On Sunday afternoon my father and I went for lunch to the home of his closest friend, a former military man from the mountainous north, with a very impressive moustache. It was a bit of a duty but not very as I’m fond of both him and his wife, who was very kind during my mother’s illness. It was quite pleasant: we talked a bit about visiting their ancestral village which is in the Buddhist zone, with many stupas and statues in the hills around. Over lunch the conversation veered towards jinn: they certainly exist, all agreed, and I was told the story of a niece whose marriage dissolved and then she died of a heart attack in her twenties. When her room was being cleared out, a Multani blue pottery flower pot was removed as the plants in it were dead. The pot fell and shattered to reveal a taweez, a magical amulet, in the root ball. This was taken by the grieving mother to a woman known to keep jinns, a woman who lived far in the northern mountains, on the Russian border. The woman went into a trance and sent out her jinn who walked her through the house in Lahore. She went from room to room in her mind and then spotted a nail in a door frame in the living room and then upstairs, in the dead woman’s bedroom. These, she said, would have be removed as they had been put there, with curses, and along with the taawiz, by an enemy who controlled a jinn.
In the evening we went out for dinner to a much-beloved place, Nishtar on Abbott Road where they make katakat and tawa naan. This was delicious, though pricy and high in cholesterol (katakat as we have in is all chops and organ meats) so I felt rather bad about going with my father who does not have the healthiest diet these days. It was absolutely packed, rather surprisingly mostly with families – usually the front room of such places is for men only and there is a grim room in the back or the first floor where women are allowed. Although I’ve had better katakat (only from the same place though), it was delightful, a reminder of Lahore’s glories in this area. We then drove off to Gowalmandi to get firni, a rice pudding set in clay saucers (two saucers make one firni) and I spotted someone baking fresh bakarkhani, a sort of rough puff pastry that is eaten for breakfast with tea. Fortunately we’d also bought some Kashmiri tea from the usual place on Abbott Road, so I had quite a delightful culinary evening.
Today, I’ve been quite busy: I have hired someone to repolish some furniture and also intend to have him redo all the doors which are currently a hideous chalk finish that has yellowed to something quite unpleasant, like a urine stain. The cook is on holiday so I managed lunch for my father, who is of a generation where to reheat food oneself only occurs in the most dire straits. I also spoke to an aunt whose child is unwell, and am considering flying to Karachi to see her. And, finally, we experimented by calling a woman from a cleaning service and when she arrived I completely blanked on what to ask her to do and couldn’t find any of the cleaning supplies, the usual maid having left for the day. Finally we got her to do some work in the kitchen which she did quite thoroughly, but slowly so we’ll see if we call her again or request someone else. Meanwhile, work continues apace: had a call with the Islamabad office, helped resolve what looks like a scam, and continued editing a long report that is going to give me some sleepless nights before its due date on Friday.