A Humorous Take on a Socialite Auntyji
It’s not easy to be funny. Honestly, it’s easier to scare audiences or to evoke their tears, than to make them laugh, page after page. Moni Mohsin pulls off an impossible writerly feat. She actually had me cracking up at the vapidly societal Butterfly, whose calendar is filled with three-three invitations every night: “Kaheen dinner, kaheen gaana, kaheen shaadi, kaheen ball.”
Flitting, like real butterflies do, from topic to topic across Lahore, London, Isloo, Dubai or even occasionally, Can and Niece, with her merry misspellings and misreadings, Butterfly is in some senses typical of the subcontinental upper-crust. Whose comical lack of any compensatory guilt about being rich in a country with so many “poors”, whose naivete about global fissures and geopolitical issues are set off against her “Oxen”-educated (Oxford) husband. As Butterfly puts it, in her inimitable style: “Vaisay, I have to say, shops in Niece and Can are A-one – vohi Channel and Goocchy vaghera. But restaurants unfortunately serve only bore French food.”
While Janoo (the husband) launches every now and then, into expectedly left-leaning, liberal diatribes, Butterfly counters with fatigued eye-rolls that could have been tiresome if she wasn’t so endearingly affable. This is a book not just for us Auntyjis (and I must acknowledge that I belong to the middle-aged bunch), but for anyone who wants to laugh at us/them. Written in Punglish (Punjabi mixed with English), the book can be easily accessed by anyone who understands Hindi even at a passable level.
About Moni Mohsin
Since I hadn’t encountered Moni Mohsin before I stumbled on this book, I’m just going to dip into her background. Raised in Pakistan, she now divides her time – as authors do! – between London and Lahore. The Butterfly books emerged from a column that she penned for a Pakistani weekly, The Friday Times.
Lampooning her class with a mordant and affectionate eye, her pieces give you a sense of how the glamorous set can both be stirred by and untouched by happenings around them. Though the protagonist is a dimwit, Mohsin is cleverly political – as the best comics often are.
Floating and Flitting with Butterfly
Shopping in Dubai
When she wants to go to Dubai for a break, Oxen-educated Janoo wants to go to China. She wonders why. They already have so much stuff at home that’s Made in China, what else could there be to buy? Janoo suggests that they could observe the buildings and people. To which a sensible Butterfly retorts: “If you have so much shauq to see Chinese people, I’ll take you to Jalal Sons in Main Market. You can watch them buying their meat sheet.”
After all, Dubai is the ideal getaway for those who are tired of the potholes, the traffic, the smog and not-to-mention, the aggravating “poors”. In the sky-touching Middle Eastern city, there are no poors, no potholes, no beggars, no trees, no leaves, no birds doing potty on cars. And the best part, the servants are all “smiley” and speaking English, and they have no families – hence “no chirh-chirh about job for my brother and jahez for my sister and college for my son.”
When Janoo points out that there is no freedom in Dubai, Butterfly wonders what her own country has got with its supposedly democratic freedom.
Soaking in Culture at the Lahore Litfest
Butterfly swallows necessary spoonfuls of culture, like a medicinal tonic, at the Lahore Litfest. Fortunately, she can distract herself by watching the goddess-like Shobha De – with “Long, glossy, black hairs, smooth skin, figure all tight-shite. Doesn’t look a day older than thirty-nine. But kehtay hain she is at least twenty years older and has six children on top.”
Predictably, Janoo intensely listens to all the lectures, “Janoo obviously is going to every single talk on every single day. Even the super bore ones like Whither Afghanistan and Urdu Ki Akhri Kitab.”
On the Missing Malaysian Airlines Plane
She believes the Malaysian Airlines plane that disappeared just rocketed towards the moon. Her baby Kulchoo, who is currently a teenager, and “has lots of teenagery type issues like bad skin and opinions,” thinks she’s cuckoo for suggesting this. But she thinks, why not? If a rocket can go to the moon, why can’t a plane?
On Her Politically-Riled Son and Husband
When she hears of two journalists who have been recently shot, she says: “I’m so glad that Janoo doesn’t come on TV and say the things that he does at home, otherwise he would also be straightaway in hospital raddled with bullet holes.”
Her son Kulchoo is getting angry because everything is getting shut down or censored, one at a time. First it was YouTube. Soon it might be Facebook, then Twitter – “because who knows when someone will accidentally say something to offend the sensitivities of such sensitive people?” Kulchoo shouts “This is not Pakistan, this is Banistan” on the top of his voice, and Butterfly fears that the electrician, who is fixing their garden lights, stares balefully.
Besides, the intelligence agencies are so busy keeping an eye on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, they can hardly watch out for terrorist attacks. “After all, they’re not housewives that they can multitask.”
On Imran’s Frequent London Forays
She asks her friend Baby why Imran can’t just stay in KP and attend to local issues, instead of shunting off to London. Baby says: “Bhai, running guvmunts is so bore. Paperwork and policy and planning shanning. What a yawn. Naturally, he’d rather stand in front of an adoring crowd of thousands, with flowers kay haar around his neck.”
On Getting a Choo haha
Her friend, Kamila Shamsie suggests she get a “Choo haha” that she can carry around inside a Prada bag. And make sure the dog pops out with a diamond collar, so that everyone can say, “bhai wah, look at that rich bitch!” Of course Butterfly has a good question about this – where will the dainty dog do its big job and small job? Inside the Prada bag?
On Highly-Educated Girls
As Butterfly says of the highly-educated girls, “And others who have been too much educated so they become so bore and full of themselves. All the time talking about empowerment and fulfillment and commitment like they were setting up a political party instead of waiting for a nice rishta.”
On Getting Her Son Admitted to An American College
Kulchoo, instead of studying for his GCSEs, has to make up a “See Wee.” – “I’ve heard American universities tau won’t even look at you if you don’t have a See Wee, even if you’re only son of a four-star ka General who can give billion dollars ki donation from an eponymous Swiss account.”
Since Kulchoo has to do some social work, she sends him to Sara of Sara’s Splendid Socials (an event manager). “But I had to remind her kay bhai, he’s not a naukar, okay?”
References
Moni Mohsin, Between You, Me & the Four Walls, Penguin Random House India, 2022