Moni Mohsin - Duty Free

So where was I? Haan , at the wedding. It was at the Royal Elephant Club, na . After the Marriott bomb wedding-sheddings are not in hotels any more. Too much of security headache because anyone can walk into a hotel and blow themselves up. Not like reclusive clubs where only members can blow themselves up. The reception was in a big tent on the front lawns. It wasn’t cold enough to need a tent but I think so they got it because of security. At the entrance they had those empty doorway-type things like they do at airports that you have to step through. Thanks God the people doing the checking didn’t prod and poke us and go through our handbags and open our lipsticks and say “ Hai , what nice shade, is it from foreign?” like those greedy police-type women do at the airport. Anyways, they should know it’s not the well-offs like us, but the hungry-nakeds who do the suicide bombings.

The wedding tent was fab. Customs-made of course — all red velvet, red lanterns, and golden satin bows. I think so the theme was Chinese New Years or was it Moulin Rogue? Whatever it was, it was to die for. Everywhere there were big red lilies — hung from the ceiling and in huge golden vases, standing on golden stands. Mulloo had already said they’d come from Holland, the lilies, not the stands, and that they’d costed forty lakhs . The tent was bulging with people. So thanks God there was air conditioning.

Everyone was there — my coffee group, my kitty group, my charity group, relatives, relatives of relatives, old school friends, new society friends — honestly, it’s so nice to be so well reknowned. At once I started mingling-shingling, chatting away, while also scanning the crowds for a pretty girl. One thing I’ll say about me: unlike that bitch Jameela, I’m the loyal type. I never start enjoying myself so much that I forget why I’m there.

And then I spotted Shabnam Butt, the bride’s mother, shadowed by a servant girl. At once I made a bee-hive for her. You have to register your attendance, na , otherwise who’s to know whether you came or not? I had in my hand a pink silk purse — paper envelopes are tau so past it — on top of which I’d had “congratulations” embroidered in thick, gold thread. Inside it I’d put a tiny name card and five thou in crisp new notes. Wedding present, na . We give five at weddings of distants — for nears and dears we give ten. And for family we give fifty — unless it’s Janoo’s family, when I give less. But while I was putting the money into the silk purse I thought that these people probably give five as tips to their servants, being so rich and all.

I tapped Shabnam on her shoulder. Slowly she turned around. Hanging around her neck was a bib coming down to her waste, like babies wear, but made of diamonds. Promise by God. Matching diamond purses on diamond chains hung from her ears. Her mud-brown face was caked with white foundation. She looked at me through half-closed eyes ringed by fake lashes that were like thorn hedges.

“Hello, jaan ,” she murmured.

“Congratulations,” I said, pressing the purse into her hands. “What a fab necklace.”

“Thanks, yours is sweet too.” Holding my gift by a finger and thumb, like it was a used tissue, she passed it to her maid. The maid rubbed it between her fingers and thumb. I think so she was checking how many notes I’d given. I knew it! I should have given ten. I looked away as she dropped the purse into a fat, zipped General Life Insurance bag she’d got cramped in her armpit.

“How nicely you’ve done all this,” I said to Shabnam, waving a hand around at the tent and flowers and all.

“Event managers,” she murmured. “Why to take tension? What’s money for, if you have to take tension? Hmm?”

Then she just turned and went. Without a bye-bye, or have a nice time, or thank you for coming even.

Where was Mummy? And Aunty Pussy? After all, I was here for them only. And that stuppid Jonkers. Last thing I wanted was to come to this circus and be pushed around by noovo-rich loser-types in their over jewellery who couldn’t recognize hairlooms when they saw them. Sweet, she called my necklace, as if it was some two- paisa plastic locket from Anarkali. What cheeks!

Suddenly, I saw Mulloo waving from the distance. Thanks God for friends. She was with her daughter, Irum. Irum is seventeen. Between you, me and the four walls, she’s a bit young to be paraded around at weddings in the hope of attracting proposals. But as Janoo says to Kulchoo, who is always late for school, early bird gets the worm. And because of Tony’s factory closing and him defaulting on all those loans he’d taken from guvmunt banks I think so they need to marry Irum off richly. And quickly.

Mulloo was wearing a sequenced sari I’d seen twenty times before and so much of blush that she looked as if she’d just been given two tight slaps. A thin little choker with tiny, tiny diamonds was buried in roles of fat in her throat. She grinned at me. I wondered if I should tell her that she had lipstick on her teeth. She noted my necklace with her slitty little eyes but didn’t compliment. Typical.

“Mulloo, sweetie, you have lipstick on your teeth.”

“Ammi,” Irum said to Mulloo, “I’m going to hang with my friends. You’ve got Aunty here with you now. Byee.” And she went off in a swish of pink chiffon the exact same colour of Rose Petal toilet tissue.

“Has your husband come?” Mulloo asked me. “Or has he abandoned you for his village again? Better watch out, sweetie, you know feudals can get up to all sorts of naughty things.” She laughed fakely.

“Janoo’s got flu. Where’s Tony?”

“Inside only. Khayam’s arranged a big bar there in one of the upstairs rooms. I’ve heard he’s spent seven million on booze alone. Seven! Sunny was saying that last week when Akbar called his bootlegger for his usual whisky — vodka order, he said: ‘Sorry Saab, Khayam Saab’s cleaned out all of Lahore and half of Islamabad also. You’ll have to wait after New Year’s now. Then I’ll get some for you from the embassies in Islamabad.’ He has a special relationship with the Russian ambassador’s cook, na. ”

“And this tent and stands and lanterns they’ve had made specially and everything, that must have cost Shabnam and Khayam also,” I said.

“Two arms, two legs, and I don’t know what else. But as I always say,” she said lowering her voice and leaning into me, “who are they trying to impress, hmm? I have seen it all before. A hundred, hundred times.”

“And frankly,” I whispered back, “between you, me, and the four walls, that necklace that Shabnam is wearing — so gody, so new-new and recent-looking. But then what can you expect from someone whose name even no one had heard nine years ago?”

“Eight,” said Mulloo. “That’s when they got that first contract on that Gulberg children’s park, don’t you remember? When he persuaded,” she rubbed thumb and fingers together, “Talwar Khan to fence off the public park and turn it into townhouses?”

“I know,” I said. “Before that tau they were total non-identities.”

Just then my mobile rang. It was Mummy.

“Where are you?” she shrieked. “Me and Pussy and Jonkers, we’ve been sitting here at this bloody wedding for nearly two hours . Our bottoms have gone to sleep.”

“How many times have I told you, Mummy, to come on time?” I shouted back. Honestly, these old-types, they have no sense of time. They think just because card says nine it means nine. Hundred, hundred times I’ve told Mummy nine means eleven. Hopefully that stuppid Jonkers hadn’t shown up wearing a safari suit and looking like a low-level bureau-cat. “Honestly, why don’t you ever listen ? Where are you sitting? Okay, okay, stay there. I’m coming.” I shut up the phone.