Moni Mohsin - Duty Free

I said to Janoo that we should leave Pakistan and go away somewhere for a while.

“Like where?” he said.

“Dubai,” I said. I wanted to say London but servants in London are not nice, always wanting holidays on Sundays and so full of attitude, almost as if they didn’t know they were servants. At least Dubai has good supply of Filipinas and South Indians who know they’re servants. And they also speak nice English. Not like the illitreds here who can only speak Punjabi.

“And do what in Dubai?” asked Janoo.

“Live,” I said.

All our friends have two, two passports. Sunny’s father was born in London so she’s got UK passport. Baby and Jamal have got Canadian. And they’re all set with a three-bed apartment in Missy Saga in Toronto where all the desis live and now whenever anyone says things are going to the bogs in Pakistan they smile smugly and say nothing. And Aslam and Natasha have bought a house in Malaysia in Koala Lumpur because he’s into rubber in a big way, so they’re all right. Only Mulloo and Tony and we have nothing. Mulloo and Tony because they don’t even have enough money left to bribe a lawyer or buy property over the seas but of course Mulloo won’t admit and she says it’s because she’s a patriot and that she was born here and she’ll die here. Janoo of course is just bore and says he’s not going to dessert a sinking ship. I told him I’m not talking about the Titanic , you know. He said I might as well be. I think so he’s lost it.

So then I said okay forget about me because obviously you don’t give two hoops about whether I live or die but at least think of Kulchoo. And he said in three years Kulchoo would be going to university abroad and after that he could choose for himself whether he wanted to stay there or return home. And if things became too unsafe before then he would send Kulchoo to boarding school in England.

And I said what if things became too unsafe for me here? After all, bombs are bursting every day. People are dying, or being robbed by bugglers in their own houses and being shot and beaten also and only the other day I heard that someone who Nina knows had her arms slashed with a naked blade in Liberty Market by a beardo. He said he did it because she was wearing sleeveless.

“If you are worried about lawlessness in Lahore you can always come with me to Sharkpur,” he said.

Sharkpur! His bore village, where all you can hear is the mooing of cows and the barking of his mother, the Old Bag, and the snorting of his sisters, the Gruesome Twosome. Where no one uses olive oil and everyone is so illitred that they haven’t even heard of Prada or Versace. Where all you see is bore grass and even more bore fields and male sheeps misbehaving with female sheeps in front of everyone. And all you can do is sit there and pretend you haven’t noticed the shameless sheep. Where there’s no boutique, no spa, no hairdresser, no nice jeweller even. Honestly, I don’t know how people survive there. No, not even my dead body would be happy there.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” I said to Janoo. If I have to choose between dying of boredom or being blown up by a suicide bomber, I’ll take the bomb. At least it’s quicker.

Even bloody Jameela is living it up in Abu Dhabi while I die in bloody Lahore.

We had dinner at home. Just me and Janoo and Kulchoo. You know na that once the wedding and party season starts properly, we’ll be out every single night for whole two months. Dinners, balls, musical evenings, parties, weddings, milaads , the whole deal. So it’s good to have one night in. Also servants don’t get too spoilt that way. Otherwise, every night the minute we leave, they sneak off back to their quarters. Lazy lumps.

Haan , so as soon as Kulchoo came home from his tuition master’s at nine o’clock, I picked up the inner-com and told the bearer to bring the food on a trolley to my bedroom because my fave TV serial was on and in the dining room we have no TV. As yet.

Kulchoo flopped down on the sofa and sighed loudly.

I looked up from my TV serial and said, “Are you okay, baby?”

“Yeah,” he said, making a face. I don’t think so he likes me calling him baby. “I’m just tired.”

“No tell, na, have you got headache? Tummy ache? Mosquito bites? Fever?” I pressed my hand on his forehead. It seemed hottish to me. I swear if anything happens to my baby I’m going to go and pull each and every one of Aunty Pussy’s backcombed hairs from her head with my own hands.

“Chill, Mum,” said Kulchoo pulling away. “I’m okay. I told you, I’m okay.”

Janoo put down his papers and told me not to fuss. I ignored.

“Then what’s the matter?” I asked. “Anyone said something to you? Tell me, and I’ll go and see them and tell them what’s what.”

“Don’t give me grief. I’m just tired. Okay? I’ve just had four hours of tuitions.”

Poor thing, na, every day after school he goes to four different tuition masters’ homes and has tuitions in four different subjects. Maths, Chemistry, Econmics, and Civics. Or is it Physics? My heart breaks but what to do? Everyone goes. Apparently it’s the only way of getting As and place in a college with a good name in America. Places like Yales and Princedom and Havard. Janoo’s always been against tuitions. He says it makes you dependent. And that Kulchoo’s bright enough to do well on his own. All he needs to do is focus. As if our son was a microscope or something. But if we don’t send Kulchoo everyone will say we are too mean to spend on our son even. And that we are throwing away his future.

“What I don’t understand is why the tuition masters can’t come to our house instead of you having to go to them?” I asked Kulchoo, giving sideways look to TV but it was where I’d left it; mother-in-law was still shouting at daughter-in-law for not bringing a house in her dowry. “Then you wouldn’t have to get tired being driven here, there, and everywhere. You could just sit comfortably in your own sitting room and make them come here. After all, we pay them fifty thousand each. They can do this much for us. Baby was telling me the Maths tutor has got so rich so rich, he’s got three flats in same building as theirs in Toronto. Three flats. Ji haan . One on top, two below. Three, three bedrooms each. Least he could do is to come here and—”

“Mum, we’ve been through this a hundred times. You know why I have to go there. Because they run classes for thirty boys at a time. Now please can we have dinner? I’m hungry. What’s cooked?”

“What I don’t understand is why you have to go to school at all?” said Janoo putting down his book with a thump on the sofa. “If you have to be taught all over again in a tuition centre by the very same people who are supposed to be teaching you at school, why bother going to school at all? For what?”

“I need my teachers’ and my headmaster’s recommendation to apply to uni, remember?”

“Ah, light dawns,” said Janoo. “So the school fees are for the recommendation . And all along I thought I was paying for an education . Silly me!”

“Dad, don’t be like that,” said Kulchoo. “Besides I also have two Englishes and Pak Studies and Urdu and Islamiyat at school and for those I have no tuition.”

“Don’t eat the poor child’s head,” I said to Janoo. “Everyone does tuitions. Sunny’s stuppid son does six. We don’t want the whole world pointing fingers at us saying we’re too mean to send our son to tuitions. And everyone also knows no teaching is done in school. If the masters taught in school who’d go to their tuition centres? And where would they make enough money to send their own kids to college in the US, haan ? Have you seen the fees? You know how much it costs? So then? Why are you asking faltoo questions?”