Two days ago, Cobra, Janoo’s younger sister, called early in the morning, screaming historically down the phone.

“War is starting,” she shrieked. “Modi is sending planes to bomb us. First, he’s going to stop our waters and then he’s going to bomb us. Thanks God, we have our full swimming pool, so at least we’ll be okay for water…”

Like the cheapsters that they are, she and her husband Shady went and had a huge pool put in last year, taking up half their garden. Neither of them swims, of course. Shady wears a wig to hide his gunj and he worries that it might float off in the pool, looking like a baby seal, doing breast stroke beside him.

Meanwhile, Cobra’s scared of water and is too ashamed of going in with a huge inflatable ring around her huge inflated stomach. And the daughter doesn’t swim because, she says, she doesn’t want to get a tan — how you can tan when you are already the colour of a baingan is a ripple to me. So, only the son uses the pool with his friends, but otherwise, it’s for one purpose and one purpose only: saarhoing me.

In a week of pool panic, nuclear chest-thumping and papal farewells, Butterfly tries to keep calm and carry on…

So, I said to her, “So you’re going to be drinking from your pool in which God knows who, who has done Number One? Haan?”

“We drink only Nestle!” she said hotly. “And Modi can do whatever he likes, but he can’t touch Nestle, it being a multinational and all.” And then, after a second, she added, “And for your information, no one does Number One in our pool. In any case, we put a big bottle of chlorine in the water every day.”

“In that case, you must drink it. Your hair will go green.”

“I told you I drink only Nestle!”

“Your skin will also grow green, like Shrek!”

That conversation ended soon after that. Thanks God.

So, then I switched on the news and watched the Indian media wallahs shouting themselves horse about how we’ve done hamla on them and how they should respond with nuclear bum.

Honestly, it looks like they all got a personality transplant overnight. From seedha saada newsreaders, they’ve turned into four-star generals. I watched Arnab Gosmarmy, who poor thing was already rabbit, have a full-blown psychotic brake down on TV, with screaming, shouting, eyes popping, spit flying.

Also, I discovered that there had been a lot of tit-for-tit dispelling of the three Pakistani tourists who were holidaying there and us dispelling the five Indian tourists who were doing chhuttis here.

So, I switched off the TV and went and consulted the Recyclopedia Bhiannika, aka Janoo, and said, “Tell me, suchee suchee, was it our Hidden Hand meddling in India?”

Unlike Cobra, he was calmly reading his newspaper. “I don’t think so,” he said. “We’ve got enough problems within Pakistan to open up another Pandora’s Box at this point.”

“I don’t know who this Pandora is or how big her suitcase is, but does she know if it was us?”

Janoo sighed and said, “I think it’s probably home-grown.”

“So then why?”

“Because Modi wants to make political capital out of it.”

“Speak English, please.”

“He’s playing to his public. Wants to appear strong and decisive and a bit of a bully, if you ask me.”

“I suppose you can’t have a 56-inch ka chest and not beat it. It would be a waste, no?”

“Exactly.”

“Like having a huge pool and not swimming in it?”

“Eh?”

“Never mind.”

I know I’m a Muslim and everything, but I’d really like a funeral like the Pope’s. A send-off like that makes marna almost worth it, no? Strange, there were no celebs invited, like Kim Kardashian or Meghan Market vaghera but, I guess at 88, he wasn’t so much on Insta. And on top, he’d been sick also, naa.

Vaisay, sick or no sick, I think it was that meeting with V. D. Jance, with his kajal and all, that did it. V.D. must’ve given him dhumkees like he did to that You Kraine ka PM. ‘Show respect!’ and ‘Say thank you!’ And ‘Why aren’t you wearing a suit?’ Bechara Pope.

You know, naa, that with my Convent ka bagground, I have a big soft sport for nuns and popes and all. And for him, tau, more than anyone, because he was the only one who gave a daant to Israel for killing Palestinians.

So, sitting in my bedroom, I said a little du’a for Pope marhoom. I also prayed for peace with India and Pakistan. I hope so there will be no bums and no fasaad. But between you, me and the four walls, if Cobra’s pool was to explode on its own…

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 4th, 2025