Last night my host and I went shopping for me and I returned with three new kameezes, and narrowly left behind one more. I had realised, you see, that of the seven kameezes I had to wear to work, three were plain white, which was a bit much. Got home and realised that I’d spent rather a lot of money and have decided I will return the one that seemed the least ordinary, not least because I have a lot of good fabric (ajraks, mostly) waiting to be stitched back in Lahore.
This afternoon, after a morning’s faffing, I strolled to the markaz where I found a seat at the Quetta Arsalan Student Cafe in the midst of the usual all-male crowd. Here I had one of their malai chais (with a dollop of cream poured into the tea post-frothing), a paratha and a bowl of chanas. The paratha was ok, the rest very good though I was a bit worried about possible hepatitis. Well, I don’t feel any after-effects, though of course jaundice would take a while to show up.
As I ate I read my book (Red Birds by Mohammad Hanif, who has never yet lived up to the excellence of his first book. As an aside, the same was true of Mohsin Hamid. Both grew steadily more polished and adept and also international; neither has retained the edge and flair of their first books) and eavesdropped on the men sitting at the next table, a pair of transporters from Sargodha who were talking about their business in a very familiar way (one, the senior, spoke of ‘his investor’ who had owned three of his three trucks) when the conversation took a startling turn towards discussing a cousin who was in prison for honour killing.
As I finished my hostess arrived and we walked over to a shop for groceries, stopping on the way to look at the khussa shop. I have always liked their wares, though Islamabad is certainly not a good place for khussas etc (these are traditional handmade leather slippers); Lahore is better and Multan is best. I didn’t like anything today, though, so left empty-handed. Besides, I was still smarting from the indulgences of the night before.
I was supposed to cook today, but my host, who is down with a flu, was craving dumplings, so I ordered a burger instead.
I still get a twinge of guilt ordering in food when I am in Pakistan. My parents have always disapproved of it. Partly the extravagance, partly the sense of impurity which is certainly justified to a degree, but my sense is, it also has an acknowledged ancestor in the old taboos about who cooks your food.