Friday I'm in Love

Tuesdays are the toughest.

They always have been - back in the day they were the official hump day for Pakistan, and before anyone goes on a tirade about Zia-ul-Haq and all his ridic policies, allow me to calm you down by saying I don't really give a shit - and even when we sidled up to the rest of the world with the novel Saturday-Sunday weekend. Tuesdays just have that quality. Like conjoined kittens. They're there, staring up at you with three eyes [one shared] and two tails; might as well get them some milk in one of your mother's bowls. Tuesdays have that same, desperate quality to them. It's there; might as well trudge through it to the next day, to the end of the week, to Sunday, to next Tuesday. To another Friday. Jeez. This is not fun. Let me cut to the chase: Friday, I'm in love, and Tuesday, I'm starting to feel stupid about it.

Wednesdays are happier times. I immerse myself in all the joy that surrounds me in the form of the diverse humanity dotting the landscape of my life, or some less douchy version of that, and I forget all about that boy Hammad and his gold leather belt and insane laugh. It's not as depressing as it sounds; I'm not still carrying a torch for him as a) This is not medieval times, and b) This is not really about him. It's about the general things he represented. Like interesting people. How many have you met recently? I went to this raging GT last weekend and I pretty much spent my time hanging with Miraal which we could have done anywhere except we would be dressed down. This was not for a lack of trying to socialize with the others. It was because for about an hour everyone talked about calorie counting, and then for another they talked about, I don't know wedding outfits, and this was the men at the party! I kid. I really don't know what the guys were talking about. Ice hockey. Or Megan Fox.

Anyway, every Friday,my hopes are up like my neighbour's dog at 3 a.m. and I hope that there will be something new to look forward to next week - not necessarily romance, just something new; a song or a great talk with an old friend, or an injection of creativity at work. A lot of which requires some kind of inspirational interaction with other people. Every Tuesday though, I'm reminded of the fact that this is as good as it's possibly gonna get, for now.

Or maybe this is because Hammad is being ridiculously cute on his Facebook right now.

A girl can hope, right?

Shit Fashionistas Say

 We all know our share of fashionistas, and as far as the shit they say goes, there's plenty - there's also an other side to this story, which you can read on the Something Haute blog here.

She probably got it from Sunday Bazar.

Fashionista: In London, they’re wearing one bright colour with another, and another…

Friend: You mean colour-blocking?

Fashionista: Yeah, maybe.

She has no right to be sitting front row!

I can’t believe that has-been actress was a showstopper.

They copied that collection from Rizwan Beyg/ Maheen Khan/ Sana Safinaz/ Deepak Perwani.

[Insert name of person] ka tu buss chal raha tha ke apna Prada bag moon pe laga ke chaley!

Forget about clothes – that model has one foot in the grave.

All those blowouts have fried her hair – and her brain.

Your hair is…interesting…

That model is actually [insert politician’s name] mistress.

Yeah, I bought this outfit for Eid. Buss pachas hazar ka tha.

You know my MIL, babe, she’s mad I got her stuff from H&M because unko pata hai main khud Gucci se kam baat nahi karti.

A Birkin? What are you trying to be, Hina Rabbani Khar?

What’s up with this wedding?! There’s no WiFi, how am I supposed to live-tweet it?

Fashionista: So I'm going to London this week.

Friend: Oh cool, vacation?

Fashionista: Long weekend, yaar.

 Shit NOT fashionistas say:

[At the Hermes billboard] Hermes? Lagta hai kisi STD ki baat kar rahe hain.

Run Over By A Tea Trolley

I thought marriages were made in heaven and for sometime it seemed to be the case.

People whom I had never seen before would come to our house and were showered with copious amounts of attention and trays of tea time treats. I hadn’t seen this much adulation over someone we cared nothing for since our rich great aunt from India died (finally!). Khair, the point is I had seen all this hullabullo when cousins had people come to ‘see’ them. My cousins would never bring out a tea trolley themselves, it was always a servant.

“No use basing these relations under false pretenses.” These are not the words of a UN Secretary General but that of my very pretentious Phuppi. She has five daughters and one very devoted, doting rich husband; thus Phuppi can afford to be pretentious. For all her airs and graces, to put it politely, her daughters were married off one by one: summer weddings (to make sure all visiting relatives could take in the extravagances) and every two years, like clock work, in a fashion that Henry Ford would be proud of.

Those were the days but these days are very different. Marriages aren’t made in heaven but at schools, universities, workplaces, cafes. Who wants complete strangers to show up at their house? Imagine that! Or worse an ex! (Yeah, that happened. It was made worse when the intermediary was too clueless to understand the awkward silences and eyes glaring at her to cram the last piece of Bombay Bakery cake into her gob and leave.)

So what am I left with? No choice but my mom telling me in a subtle way that it would have been easier for me had I been slutty in college. This is the same mom that gave all my western clothes to the maid (what was she going to do with them?) when I was 16 for sneaking out at night and coming back with a hickey. Now that I’m 30 she’s all like, “You don’t like anyone, you might as well have picked out someone yourself.” Sorry, Mom, I spent all my life hiding guys from you, when you really just wanted to meet them. Make up your mind, woman!”

“Koi course kyun nahi karlaythi?” she suggests.

I finally shout at her, rather unforgivably, “I have a double masters! What ‘course’ could I possibly enroll in? Do you want me to go to Rangoonwala Hall to learn stitching and flower arrangement?!?!”

“Nahi wahan pay larkay nahi hothay.”

The Anatomy of Relevance

So I totally stole that from Yasmin, but do you blame me? That girl knows what she's talking about. She has got it goin' on. Etc. By some swoop of luck, Yasmin is also one of the only couple people in my life who think I have a broader relevance in the world. It's so completely arrogant to think you're relevant in any way, isn't it? Yet it's the one thing we're all crossing our fingers for constantly. Silently, because it would be so lame to admit to anyone you'd like to be more. More than you? More than now? I have a whole Filofax of rhetorical questions, but why go down that road tonight? Tonight I'm more interested in learning what fucking relevance actually is.

This being a brand new year, I'm actually feeling hopeful about what's to come, unlike the super grim conversation in writing Yasmin and I had had at the end of 2010. The world is a little older this year, as are we, and as people are so fond of saying, we're all a little bit more set in our ways. Which in my case would mean, I'm digging my heels in and standing by my choices a little bit more this year. The good thing about being a little bit older is that there's going be less opinions contesting your own. Everyone figures you know what you're talking about at 30, more so than at 23 or whatever.

But not always.

At 23 I was more serious-minded, at 18, even more so, at 15 I could have been a professional pallbearer, and so on. My life's plan was all chalked out by the time I was 20, and had things gone according to plan, I would be writing about the travails of being a 30-year-old mother of three. Or not writing at all. You'd probably find me brooding under that poster of Homeboy at Roadside Cafe while I scowled at people smoking sheesha, which my serious self as well as my fluffy, Kardashian lovin' self thinks is for suckers. Man up and smoke real cigarettes people! Or man up and say no to tobacco and nicotine! Either way, if you're smoking sheesha, we're never going to be best friends. On the other hand, you'd probably be looking at me funny because I had brought my toddlers to the smoke infested Roadside, which I love, by the way.

Anyway, as I've said before, life hasn't gone according to plan, but I kinda love where things are right now. Please don't quote back John Lennon at me. Unless you've heard every song on John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, in which case, feel free to quote Lennon at me any time of day. I keep digressing from relevance and its place in our lives. Somehow, in modern-day Pakistan, and I believe this to be a very Pakistani phenomenon, unless you're constantly saying very important things, you're not relevant.

But that would be the case anywhere! You might argue, and I agree. But see, Pakistan is the focus of a lot of the world's hoopla right now, including our own, and somehow, if it's not about what Amreeka pandering chors our politicians are, or how ridiculous the state of Pakistani cricket is, and how plain horrible things are right now, any contribution to conversation you make is irrelevant. I'm not saying everyone should chill out and get a mani-pedi, but I am saying, chill out. A little bit. And how will you do that if you spend all your time tweeting links to super duper important articles and opeds from around the world, which highlight all these problems? Moreover, if you're tweeting all this on the minute, plus your take on it, when are you actually reading anything? I am genuinely curious here. On the flipside is the other end of the social-intellectual spectrum: If you're not married and have a bagful of really, really bad marital issues, no one cares what you have to say.

So you see, I'm stuck in the zone of irrelevance. I don't like Imran Khan. I'm not particularly left or right wing, although if I had to pick, I'd lean more to the left, I have not read A Case of Exploding Mangoes, and left The Reluctant Fundamentalist midway. I did read Beautiful From This Angle, but I don't think it qualifies as chick lit on any level. Or as lit for that matter. I didn't change my Facebook picture to one of Benazir Bhutto post December 27, 2007.

I like red nail polish. I like Whistler and Pakistani music. I like intensely funny people although I understand they're possibly just very intense at their core more than funny. I don't adore the beach although I live in Karachi. I love life and have an absolute romance with people of all kinds. My name is Zainab, and I am irrelevant.

Burger Bachis crosses the border, Praise King Khan

The Sunday Guardian features the thoughts of a Burger Bachi on love and Bollywood, thanks to Big Pen Pakistan, and by the grace of all the Bollywood hotties I love so. Go, read, love.