The Irony of Being Yourself

There’s a picture on my desk of me with Ann. It was taken a few years ago ... before I got married. On one of my visits to Karachi. On Chaand Raat. I remember that night. Mygod, we had so much fun. Ann and Fahd and I. We were wearing sunglasses at night. Fahd was so embarrassed. My maggot and my GoodStud. LOL.

It seems like Eid was so many days ago and chaand raat - even longer.

I don’t know why it is then, that I’m feeling that pang now.

Of missing The Way It Used To Be.

We all grow up abhorring those little things that mark the way we are ... the way things are done in The Family. Little traditions etched in stone by practice year-after-year. Things like sevaiyan for Eid. We swear to ourselves, growing up, that when we have the choice and the chance, we will be different.

And before you know it, you have the choice … you have the chance. And you turn things around.

What did I do on Chaand Raat? I went to Ayoush for shisha and played UNO.

What did I do on Eid day? Lunch with Mummy, Max , Arfiman and Arif.

I do both things every week. When I came home I wanted to cry. I think I did. My Eid was a fucking regular Friday that you get about 48 of a year. My eid was fucking stupid. (Not that I am undermining the value of lunch with my family or shisha and UNO, but when it’s something you do every week, maybe it’s not something you should do on Eid)

You know what they say: be careful what you wish for - you just might get it.

I didn’t get any chooriyan this Eid. I didn’t get any Mehndi. Or new clothes. I wore some stupid shit clothes that I had lying in my cupboard.

Why?

Because I couldn’t be bothered.

To be honest, it’s not really about the clothes. Maybe a bit about the chooriyan and the mehndi.

Why do we want to be different?

Simple: Because we don’t want to be the same.

The irony of it was laughable. I’d spent my life despising the thought of do darjan chooriyah and mehndi and Eid kay naey kaprey and sheer khorma and going to fifteen different people’s houses for Eid. All grown up now, I have the freedom to NOT do any of it and now that I don’t, I realize I miss it.

Did I really want to spend Chaand Raat and Eid the way I did this year? Not really.

I would rather have been in Pakistan and spent the Eid in my parents’s Karachi house where it was Bhabhi’s first Eid in the family. But I didn’t care enough soon enough and I had the lousiest Eid I have EVER had.

I had a crappy Ramadan and even a worse Eid.

Do I sound bitter? Well, maybe it’s because I am.

That’s not even my point though. What I really want to say is this: I bet if, next Eid, I do all that I am complaining about having missed this year – all the choori/mehndi shebang - I know I will hate it and will want to have a relaxed Eid with some shisha and the chance to wear jeans even on Eid day.

Ironic, eh?

Smelly/Gooey Food and

Ok .. this is BPC's very quick update from .. erm .. the land of smelly/gooey food. Arfiman and I are on work/holiday in Hong Kong and MAN, is the food smelly/gooey.

That's about it for now. We are having lots of fun thanks to the Mirchi boys. They are such jaanz really. I kind of began to forget how great it was to be around Rav but it's all coming back now. It is going ot be tough to say goodbye ... which will be in just a few days :(

Why, oh why can't all our best friends ALWAYS live in the same city as us?

Rice made by Spoon

This what happens when you have a car-loving husband, on whose car-loving-friends's mailing list you have inadvertantly been added.

You receive an email from Jay, the subject line of which says:

Rice made by Spoon

Being BPC, you expect to find something like this in the email:



What you find is this:



LOL

Urgent!

There's a Saudi girl in one of the departments I service. She's quite a nice girl and her sudden appearances in my office are quite pleasant: she comes in with a swish of her abaya and a whiff of her Oud. She always has a sile on her face. A very urgent smile, of late.

She was recently promoted. I have noticed that - in her new position - everything is very very urgent.

Hmm.

For a while I thought she was just disorganized and did everything last minute. Till Looni told me what Saudi Girl said to her on the phone today.

Says Saudi Girl "The only way to get things done is to be strong and tell people IT IS URGENT!"

Hmmmmm.

Very unsurprisingly, I have three emails by Suadi Girl in my inbox sent in the last two hours. All three of them say 'urgent' in the subject line.

The last one - take this - says "urgent" with two Gs and three Es, like so: urggeeent!!!!!!!!!

I told Looni that I quite like Saudi Girl, so this 'urgency' of hers isn't annoying me as much as it would have, had it been done by someone else. Very very luck for Saudi Girl, for anoying BPC is NOT something you want to do.

To which, Looni replies: "It's starting to annoy me, though. Annoy with two Os and three Ys!!!"

LOL

Make that LOl with two Os and three Ls ....