Moni Mohsin - Duty Free

They lost some when Musharraf’s guvmunt did its little a countability drama in the begining. Uncle Kaukab panicked and sold some of his houses quickly and lost money on them. Then Aunty Pussy investigated whatever money he got from the sale in her cousin’s (from her father’s side) motel in Ontario and the cousin sold the motel and ran off with everything. So they’re not as well off as before but still not poor, God forbid.

Aunty Pussy wanted Jonkers to make a big marriage, na , to nice, rich, fair, beautiful type from an old family. At first, tau , she didn’t like any girl. Whoever she saw wasn’t rich enough or beautiful enough or fair enough or old family enough. So it was a real shock to her when she discovered that Jonkers was secretly dating low-class, hungry-naked types.

There was that receptionist we called Typhoon (she used to say phoon instead of phone) whom Aunty Pussy had to pay off. Then there was another polyester number with underarm sweat stains and chipped nail polish, who worked in a furniture showroom, but who thanks God Jonkers himself caught in the muscular embrace of the security -wallah . In between also there was a cheap-type hairdresser. Actually not even proper hairdresser, she was just a blow-dryer. Her name was Akeela and Mummy and I called her Akela the loan wolf — from Jungle Book , which was my best film until Kuch Kuch Hota Hai . And then last year Jonkers arrived home with Miss Shumaila, his secretary, with whom he’d already done secret marriage in a mosque.

And if we thought Akela was bad, Shumaila was ten times worst. So pushy and hungry and low-class. Wore tight polyester shirts and frosted maroon lipstick and had big busts and wobbly hips that juggled as she walked. And even more worst she had a meaty, furry smell about her as if a wild animal, like a female monkey or fox or something, had entered the room. Jonkers, of course, was like her lapdog, following in her meaty trail with his tongue hanging out. Honestly, all men are cracked. She stayed with him for four months, lying about in her unmade double bed in her air-conditioned room all day, eating nine, nine meals in one sitting, ordering the servants like they were her own and doing twenty-four-hour arguing with Aunty Pussy. Of course, after she’d had her little holiday, she ran off. Took a good clunk of Aunty Pussy’s jewellery and Jonkers’ brand-new Toyota Corolla and ran off in the dead of night with some low-class cheapster man like herself. Good radiance, I thought. Last month, thanks God, die-vorce came through.

Of course, Aunty Pussy tau can’t stop crowing about how she knew from first second that Shumaila was bad news. Day and night she is telling Jonkers, “See! See! Bring two -paisa , thieving sluts into an honest, decent home and this is what happens!”

After Shumaila left, Jonkers became so quiet and sad that I don’t know what to say to him any more. Sometimes I wonder if he is same Jonkers who used to play bedminton with me and let me win all the points. Maybe he also wonders if I’m still the same me?

Just as I was about to tell the bearer to tell him that I was out, I heard Jonkers’ shy little cough and there he was behind my sofa.

“Haw, Jonkers!” I squealed. “What a lovely surprise!”

“Hello, Apa,” he said quietly. I wish he wouldn’t call me Apa. I know I’m his sort of elder sister but he’s only three years younger than me even though he looks ten years elder with his bald head, skinny little neck and big, square General-Zia-type glasses.

“May I?” he asked, looking at the sofa.

“Jonkers, yaar , don’t be formal.”

He twitched up his neatly pressed khaki trousers over his knees and sat down.

“I hear, Apa—”

“Don’t call me Apa, okay? People will think I’m fifty if I’m your elder sister.”

“Sorry. My mother tells me you’re going to help her find a wife for me?”

“Something like.”

“But the sort of girls my mother is after want Porsche-driving, stinking-rich hunks, not losers like me.”

“ Haw , Jonkers, how you can say that? After all, mashallah , you have everything — name, house, property.”

“I know you all thought Shumaila was downmarket, but you know something? She actually liked me.”

“If she liked you so much why did she run away then, haan ?”

“Because everyone looked down on her and my mother made her life hell.”

“I’m sorry, Jonkers,” I said, “but she was tau a total no-no. Couldn’t even speak English properly and ate her omlette with a spoon and had pointed toenails. And those tight, tight shirts and loose, loose morals. And no deodrant also. No, I’m sorry. She was just after your money. Look at the way she cleaned you out. And that also in four months only.” As soon as I said it I saw Jonkers’ face fall down. I felt bad, so I said, “I’m not saying she didn’t like you. Don’t get me wrong, haan ? But honestly, she wasn’t suitable. There was too much of difference in you both.”

“Aren’t the two of you different?”

“Who two? Me and Janoo? Of course we are. He is serious and I am fun. I have friends and he doesn’t. I am sophisty, socialist-type and he is bore, serious-type. I like fashion and gossip and parties and all he, poor thing, knows about is world affairs and crops and his bore charity school that he runs in his village. But at least we know the same people and have the same sort of baggrounds. Okay, he’s landed and I’m not but if he went to Aitchison College, I went to Kinnaird College. And okay, I spent more time gossiping and getting my eyebrows threaded by my friends in the front lawn than going to bore lectures at college, but at least I went to same place as his sisters for my BA so you know, we are from same bagground. And that’s what matters, Jonkers. Not what you like and don’t like, not what you do and don’t do but where you’re from. Can you say that about you and Shumaila? That you were from same sort of baggrounds?”

Jonkers shook his head. And then he said, with a sloppy-type, sad smile, “She used to make me feel alive. I’d take her for a spin in the car and she’d lower the window right down and sing along with Bollywood songs on the radio at the top of her voice. ‘It’s the Time to Disco’ from Main Hoon Na was her all-time favourite.”

“No, stuppid. It’s from Kal Ho Naa Ho with Preety Zinda and Shahrukh and Saif.”

“And she loved Kit Kat. And she wasn’t insect-thin and she didn’t turn up her nose at clothes without labels and she didn’t moan about the servants or the air conditioning and she could cook. She made the best biryani . Mummy said it just proved she was servant class.”

I felt sorry for him and also a little bit guilty, but why I don’t know, because it wasn’t me who pushed her out. Also a small voice inside my heart said that a fat diamond ring, two pairs of hairloom earrings, a big gold necklace, and a brand new Toyota salon car isn’t too bad for four months of Kit Kat eating and driving up and down the canal road singing “It’s the Time to Disco.”

So I gritted my teeth and asked him if he wanted her back. Seeing he missed her and her biryani . But inside I was praying that he would say no because she did have pointy toenails, you know. And she said “tap” instead of “type” and “toash” instead of toast. A total uneducated she was. And also, I’m sorry to say, low-class.

He shook his head. Thanks God.

“She got remarried a couple of weeks ago. To the manager of a tandoori restaurant in Dubai. She so wanted to visit Dubai. I was going to take her for her birthday. But she ran away the week before.”