Diary of a Social Butterfly

Uff such fun I’m having in Dubai. I’m staying in a fab hotel on Jumeirah Beach. I tau love our hotel, baba. I think so it has a thousand rooms and gondolas and canals and golden camels and men dressed like Lawrence of Arabia. I think so we must be the only desis staying in our hotel. Baaki sub, they are goras. All day they lie on their backs in their swimsuits, gleaming with oil, by the pool. Like crocodiles in Kulchoo’s nature books who lie all day on river banks in Africa. You know me, I never make personal comments but some of the men, particularly the fat bald ones, they wear such small chaddis that they might as well not bother and some of them are the colour of carrot halwa. And also, if I was as old and wrinkly as some of the goris, I really wouldn’t wear bikinis in public. Nothing personal vaisay.

Life here, na, it’s just tabahi. Na koi faqirs, na koi poors, na koi smells, na koi flies, na koi in-laws, na koi gutters and na koi bombs. Everything is saaf, peaceful and there are no trees so there are no leaves to sweep and no birds to sit in them and do potty on your car. There are no parks but who needs parks when you have huge villas and the servants they’re all smiley and polite and English speaking with no families and no bother. All my friends live in big, big houses with Flipinos, swimming pools and twenty-four hour bijli, and they have no armed guards and no razor wire and no high high walls even. And the malls! And the restaurants! And the clubs! Uff, bilkull jannat, I tell you.

Janoo says they have no freedom and that I should try doing a protest jaloos here and see what happens. And I said, ‘what is there to protest about, haan? Am I crack that I would want to do a jaloos in jannat?’ And then he said, ‘You know also that they don’t have elections?’ And I said, ‘Tau hum ko itni elections kar kay kya mil gya hai, haan?’ Honestly, some time I think so Janoo’s Oxen education is totally wasted on him. Mujhay jana chahye tha to Brazen Nose college . . .