Waisay, I’m tau very reliefed about the Makkah Pack. Oho, baba, that defence pack that we’ve gone and made with Saudi and Turkiye. Yes, it’s no longer Turkey but Turkiye. And Mecca is now Makkah. But respite our growing closeness to our Arab brothers, we are not yet Bakistan.

Where was I? Haan, the Makkah Pack. Now India and Israel will think ten, ten times before daring to show eyes to us. And even America will give more respect. Because everyone knows that an armed attack on one is also an attack on the other two. Jee haan!

So, I was telling Sunny about the Makkah Pack and saying kay this is what you call dosti. Not just inviting each other to kitty parties and GTs and khaanas vaghera and weddings sheddings and doing hello hi like we all do. At once, Sunny shot back and said that if I truly believed that, then I should also do kutti with Baby, with whom she’s apparently had tu-tu main-main over stealing her maid.

“If you were a pukka friend,” she said, “then you wouldn’t even have to be asked. You’d just cut her dead yourself only.”

From Makkah to Lahore, the principles of strategic partnership should remain the same, even if they involve stolen maids

Now, I’m not denying that I’ve known Sunny from Class 1B in the Convent of Jesus and Mary, while Baby I found in Kinnaird College only, but Baby gives me nice, nice presents (last time it was a big bottle of Diptheek from Singapoor). And also Baby’s elder sister Zeenat is the owner of Sunrise Schools and is the richest woman in Lahore and her son’s getting married in Istanbul in October and she’s taking over the Four Seasons and I’m hoping for a bulaava.

So, I said to Sunny, “Of course I’ll dump Baby for you, you’re my sister after all, Sunny, but can I ask you a question first?”

“Haan. Ask,” she said.

“When you argued, did Baby beat you?”

“What do you mean ‘beat me’?” she asked, her eyes bobbing out of her head.

“You know, a light slap, or a little dhakka or something.”

“Of course not,” she snapped. “What do you take us for? Junglees?”

“So, no arms were involved, right? I’m very sorry but, in that case, I can’t do kutti with Baby.”

“Haw. Why?” she asked.

“The Makkah Pack says that friends only have to respond if someone does armed attack. Tau, you yourself are admitting from your own mouth that Baby didn’t do armed attack. She didn’t even give you a slap. So, I’m sorry, Sunny, but it doesn’t call for me to do kutti with her. Banta nahin hai.”

So she shouted until she became horse about how I wasn’t a real friend but I didn’t budge.

“Pack is pack,” I repeated. “And pack says it only applies for armed attack.”

Eventually she left in a puff but, waisay, it was a close shape.

Now, Zeenat better send me that bloody bulaava.

One mustn’t say bad things about buzurgs but, between you, me and the four walls, I think so Trump has gone rabbit in the heat. Just look at that stunt he pulled at Ankara airport, escaping from his plane in a catering van because he says Iranians wanted to blow him up. I wonder if he hid in a crate of mangoes? Or maybe he ghussoed into a basket of grapefruits? It would have to be a really huge basket waisay, the size of a chest freezer.

Meanwhiles, Iranians are laughing their heads off and saying are we crack that we’d want to kill Trump? He’s tau our secret agent, our hidden hand, our fifth communist. He’s working day and night to destroy America. He’s wrecked the economy, he’s fired off all their rockets, he’s driven off all of America’s old friends, he’s made America into a laughing stop over the Straight of Hummus and, aur tau aur, he’s even pulled down half of White House. His only friends in the whole world now are Satanyahoo and King John One of North Korea. Why would the Iranians want to blow him up? He’s tau God’s gift to them.

Talking of gifts, Baby’s just sent me a Jo Alone ki scented candle. Her driver came and dropped it off. He said: “Begum saab aap ke liye London se laaien hain.” Just look at her. What a shweety, waisay. How could I ever dump her? So what if she stole Sunny’s maid? It’s not like she stole her husband, yaar.

But what if she had? I wonder if Makkah Pack says anything about that?

Many years ago, @monimohsinofficial, novelist and journalist, outed herself as The Social Butterfly

Published in Dawn, EOS, August 23rd, 2026