fault anyways that I’m stuck here for the whole of the summers.Anybody who had a little bit of get up and go has got up and gone to London. All you had to do, I told Janoo, is to maro your hands and feet a bit and we’d also be sitting in Harrods right now instead of which I’m stuck in Main Market.How else, do you think, everyone else has got visa? Bunny’s been, Sadia’s been, Rabia’s been, Amina’s been and Janoo says I can’t go.Bhai why?Because he says he refuses to do sifarish and do yie-yie to the British. As if he was some Raja Maharajah’s son who can’t lower himself by doing sifarish. Donkey. Dog. Crack. Kameena. (The Friday Times)
