Janoo’s mood, you know, it is like a lift. One minute in pant house, next minute in basement. Now look at this cricket, oho baba, this Champions Trophy. One minute he’s jumping up and down with excitement about international matches being played again in Pakistan — after so many years of boycot, he said, finally we’re back in the fold — next minute he’s down in the dumbs that Pakistan is out.

And that also after losing to India. Shame heaped on disappointment.

“Just as well,” he grumbled, “the Dubai waalahs refused us visas. What would have been the point of going?”

“Shopping?” I asked.

“You and your shopping!” he said, shaking his head. “Will you never tire of buying stuff? Your cupboards are bursting.”

A cricket fiasco and a shortage of eggs in the US are the least of Butterfly’s worries…

“Haw!” I said. “I do too much shopping? You should take a look at Donald Trump’s wish list before you say anything to me, okay? I mean, if he can put Canada in his supermarket trolley and also Green Lands and Panama Papers and Gaza, then my three new designer jorras are just haathon ka mael.”

In fact, Janoo should give thousand, thousand thanks that I’m not going around demanding that his sisters, Cobra and Psycho, give me their diamonds and rubies and other minerals and vitamins, like Trump’s gone and done with that poor Youkraine waala Zemenski, who hasn’t changed his T-shirt in three years.

Vaisay, this Trump and his new bestie Nylon Must, they’re also total cracks. Not only have they gone and snatched back all the money going into US Aids, they’ve put an overnight stop to their projects world wild and chhutti karaoed thousands of people. Aur tau aur, they’ve even come after Daddy’s second cousin’s daughter, Nargis, who has an NGO in Multan. Now she’s no one, bechari.

My cousin Minnie, who lives in California, is saying that they’re all very worried kay Trump and Must will find some excuse to throw them out because they’re immigrants. And they don’t like immigrants.

“But this Nylon Must, isn’t he himself also an immigrant?” I asked. “Janoo was telling me he grew up in some country called South Africa or something?”

“Haan, but in America white people are not considered immigrants,” Minnie sighed over the phone, “only brown and black ones.”

“You listen to me, Minnie,” I said. “First tau, you are an ex-Pak, not an immigrant. Immigrants are people who drive cabs and wash dishes in restaurants. They are not people like you who go for spa weekends and live in condoms in Maali Boo. Doosra, black tau chhorro, none of us are brown even. Mashallah se, God has made us all so fair and lovely. Just like foreigners. Now, go and get some highlights put and invest in a pair of blue lenses and stop all this stupid worry.”

Honestly, sometimes I think I should become a shrink and open my own clinic. So many people I could help.

“Any other problems?” I asked her.
“We can’t buy eggs here. There’s a huge shortage.”
“Of desi andaas?”
“Of any andaas!”
“Haw! Did all the hens burn in those fires last year?”
“Those that survived the fires died of avian flu.”
“Tau baba, flu jabs lagao unko.”
“Trump and his people are anti-vaxxers.”
“Tau phir, put masks on them.”
“They’re anti-masks also.”

“Uff Minnie,” I said, “then all I can suggest is you give up eggs. In any case, they’re bad for your cholesteroils.” And then I put the phone down. After all, there’s only so much of doom and boom I can take.

Have you heard the news about this man who was peddling along in his little raft in the sea and suddenly a whale came up behind him and swallowed him whole, kishti and all? Vaisay, poor Minnie must feel like that with Trump looming behind her. But at least the whale had the good manners to spit him out unharmed. Next time I speak to Minnie, I must tell her. It will comfort her no ends.

Aur kya? Haan, I hear Jimmy Choo is in town. So exciting. I want to bring him to my house and first take a selfie with him for Insta and then fling open my shoe cupboard and show him what a super fan I am. Maybe, he’ll give me five six pairs in appreciation. I told this to Janoo and he shut his eyes and breathed out through his nose like a bull. “Why don’t you make a jooton ka haar for him?” he asked. Such a sarrhial, I swear.

I hear Nylon Must is building a rocket to take him to Mars. I must check if he has a spare seat. He can also take Janoo.

Published in Dawn, EOS, March 9th, 2025