I went to visit a great-aunt, my grandmother’s elder sister, feeling that I should as she loved my mother very much and I always feel guilty about not being as loving and fun as my mother was. I went with my grandmother, and it was amusing to see the two of them enter their old family roles as sisters. Before the visit my grandmother had done some very funny imitations of the great-aunt, and when the originals were enacted before me, she found it hilarious. Since the two sisters have a surname many in Pakistan would recognise, they inhabit a world familiar to me but also unimaginable or hilarious in turns — one in which there are hospital wings named after one and the best thing about them is the fish one nurse cooks in the kitchen, or there are regular deliveries of clothes soap in the tons, but now the company has gone public and they’re no longer sent to the family.
On the spur of the moment I asked the great-aunt if she would teach me to make her famous lime achar — I don’t actually like achar much, of any kind, but it seems like something I’d like to know how to make. She was pleased at the request but my old grandmother bridled somewhat, so I asked her to teach me to make mango achar.
Had a call with another aunt, one who has troubles with her children in Karachi — it is a very bad situation indeed and of course I could not offer much except sympathy and to listen as she spoke.