You know, na, while other husbands drink tea and eat toasts for breakfast, Janoo drinks my blood and eats my head. So yesterday, while we were having breakfast and he was walled off behind his newspapers, I said to him, like normal people do, you know, doing chit chat over breakfast and making intelligent comments, I said, “Janoo, tum parrh parrh kay bore nahin ho jaatay?”  

Without putting his newspaper down or even lowering it from one side, he said, “I happen to be interested in the world and what is happening in it. Unlike you, who, apparently, couldn’t care less.”

Haw! Is this something to say? And to someone like me, who keeps taps on all the khaanas happening in Lahore, all the shaadis, all the parties, even all the milaads? Imagine saying that to a person like me, who is so zinda dil, so interested in other people’s affairs? Honestly!

So, I decided then and there only to make a list of everything I know about haalaat-i-hazara and present it to Janoo at dinner time.

Incensed at Janoo’s condescension, Butterfly gets ready to show him she knows all about current affairs…

So, I went to my room, shut the door, sat at my dressing table (I don’t have a desk because only bore people like Janoo and world leaders have desks) and started writing, with a pink ball pen and the pad in which I keep kitchen ka hisaab.

1. Despite wanting and wanting and telling everyone about how much he wanted it, Donald Trump did not win the Noble Peace Prize. I know how he feels because, before the fiasco with Miss Shumaila, Aunty Pussy also wanted and wanted for Jonkers to marry the daughter of Southern Cement and kept sending rishta after rishta, and telling everyone kay bus baat pukki honay vaali hai, and they never even acknowledge karoed poor Jonkers ka rishta and married their daughter off to son of Foladi Fertiliser. And Janoo, as you know, went and married Miss Shumaila, who ran off three months into the marriage, taking Aunty Pussy’s hairlooms. So I know exactly how Trump is feeling.

2. There are big fires everywhere. After Saad Rizvi’s shooting, TLP is on the war park. God, I hope so the fires don’t spread to Gulberg.

3. Gaza peace plan has happened. I think so the only peace Israel wants is yet another piece of Palestinian land, pur who listens to me? They say the Arab kings and emirs will have to pay for rebuilding all the schools and hospitals and houses and apartment blocks and office buildings and bazaars and shops that Israel destroyed. Just as well, the emirs are ameer because baba, I tau know from just redoing my bathroom last summers how much construction is costing. Almost bang rupted me. Okay, it was marble and all, but still. Vaisay, a bit ajeeb, no, that Israel and America should do all the destroying and the Arabs pay for all the rebuilding? But, as I said, meri kaun sunta hai?

4. I heard someone say on TV that both our borders on east and west are hot at the moment. Must be heatwave happening over there. Though why all the global warning has to be in Pakistan and nowhere else beats me.

5. Afghans are also on the war park. I think so we bombed them so they are doing tit for tit. I hope so the bombs don’t land on Gulberg.

6. Indian courts have told doctors that they must fix their handwriting. No more scribbling allowed. The doctors should have gone to Convent of Jesus and Mary, Lahore, where we had handwriting classes every day. If your writing was bad, you got a futta on your hand. Maybe Indian courts will give doctors futtas on their hands also if they don’t mend their ways.

7. Dayn Keaton has died. She was in God Father ki films with Marilyn Brando and in Any Hall with Woolly Allen. Some people are saying she was very stylish but, frankly speaking, I didn’t like her mardon walay suit and ties and, also, I wasn’t a fan because she wasn’t glam like Goldie Horn and Catherine Beta Jones.

Just look, it’s only afternoon and already my list has grown so long. By dinner time, tau, it will be as long as the Recyclopedia Brittanica. Honestly, likh likh kay my fingers have gone num. So, I think so I should take a brake now and go get a well-deserved mani.

Anyways, tonight, I’m going to sit at the dinner table with my list in my hand and give Janoo what Kulchoo calls a low down about the world. He’ll be so impress.

Published in Dawn, EOS, October 19th, 2025