Two’s company, Three’s even BETTER!!!

Back as a teenage girl, I had harbored a pressing need for a boyfriend. Any boy with a car so we could swap saliva in the backseat. Dreams of secretly calling him to say ‘Iloveyou’ a few times and buying mushy cards from Anybodys inscribed with cheesy sonnets. We could share ice-cream spoons at Yummy 36 or be spotted by the gossip mongers of Isloo high-schools when we canoodled in the back booth of Pappasalis on a Friday night. My first quick fix for this urge was an anti-climactic loser called Salman. Most of you have already read about him and my other tragic ex-lovers in ‘Happy Effing VD to you too!!!’ so I wont bore you. Today however, I am the total opposite from the Padash who once desperately yearned and prayed for a boyfriend. Now, I sashay down a path discovered gratefully in college. Never carry sand when you can live at the beach? All that’s needed in life are a few close friends. They can quite sufficiently fill the companionship void and as for the sex part…well pretty girls can never be devoid of such an indulgence, if they so choose to seek. For a girl like myself with no regard for societal rules, men soon become synonymous with New York subways: one stops in front of you every 15 minutes and depending on how you live your life…or your commute, you can ride one all night and a different one back ;) So perfect was this eureka that I soon found myself turning down several eligible and handsome suitors only because I had tasted, savored and was now hooked to a phenomenon called ‘my freedom!’ The wise like to advise that someday, when I get older, this juvenile outlook on life will begin to loose its charm. And by no means do I refute that prediction! But for now, the former desperation for steady boyfriends has morphed into a strong aversion to nouns like ‘relationship’ and ‘commitment’. Why I do this requires Freud, Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre to scratch their heads and deliberate over vodka and Maui Wowie blunts but how I arrived at this lifestyle is something I can probably attempt to answer. A stir-fried concoction of various incidents and people. But somehow the first person who always comes to mind is my best friend from college: Jenny!

Why yes!

For those of you have followed my columns closely are well aware that not only did I have rotten luck with boyfriends in the past but I wasn’t always blessed with finding loyal friends either. No doubt, both deficiencies stemmed from my own lack of self-esteem so there’s no one to blame but myself. When not spending my life in the shadows, kowtowing to queen-bee’s such as Aliya, I was settling for a superficial and invisible association to popular crowds only because of Daddy Padash’s wealth. Sure, among that shallow mix a few good apples like Shela made cameos in my life like needles in haystacks. But still, even with a heart of genuine gold, Shela and I were just two different souls. She was the quintessential good girl; an epitome of chastity and virtue while I stifled a rebellious soul repulsed by convention and piqued by inquisitive tastes for an eclectic array of unmentionable sins. I guess, Afia would come closest to that perfect best friend but we all know from (Afia from Karachi Company) how well that turned out due to my own idiotic insecurities. Needless to say, by the time I headed for college, I was determined for a fresh start. Another chance to start on a new page and do it right this time. I had imagined college to gift me with that perfect dreadlocked/mustached boyfriend and with him or maybe without him, I would explore my sexuality, my spirit and myself. Well… it didn’t go exactly the way I had charted it out but sans the dreadlocked lover I still managed to hit the nail pretty close to its head. My soulmate, I soon realized wasn’t someone with dreadlocks, a moustache or even a penis. It was in fact someone who loved me unconditionally, was there to comfort me through hard times, taught me, mentored me, held my hand when I needed and never dared to judge me. That person was a beautiful and sure soul named Jenny. Before I had ever seen an episode of Sex and the City, Desperate Housewives, Girlfriends or any other clichéd fairy-tale of a sitcom, it was Jenny who educated me that love comes in many shapes and forms. You can never feel alone as long as you’re surrounded by good friends. And sometimes, all it takes is just one.

Just one column on Jenny would never do justice to our relationship. In truth, a large part of my life that helped shape who I am is attributable to our friendship and the lessons I learned from Jenny. Before meeting her, I was merely a confused, spoilt and inept girl with little self-esteem and still trying to find myself. Jenny accompanied me in that search. Along the way she taught me about the simple pleasures in life and the beauty in humility and ordinary. About the importance of independence and fearlessness. Most of all she taught me how to become comfortable, embrace and then eventually love the one person who should matter the most to me…myself.

How Jenny and I met is an interesting tale. Fall of 1999, a quaint little college town clutching on to the few more days of sun it was allowed. Where the locals were more conservative and somewhat as ignorant as Anne Coulter herself. Yet in the middle of this rural foliage stood 4 walls which housed some of the world’s greatest and most radical minds. A campus where genders were often bended, everyone succumbed to becoming a BUG (Bisexual Until graduation), sex was not taboo but the norm and rules became more fragile than our mother’s most expensive China. Like many other novices to a liberal arts lifestyle, I too arrived here clueless and escorted by protective parents who could never imagine their young daughter boarding an international flight let alone navigating her way through a sequestered destination in a foreign country. We had arrived here from a five-star hotel where all my meals were paid for. For a split-second, I even wondered how different my own dorm room would be from this luxury suite. If someone had told me back then that in the coming years, I would become a person who spontaneously rented cars and drove to foreign places alone with no definitive plans or that I would travel my way through all the places I wished to see while hostelling, couch-surfing and ridesharing I would neither fathom nor believe it!

The first night in my dorm room, I unpacked my stuff and prayed (you know Pakistani children will always pull out their praying mat on the first night, the first week or their first month of college even if we never touched it back home). Now for the Isha kay baad Nasha routine, I headed off to a local frat party with my roommate and excited hall-mates – all trying hard to mask their nervousness with heavy makeup and forced grins. We huddled close in a circle as we danced and noticed that the putrid basement of that fraternity was saturated with many similar circles all representing a floor of a particular dorm. The men surrounded us with lopsided baseball caps and Varsity jackets leaning against the wall, picking out their prey but still nervous to make a move on the first night. Even though, the months before college, I would try every trick in the book just to stay out past my curfew on Islamabad dance floors, but now on my first night in the Land of the Free, I was ready to head home even before midnight. At 11:45 we all walked home in a pack and retired to our rooms to sleep on uncomfortable bunk beds and acquaint ourselves with our roommates some more. Girls we pretended were already our BFFs but would soon discover that they would become the one girl we would eventually avoid, then despise and later never see around campus again. Growing up as a follower to self-indulgent debs, I was all too familiar with the artificiality of such friendships. Heck I had mastered it by now.

A few weeks with the blond herd of freshmen estrogen and I found myself spiraling into a nagging disappointment. This ‘follower routine’ was exactly what I had wanted to denounce in college; weekends spent watching coats for bimbo friends to avoid watching them hook up with cute boys. Though the girls would frequently gush that I was ‘gorgeous’, I would dismiss them as meaningless compliments bestowed upon desi girls who are assumed to be ‘beautiful’ because they are ‘exotic’ and ‘exotic’ only because of their dark skin and darker hair. More of an accessory for the background aesthetics than a bedmate. Girls who were probably no more than ordinary back home often find themselves fawned over by Americans only because long hair + dark skin + femininity spells exotic beauty here.

Since I had arrived to school guarding an I20 close to my heart, I was instantly expected to color my college brochures with ‘diversity.’ Also immediately pigeonholed into a default social network called the ‘International Students’. These F1s and J1s were to not only help me alleviate my homesickness by shared stories of jet-lag but also to help me ‘assimilate’ by correcting each other’s grammars. A socially awkward bunch, my new best friends but all it took were a total 2 breakfasts, 2 lunches, 3 dinners and 1 brunch with the corner UN table of men and women from every continent flirting with each other in broken English, to help me effortlessly deduce that Hye sue from Korea and Oguo from Ghana weren’t really the posse I saw myself rolling with. That and the fact that the oblong-shaped, Oguo from Ghana with his enunciation as comprehensible as the lyrics of a Klingon Opera, decided he was infatuated with me. Not really a bad guy but I could never get past his large ears (which I could only hope had been stretched out by an ex girlfriend grabbing them with pleasure) and an unfathomable articulation (often I would misinterpret that he was requesting me to become a drug mule to Cuba when he would only be asking me to pass the salt shaker). Fuel to fire, one night I came home from a party and found Oguo taping a love letter on my door. The girls on my floor were quite entertained by this so-called romantic gesture but I knew I had to put am immediate stop to this. A rude rejection was the only option I had! And might I add, his best attempt at a love letter were quoted dialogues from the movie Titanic and its soundtrack! Never really a Celine Dion fan, I had to let Oguo know, that sweetie…I’m sorry…its not me, it really is YOU!

It was at one of those boring International student luncheons where my eyes first landed on a gorgeous and slender girl with a complexion as perfect as dark chocolate. Self-assuredly, she sported a shaved head, killer legs to match and eyes so seductively enchanting that they held back a story of their own. She bore the starkest resemblance to the model Alek Wek and was aware of that fact because she emulated her from hair to expression. We exchanged brief homilies over cookies and lemonade where she informed me that although her parents were immigrants from Sudan, she herself was born and raised in California. Her Sudanese heritage helped her to fashion the role of a token to help increase this college’s diversity numbers in exchange for financial aid. That was also why she made brief appearances at such mundane luncheons. Her confidence and the surety with which she carried herself enticed me immediately. Attired in such an expensive and classy dress, I would never have guessed that this self-assured Nubian princess actually hailed from the projects of Compton and grew up on food stamps. On that night, Jenny and I only shared a cigarette before we parted. Many years later I would be informed by her that she too walked away from me, enticed, impressed and intrigued by a tale hinted by just my eyes. Of a privileged past and a beauty undiscovered. We both wanted to be each other’s protégés but neither knew of the other’s intrigue.

After the International crowd and the bimbo hall-mates who had already begun talking about each other behind their backs, I found a new niche. The school’s resident goth crew. I befriended Libby in my gender and sexuality class and when she invited me to lunch with her entourage of Goths, I readily accepted. A table full of black make up and sinister frowns yet all just a tough façade as a defense mechanism. Inside they were loveable, maybe even dorky and that’s probably why they accepted me with open arms. Maybe because I brought long black hair to the table and a few local Pakistani amulets bought at Mazaars for less than a penny. Oh and they adored my ‘ominous sounding’ name and the exotic roll it brought to their tongue. Libby truly was fun and it was refreshing at first to replace a night of surrendering to bimbos bumping and grinding with drunk frat boys for a night of glaring angrily without the subtlest of a smile on a dance floor which thundered dark menacing beats. Libby and I remain good friends to this day and eventually she outgrew her black makeup and piercings. She married a fellow non-conformist in a quaint medieval themed renaissance wedding in Nova Scotia.

Of course, I experimented with every sub-segment of society in this school, so after the goth crowd, came the raver crew! Ravers caught my attention with their ostentatiously flamboyant attire which was the other end of the spectrum from the gothic uniform of dark frowns and black gloom. Ravers wore baggy jeans, bright colors, pacifiers around their necks, glow-sticks between their fingers and any accessory that rhymed with HAPPY to a spoilt rich white kid tripping on XTC. I met Jemima (a candy raver) at a game of Spin-the-bottle or was it Psychology class, but soon after I landed at my first ever rave. Jemima always showed up to class in tight Care-Bear t-shirts, pig-tails, smiley face stickers on her cheek and a pacifier in her mouth. It fed another fascination with another underground scene for me where the depravity of drugs and addiction were conveniently gift-wrapped in colorful happiness, dutiful camaraderie with strangers, perpetual grins, hugs and French kisses. Needless to say, as fun as it was, but after watching Jemima overdose on E, GHB and crystal meth and then spend a night with her in the hospital in a pink tank top with not just matching harem pants but also a pink visor, I had to rethink the path I had chosen once again. I was quickly realizing that my interest in all of these sub-groups was due to an ingrained curiosity to try new things. Yet there still lacked a sense of belonging or permanence.

Luckily I didn’t have to continue searching too long because soon I found Jenny. Our paths would cross endlessly throughout the year yet we remained oblivious to the fact that maybe fate was trying to help us connect. Besides our shared aversion for token diversity luncheons, we both began to work at the Library. It was a great work-study; I could read, write papers, talk on the phone, all while getting paid. Jenny and I never worked the same shift but would always bump into each other when punching in our timecards. Our conversations, mostly brief and somewhat cordial. Uncannily, we had even been on dates with the same men yet neither knew. One night I ended up having sex at the library after a date (I had an extra key) and later I would find out that Jenny had done the exact same thing with the exact same guy and just a week before me. We were two peas in a pod and had yet to discover that.

During one particularly excruciating night shift, when neither of us felt like studying for midterms, we began to converse and by the end of the shift we had exchanged our life stories. I learned that Jenny was nowhere close to the bourgeois and wealthy girl I had perceived her to be. It was hard not believe with her designer clothes and the royal grace with which she glided down campus like panthers striding down runways. In truth, she was a struggling soul born to immigrant parents. She had witnessed and survived some of the most desolate of times. Neither African royalty nor an International supermodel, she was just a street savvy and headstrong girl from Compton who would be quick to put someone in their place if they rubbed her the wrong way. Our similarities? We both grew up with low self-esteem, always second-guessing ourselves. Unlike myself she had changed it all and taken responsibility for her life. Some other day, I will share her life story since it was so inspirational.

It was also around that time when I slumped into my first depression. Rarely would I make it out of bed and lied to Professors that I was homesick. I had hoped that my decision to leave my home, jump on a plane and travel across the 7 seas would be to start a new life and find myself. Yet here I was. Still a confused soul, too scared to be myself and still unaware of what ‘myself’ meant. Hopping from group to group, and left with no more than a barrage of acquaintances but not a single close friend. What Jenny would admire and envy from afar as my popularity was in fact loneliness. Even though I had begun to loose all my weight because the closest dining hall to my dorm was a glorified salad bar, my self-esteem remained low. So ingrained was my self-deprecation that when girls told me about all the attention I got from guys, I assumed it to be a tricky ploy to flatter me for something in return.

During my first break, I hitched a ride to Philly to visit Khala 1. I even planned a day trip to NYC to visit an old high school friend who was at Columbia. It was the first time I stepped foot in New York and the city immediately became my savior at a very low point in my life. The reason why I have such a deep loyalty to New York. As we walked around Manhattan, I couldn’t help but gape at the beauty and surety in every man, woman, and tranny that sauntered by. I was awestruck! They had all left everything behind to move here and follow their dreams. They didn’t look back and by the determination with which they marched it was obvious they were not going to let anything get in their way. I wondered what it would be like to walk in the shoes of these svelte bombshells. Click clacking away in high heeled pumps with ease, expensive clothes on their flesh, faces like airbrushed perfection. When you looked closer, you realized that they weren’t and didn’t even have to be genetically pretty. It was merely the confidence with which they lived life that attracted the world like puppets. And here I was, blessed with a beautiful face but the only thing stopping me was my own uncertainty of myself. As we sipped coffee in an outdoor café in the village, beauty parading by, I turned the intimidation into encouragement. I was going to be myself and I was going to love myself. If there was something about myself I didn’t like, I was going to change it. You get one shot at life and here I was wasting it away in depression.

I returned to college a determined person. Sure when guys asked me out to fraternity formals and mixers, I still second-guessed myself. When Jenny and I would talk, she would comment on how she envied my fun lifestyle of partying with jocks and greeks. I in turn, envied her for her confidence and wished to achieve the same.

It was around that time, studying for finals in a deserted library when Jenny and I began to share some of our darker secrets and illicit fantasies. I gave up on my Psychology textbook and confessed.
‘You wanna know something wild? I had sex in this library!’ ’
Her eyes widened as she removed the highlighter from her mouth, ‘Me too!’
‘With CJ!’ I revealed his name.
‘Me too!’ She jumped up and almost spilled her coffee.
We spent the rest of the night comparing notes. What I admired about her was how sexually experienced she was and not ashamed of it. She reminded me of a more confident version of Afia.
‘It had always been a fantasy of mine ever since I started working here!’ I informed her.
‘Any other fantasies?” She asked!
‘Well ever since I saw the movie Threesome in high school, I have always wanted to try one in college!’
‘It is quite fun.’ Jenny’s reply was surprisingly cavalier.
‘You’ve done it already?”
She nodded ‘A few times.’
‘And?’
“Well lets just say, every now and then its better with a third!’

I didn’t think much of it but a few weeks after finals, I had been asked out to a fraternity formal by a cutie. I had packed most of my clothes already and remembered that Jenny who had yet to attend a formal had always offered to let me borrow her clothes for such occasions. I decided to ask her for her divine backless, champagne dress. She agreed immediately and even invited me over and since both of us had no specific plans on the night before the formal, I accepted. When I arrived at her dorm room, we started off drinking wine on her bed and listening to music. When her phone rang she informed me with a wink that an old friend was coming over.
‘Company? Booty call?’ I joked ‘I should get going then!’
‘Well actually, if you’re still interested in that threesome…’

And that my friends was how I had my first ever threesome in college. After that my life became a floodgate of new experiences. I still remember when the guy left with the goofiest Cheshire grin on his face, we giggled away. I couldn’t believe what I had just done and on the other hand it all felt so comfortable with Jenny. By sunrise as I did the unusual walk of shame back home, I couldn’t stop smiling. When I reached the entrance of my dorm, I turned around to breath in the splendid view of my small campus. Breathtakingly beautiful. For the first time, it looked inviting as well as comforting. I now looked forward to returning to campus for sophomore year. In the years that followed, Jenny and I became inseparable, experimenting with all our curiosities. College instantly became the best years of my life. I was on a journey, and all I needed was Jenny to accompany me! And…sometimes it is better with a third! ;) That third friend was Julie. And the three of us commenced on a journey full of memories we could rarely repeat unless one of us chose a pseudonym and shared those memories with her chowkies. =)

Ode to my peoples!!!

I love my people! Don’t we all! In fact guerdons of my patriotism date back to childhood memories of festooning my rusty terrace with green ‘jhandiyan’ and candles on ‘choda’ August. Of waking up at the crack of dawn, to watch groggy school-kids robotically recite patriotic anthems on TV as they shivered and froze outside the PM House. I even enjoyed the warm, fuzzy feeling of being serenaded by the melodious crooning of Sohail Rana and the Benjamin Sisters and yes, I was once also guilty of begging my poor father for the TDK cassette of Vital Signs. And as I lip-synched along to ‘Dil, dil, Pakistan’ my male suitors in their mismatched knickers mimicked the same song with badminton rackets, cricket bats and even hockey sticks substituting for make-believe guitars. But enough of nostalgia, these days we come across a different kind of familiarity. A situation, a trait, a habit that we see our natives indulge in forcing us to sometimes cringe, sometimes wince but mostly just smirk and look away. The people and the scenarios I am about describe are mere acquaintances and in some cases even strangers, yet each and every one of them represents a certain someone you have all once crossed paths with. We will always have in common; a bourgeois Aunty, a ‘Vilayat’ palat, a hijabi conservative and a provocative nonconformist. So without further a due, lets cut straight to the point since introductions are undoubtedly in order.

Why yes…or as Mrs. Shamim would say ‘Why Not?’

Specimen 1:
‘Darling, just call me Mrs. Shamim!’

…but don’t you dare call me Aunty or I will make keema, bootee out of you!
We have all heard that line before right? And when we eye the source of the request from her bleached blond head down to her immaculately pedicured toes we meet our very own Aunty Begums. We wonder the entire time, when they would finally embrace their forties…fifties…or even their sixties. Psychically they all fit the profile down to an exact match; give or take some. Usually mid to late forties with a surprising disdain for the word ‘Aunty’ or for reality in general. Other signs of age are carelessly masked with coats of foundation ending just at their necks while blond bleach in bouffant perms serve as desperate substitutes for desi botox. Picture Bozo the clown, Stephen King’s IT or John Wayne Gacy. Got it? Now picture them in a sari. That my friend is an image of Aunty Sh…ahem…oops sorry I mean Mrs. Shamim that we all know. One in every family, admit it! Grinning from ear too ear at every marriage hall with bright red lipstick and perfect blush-on circles. The rest of their features ornamented with flashy diamonds, emeralds and gold, forcing their heads to look no different than a Faberge egg. Their gaudy jewelry, uncannily similar to the furniture that occupies every corner of their house. Those drawing rooms where we have all once battled boredom while staring offensively at the skinned, stuffed and now luckily extinct remains of a safari fusing perfectly with the ambiance of a Lollywood Smuggler. Alas, in interior decoration jargon it probably translates to slow suicide by garish distaste. But who are we to judge right? Noveau riche or born into money but at the end of the day, isn’t it just the riche that matters? Agreed, no arguments there. Now Mrs. Shamim doesn’t just dress in her finest but also jet-sets around the world with her hubby in ‘first’ and ‘business’ only. Her conversations always prefaced with the melodious purring of ‘Daaaahling’ punctuated with dropped names of the rich and famous.
‘Daahling when I was in Convent…I remember….”
‘Daaahling….I have to confess, I find the room service at the Ritz Carlton only mediocre compared to the Mandarin Oriental.’
‘Daaahling, I sure paid a fortune for this bag but WHY NOT its Ferragamo!’

And true to her words, the exorbitantly priced yet eyesore of a purse slung smugly over her shoulders did once bear more zeros than numbers on its price tag. Apart from her make-up faux pas – which I theorize is because the more expensive an item, the more horrid and cadaverous it promises to make you– she remains revered and envied as the IT socialite begum in a circle of country club jogging, Sunday brunching and high-tea hosting acquaintances. A close friend of my mothers, I grew up watching middle-aged, female arrivistes basking in the self-assured nimbus of Mrs. Shamim while flitting around vying for her cachet. It was not rare for me to arrive home from school only to find Mrs. Shamim perched elegantly on our chaise longue – sans the bad make-up – with her enormous, Hulk Hogan-esque arms peeping – rather menacingly – through sleeveless shirts. And while her husband worked hard to put the best bread and only the most exquisite butter on the table, Mrs. Shamim spent her days out-shining her peers and swanking her wealth. Lavish trips to Europe, States and Dubai were eloquently described in great detail, often. Careful never to omit the most miniscule of particulars like the heavenly beds she slept on in the world’s finest, most decadent hotel suites. Expensive brands always etched on her neon pink pumps and commonly interrupted (mid-boasting) by the incessant ringing of her Paktel –later replaced by a nifty Startac – for long distance money requests by daughters who only boarded in Switzerland’s finest finishing schools.
‘Why not?’ she would gush when people’s eyes widened at the cost of a European education in etiquette.
‘Why not?’ she would shrug after having casually revealed the amount she dropped on an Yves Saint Laurent belt or a Hermes handbag on a recent trip to Geneva.

During dinners, she impressed everyone at the table with her knowledge of expensive cuisine from around the world.
‘I always prefer my Fillet Mignon, medium rare…’ or
‘My husband and I decided that the calamari in Rome is far better than what we had in Venice.’
At parties, she always served and sipped expensive champagne while nibbling on shrimp hors dourves crafted like Origami butterflies.

Mrs. Shamim always spoke fluent English making sure her sentences burdened in cumbersome verbs spoken once only by female protagonists in Jane Austen and Somerset Maugham novels. I have to admit, I too was once guilty of being in awe of her glamour. It was hard not to admire that matter-of-fact shrug garnished with a signature ‘Why not?’ when it came to generous and lavish spending.

The last time I saw her was a couple of years ago, on a trip back home when I had stopped by Jumma Bazaar to purchase a few ethnic knick knacks. They make for excellent gifts for American friends and co-workers and because I knew I had ‘foreign-return’ or ‘F-10’ plastered over my face, I didn’t argue with the pathans who conveniently hiked up their prices even when I attempted to feign a lack of interest. As I deliberated over the durability of a set of mirror-work cushion covers, I spotted Mrs. Shamim engaged in conversation with the pathan vendor across from me. We had not met since I left for college and I was impressed that she still looked good. Sure, she was slightly aged, but the bleach in her hair still diligently competed with the years under her belt. Delighted by the pleasant surprise, I decided to walk over and greet her. She looked almost humble for the first time with a dopatta covering her fake blond locks and very little make-up as she haggled loudly with a pathan.
‘Koi naheen, koi naheen…pachaas rupay? Ham atay rehtay hain yahan…pachis rupay kee cheese, pachaas may day rahay ho. Mujhay naheen pata kam karo…Itwaar bazaar may das kee bhi mil jatee hay yeh.’ Then she followed her routine with the oldest trick in a seasoned bargainer’s bag. The walk away of disinterest…a five-second pause followed by a dramatic 180 turn to warn that the moment was now reduced to ‘last chance, take it or leave it!’
‘Bas tees ka kar kay…baat khatam karain. Aap bhii khush, ham bhi khush. Chalain shabaash.’
Granted the guy had probably jacked up the price. Granted the item’s price fluctuated based on each customer’s attire and accent. But in the end, it was only fifty rupees which amounts to less than a buck for a gentry begum who had probably never once dared to bargain with a sales-girl selling her a plain black shoe as if doing her a favor because the D&G anagram etched conceit inside the sole.
I remember a desperate urge to walk over, place my hand on her shoulder and remark ‘But Aunty Shamim….why not?’ Instead, I walked away quietly. As irked as I was, by the time I walked out of Jumma Bazaar and ran my eyes around the dusty field, I realized that it wasn’t just her. I was surrounded by many similar versions of Aunty Shamim. Head covered, sleeveless concealed. A designer bag on their shoulders from a shopping spree abroad but tirelessly haggling over twenty rupees with a local vendor. My people! Gotta love em!

Specimen 2: ‘My good name, Abdul Qadoos Jhangya, sir’

Ok granted I don’t really know this one personally, nor intimately, but neither do any of you. We have all, however, spotted this certain fellow citizen at many International airports. In fact, this once comes in every shape, every size, every gender and every age. The one most memorable for me, was the one I spotted on a recent trip home. I had arrived at the JFK airport lugging my 1 check-in suitcase and 1 carry-on (an utter sin for all the aunties who had preyed on me for months to become their shipping mule…only to be disappointed by my ‘badtameezie’ when I declined.) JFK airport, I might add, remains to be as eclectic of a desi melting pot as Jackson Heights, what with the cabbies blasting Bhangra out front and the interminable lines of kurtas with sneakers inside. Bursting leather suitcases with a Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Calcutta, Mumbai or Chennai address scribbled untidily on swinging tags. As I fumbled with my own sinfully frugal luggage; my eyes fell on a nervous man enter through the same sliding glass doors which had once ignited awe and wonder of ‘gora’ technology but now seemed trite. His over-sized T-shirt and the blatancy of its embossed Diesel stretched proudly across a chest which had finally grown a few inches more as opposed to the scrawny torso he had probably once landed in the states with. His carry-on’s black strap stretching diagonally over his ambitious pecs and a fanny pack full of photocopies, plane tickets, itineraries and a passport (unfortunately still green instead of blue). Still, it encased the nurtured stamp of an H1 visa pasted on one of its pages and thus was to be handled as it if it were the most fragile item in his luggage. Apparently he had granted the wish of many predatory aunties with gifts to send home, because he tried aimlessly to juggle two large suitcases with optimistic reassurance that it would only pump up his biceps and forearms before landing. Jeans nearly as faded as his t-shirt but the white of his expensive sneakers spotless and fresh; probably plucked out of their box for this very occasion. At this point, I felt nothing but affectionate warmth for this hardworking Engineer? IT specialist? Who probably worked hard as an alien in a land he now referred to as home yet wondered why it felt like the loneliest of all his homes. Coincidentally, we ended up in the same line at check-in. Each time he looked back apologetically for taking up space, I replied with smiles instead. My smiles induced a reaction of surprise followed by hope. I always find that my friendliness with such FOB boys initially ignites a shocked response. Some even look over their shoulders to make sure I’m not smiling at someone else or better yet a cute, white boy. When I smile again, they display gratitude towards my civility with a reciprocal smile. But then again, their first impression of me was probably of a westernized biotch who believes to be in another league only because she can pronounce a word or two better and wear tight jeans and tops. The ‘greasy’, ‘Fobby’ and ‘smelly’ types remind such girls of what they are trying effortlessly to suppress. I in turn, stand patiently behind my Pakistani brother and watch him fumble tensely through documents and words. The indifferent and discourteous man at the counter continues to fire off questions.
‘Yes sir…No sir…Yes sir…” Mr. H1b answers in concise and obedient sentences. ‘My good name, Abdul Qadoos Jhangya sir’. At this point, his submissively polite demeanor is endearing and even admirable.
When ‘Sir’ informs him that one of his suitcases weighs over fifty pounds, he instantly apologizes and begins frantically transferring other peoples gifts and favors from suitcase to suitcase. Once again, he flashes me an apologetic look and this time, I surprise him even more by replying in perfect Urdu.
‘Koi baat naheen, aaraam say karo.’
He replies with another grateful smile and hopefully realizes that I am not the stuck-up ABCD he deduced I was. When he finally leaves the counter, he digs into his pockets to pay 3 bucks for a trolley. He even allows two older Caucasian women to jump ahead of him in line.
The next time we meet is at the airport waiting lounge. Much more relaxed than the last time I saw him, he still displays the fidgety nervousness of an alien traveling home on a green passport. When he spots me across the room, I pretend to be engrossed in my magazine to discourage any possibilities of ‘gup shup’. Sneaked glances from my magazines confirm that he is not really that bad-looking and will probably marry a girl more attractive than himself. On a similar nervous trip home in the next few years he will return with more items in the aunty gift-exchange and a wife in tow. He will then for the first time assume the role of a tour-guide from tourist. It will also reduce the loneliness of living in the States and make it more bearable.

The last time we meet is at the airport in Pakistan. As we are welcomed into our homeland with whiffs of heat and humidity, people impatiently off-load themselves with complaints about the weather, the smell and the headlines. Still, they are ecstatic to have returned home and run amok like excited school children in a candy store. He too, no longer appears nervous nor lost. Now confident with the sudden addition of a buoyant pep in his step he swaggers to baggage claim. First, he cuts in line at the passport counter.
‘Aray yaar jaldee kar na…’ he orders around.
Then he snatches a trolley and heads straight for his luggage. The man is almost unrecognizable and within minutes, I can hear him arguing loudly with two other men. One of those men appears to be airport staff.
I hear the words ‘Kya baqwaas hay…kya nizaam hay yaar…app jantay naheen may kon hoon…’ spewing out of his mouth. Then his vitriol is followed by a barrage of Punjabi swear words about mothers and daughters. The endearment I once felt for him at JFK is immediately replaced with disgust and embarrassment within minutes of landing in Pakistan. A part of me, wants to walk up to him and share a few Punjabi swear words myself. Remind him of how he stood in the ‘Attention’ position with his palms folded obediently over his crotch just a mere twenty hours ago. How he was bowing down, apologizing, and following every rule with added courtesy. Now, all of a sudden he has mutated into an obdurate rioter who could care less about laws and rules. The word ‘Sir’ now replaced with ‘BC’. My anger quickly turns into a smirk when I look around and realize its not only Abdul Qadoos who has made this extreme transformation from civil to evil. Every single person around me, who had quietly and obediently filed into our plane like sheep is now scampering in chaotic frenzy with stubborn indifference. I cant help but smirk at the women in kurtas and sneakers who could barely allow a sentence to escape their lips at JFK airport are now fanning their faces with boarding passes yelling ‘Kya ghatya nizaam hay….aap ko ladies kee line tu alag rakhnee chaiyay…’ The same men who had graciously slipped in three whole dollars for a trolley cart in New York are brawling over trolleys and with old and withered cab drivers over a 100 rupee fare. Outside herds of families await with garlands of roses and rupees (currency which would probably add up to even more than a 100). I watch Abdul Qadoos with his chest heaved forward, the Diesel on his shirt more cocky as he walks out in his brand new sneakers. The air of Amreekan-palat caressing the expressions of a proud family that wait impatiently. I will not damper his bliss, I will not rain on his parade. Go ahead Abdul Qadoos Jhangya, enjoy your moment. Because a month from now, you will be exiting a similar baggage claim at JFK airport. Your chest shrunken, your shoulders slouched. Not even a hint of surety in your walk as you politely dish out a twenty without questions or complaints. When the Jamaican cabbie is the only one to greet you with a ‘Where to bud?’
You lower your head and whimper, ‘72nd and Roosevelt…sir.’

Specimens 3:
Assama-alaimkum I am Sister Saba and
heyyyyyy what’s up guys, Sabs in the house!

So we all either know a Sister Saba or a Sabs or both. I actually fall in the latter category, because I know both. I didn’t realize about this lovely irony of their existence till their thoughts and views were once juxtaposed to me on the same day, same night. Both are wonderful people, I should add with hearts of gold and I am lucky to have them both in my lives. Both named Saba. One is quite religious and wears a hijab which is admirable to me because it shows a certain courage and confidence that I envy. The other brazen, bold and unafraid to flaunt her sexuality, which I can relate to. Some details about my life (Rosa, the Latina firecracker), I choose not to share with either because…well lets not open that Pandora’s box on the interacts section again. Sister Saba (religious one) has shared that she disagrees with some of my life choices and she makes good and valid points. Sabs, thinks I am just the coolest girl in the world and I share my gratitude for that too. Friends are supposed to be honest and I appreciate them both for it.

I met them both on separate occasions but during my graduate school years in the halls of NYU. I rarely ever hang out with either of them but I make sure to stay in touch with them through sporadic dinners, movies, etc. Most of the time, Sister Saba declines which is understandable but Sabs doesn’t which is great too! Neither of them have ever met each other even though they both share a mutual friend which would be moi.

Recently I saw them both in the loft of a friend’s baby shower. As much as I detest baby showers and being trapped in a room full of desi women, I am working on my resolution for the year of being open to new experiences. While I strolled from room to room, carefully engaging in small-talk polite enough to respect the host but concise enough for my sanity. And also to tactfully avoid being cornered into any commitments or inquisitive queries of when I planned to take the big plunge into marital bliss and motherhood.

For the most part, I was content with standing in a corner of the loft, sipping my tea and talking to Sister Saba about her life. Sister Saba used to be an active member or maybe even an officer at the NYU MSA. I once ran into her at an Iftar dinner, which I had snuck into only to pilfer a Samosa or 2 for class. These days I usually cross paths with her at stuffy alumni events or equally ad nauseum fêtes such as baby showers. Though we treaded politely around the terrain of safe topics such as movies, work, mutual friends and maybe even a grad school memory, I mostly just hid my anxiety to ditch the party and head for my bed or a bar. Sister Saba – as she is popularly referred to by all the pious bachelors of our MSA – has often struggled with being judged by her headscarf. Understandable and though I cant truly empathize, I can console. Even that night, as diverse as the women were from brainless doctor’s wives to single career gals and a range of couture from hijabs to suits to sleeveless and halter-tops, I didn’t doubt for a second that some of those women were already forming their own preconceived notions about Sister Saba when she walked into the room with a hijab. I, in my chamo green skirt and white collared shirt, made sure to make her feel welcome. Sister Saba, aware of the judgmental eyes, remarked again about how she was tired of being viewed as an uptight and boring fundo, But then, even Saba forced out a ‘gotta love my people’ smirk when my other friend Sabs sashayed by us in her barely opaque top – which I envied – and skin-tight gold-lame pants.
‘Ugh have you seen what she’s wearing, what a slut!’
Judging people by the way they are dressed Sister Saba…I inquired. Only because it sounded like dejavu from an earlier conversation.
‘That’s different’ Sister Saba rolled her eyes.

A few minutes later I found myself on the living room sipping my third cup of chai and ensconced comfortably between Sabs and her friend who looked more like a clone. As they giggled away on the fashion don’ts of the party attendees, they seemed unperturbed by the world around them. Sabs, also an acquaintance from NYU who usually only runs into me inside overpriced clubs and on overcrowded dance floors. Though she wasn’t an active member of the MSA, she was definitely a dedicated officer of the university’s PSA. She made sure to invite everyone to the PSA events and currently also runs a regular email listserv of desi parties in town. I usually don’t go but she herself makes for a great lunch buddy and always arrives with a never depleting dish of gossip and scandal. Glad I never joined any of the NYU’s PSAs or MSAs because they sound a lot like a soap opera. A desi versions of the Young and the Restless (Jawaan and the Baitaab) perhaps? What I do admire about Sabs is her party streak which we both have in common– albeit mine is of a different scene – and she sure does have an enviable wardrobe. Back in grad school, our dinner conversations after evening classes usually entailed her disgust at how some chicks had the audacity to judge her character by her clothes. Having been victimized with similar accusations myself – maybe true, maybe not – I could empathize with her. But at that party, she too brought that smirk on my face when she looked up at Sister Saba walk by and then turned towards me.
‘There goes a Ninja.’
‘Harsh.’
‘Hey those hijabi types are always out to convert someone to the right path or something...’
‘She’s just at a baby shower.’
‘Look how firmly pinned that hijab is….’
‘And?’
‘Whatever, trust me, that ones a fundo!’

I spent the rest of the night playing a game; how many girls were probably judging each other on clothes. Maybe, I’m guilty of it sometimes too. Because honestly if I ever stopped befriending girls who did not judge other girls by their clothes (too slutty, too fundo) I probably wouldn’t have any desi female friends. But wait…that’s probably why I don’t have many in the first place.

But when its all said and done.
Nobody’s perfect…right?
You cant change people or the shystem…right?
But you can smirk and sigh ‘Gotta love my peoples…’

Soliciting Juicy Stories!

What is your craziest sex story? Your first time? The craziest place you did it? Almost got caught? Tried out a fantasy you never wanna repeat to someone? Email me your responses! Its for a column I am writing...no names will be included...just the stories!

My New Anthem!

To all the haters out there!

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Not ALL feminists will disagree with my life =)

A very interesting article I came across! I like her! =)


Thoughts on Sex and Politics

By Jenna Mellor

http://hbombmag.wordpress.com/non-fiction-2/past-issues/untitled-thoughts-on-sex-and-politics/

Two tears in a bucket!!!

Many of you – even those who enjoy my work - really do not want me to write any more about my experiences as a stripper. I fully understand that it can be overkill at times but the more I thought about what to write this month, the more I was drawn to back to the old haunts and foliage of my memories at Club Candy. Call it a need for closure or an innate obstinacy, but this column my dear friends, is also going to be about Rosa as well. As for those who truly detest my writing and would rather use this time to gouge out their eyes rather than succumbing to the painful torment of my mundane/immoral/insertyouchoiceofjudgementhere columns, I would advise you to treat this like any other conversation. Leave! As for those who don’t loathe me as much, be assured that not all of my columns will be about my Latina stage persona. The fact of the matter remains that during my brief time at Candy, I learned so much about myself, about life and the world that its almost inevitable for me to not return to those lessons. So for those who may still possess an inkling of an interest, I invite you back into my life once again. Kick back, relax, make yourself at home. Grab a cup of coffee, some chai, maybe even a Heineken, a cigarette or a joint. This promises to another fun filled evening with Padash, Rosa and lots of juicy stories from Club Candy.

Why Yes!

So lets start with Rocky shall we? Club Candy’s resident Bouncer. What a warm and fuzzy fellow, why wouldn’t we start with the enormously juiced but loveable Rocky. The first time I ever laid eyes on the bouncer, I was taken aback with both intimidation and disappointment. Intimidation at such a gigantic specimen of a man and disappointment because the ravishingly bulked up physique was topped with a very ordinary – if not unremarkable – face. I mean the man’s arms were as explosive as Greg Valentino’s, height which fell somewhere between the CN and the Eiffel Tower and thighs as thunderously large as Double Debby’s voluptuous figure and that my friends is truly HUGE! Our first encounter was also as insignificant as his face. Although I have always been schooled to never judge a book by its cover, but this book’s jacket seemed nothing more than a mean gymbo who probably and conveniently squashed people like flies on the first roid rage to hit him. A man with very little to boast besides his biceps and triceps which he had wisely put to good use by working as a bouncer at a back-alley strip club in Manhattan. It was also evident that his overly muscled-physique was the product of a deliberate decision at a young age to make up for a not so attractive face. In his early thirties, he still had zits, uneven teeth and a lopsided nose but still I would like to believe that he probably had the potential of bedding several women, the kind who settled for the ‘forget the face, do the base’ mindset on a desperate night. However from that first meeting, his wry smile and his sarcastic yet courtly chuckle at my stage name ‘Rosa’ is always the first thing that comes to mind. And even from that expressionless wit, I could surmise that deep down inside - once you got past the stacks of protein shakes and creatine - probably lay a heart of gold. A soft and endearing side to a body-builder than never meets the eye at first impression. In the weeks that followed, my hunch was accurately confirmed. We all adored him deeply and he was always there for us. Even during those late nights when after ‘closing’ down the bar, the girls and I would head to the Tick Tock Diner for waffles and pancakes. Since we all adored Rocky and savored the sight of his cheeks blushing into crimson when we flirted with him, we would always invite him to join us. Of course we needed his overwhelming protection but for the most part, we enjoyed Rocky’s company. He was the innocent and childlike teddy bear being corrupted in the uncouth company of foul-mouthed strippers. So we would tease and scandalize.
‘Look Rocky that girl over there likes you…go over there get her number.” And he would turn crimson.
‘Rocky, don’t watch I’m going to take my bra off…” And he would surprisingly obey.
“Rocky…how big are you?” And he would just shake his head and lower his eyes hoping for the topic to change.
Maybe because of our crude behaviors, he would often try to decline accompanying us to the diner but Snowflake would always ask me to pout my lips. He would blush, gently look down, smirk and relent. It was a known fact by all the denizens of Club Candy that Rocky never turned Padash down. His fists perpetually balled up to ward off riff raff the entire time we walked to the diner.

Not just the girls but even some of the patrons began to tease me about his ‘puppy dog crush’. But I chose to never really believe them. It just seemed highly unlikely because for me he was nothing more than a gargantuan bouncer and to him I was probably just another girl on the books, shaking my badonkadonk for tips. Nonetheless, I always admired and complimented his chivalry and thoughtfulness. I even remember a particular Sunday afternoon he and I spent together walking around Central Park eating hot dogs and drinking bubble tea. It was a spontaneous yet pleasant day where we both found solace in each other’s company and the day ended with him asking me to be his date to his cousin’s wedding in Connecticut. I enjoyed spending time with him so I immediately agreed and for the most part we had a great time. His family was nothing like him; over-starched, new haven gentry and stepford wives who did not seem too surprised by Rocky’s lack of ambition in life yet made sure they were overtly cordial to his exotic date. I too succeeded in upholding my end of the conversation as the seer-suckers and the summer dresses boisterously bounced from topics such as Nabakov’s Lolita, Paris in the summertime, Warhol’s Campbell Soup Cans and the political unrest in Pakistan (a topic always in fashion no matter which decade you have lived in.) Rocky stood taciturnly besides me the entire time but with a proud smile. On the way back, he gave me a few dozen roses and professed that he harbored special feelings for me. In the back of my mind, I had both expected and dreaded this revelation while always hoping that the speculations were as substantiated as meandering musings of a group of bored pole dancers. But then again no one is more perceptive than a bunch of strippers and why wouldn’t they be, they build a career around the skill of learning exactly how men think, act and feel at any given point. Alas, rejection is never easy no matter which end you’re on. So even though I tried to be as careful and polite but we all know that no matter how genteel the words, a rejection can never be gift-wrapped as anything else but a rejection. To make matters worse, when I returned to work, the Club was already abuzz with news of how Rocky had asked me out and I had declined. What made it worse was when I discovered that I was apparently the first girl from the club that he had ever asked out. Gossip obviously breeds more gossip and when scandalous tits were reciprocated with even juicier tats, Rocky was slapped further across the face with the ‘didn’t-you-know’ news that DJ Stan-O and I had slept together in the DJ booth one night after closing. I am sure Rocky felt like a fool for being oblivious to that detail and had he known, he would never have confessed his feelings for me but regardless of the fact, the relationship between Rocky and I succeeded in staying cordial but failed to remain the way it once was. Even then, Rocky’s compassion never died. All those countless times of rushing late to work when I would be trying to scrounge for a cell phone signal underground to inform Stan-O that I was running late, I would rush into the club only to be greeted by a now-aloof Rocky who would politely disclose with a strained smile that he already persuaded Stan-O to switch the line-up order and I didn’t have to go on till the end. I would want to hug and thank him now he remained distant and guarded till my very last day at Candy. I don’t blame him and I say this with the utmost sincerity that whoever ends up with Rocky, is one lucky girl! He is a good man.

Ok, so now for the burning question. What really went down in the DJ booth that night. No it wasn’t meaningless hearsay and yes, DJ Stan-O and I did sleep together. Also as previously mentioned in one of my tips in ‘Shake what yo Ama gave you’ sleeping with you boss is always a terrible and awful idea. Even if it is your only chance to get it on in a DJ booth with someone as deliciously sexy as Stan-O. Now it didn’t happen during the first time I worked at Candy. However, when I returned to the club two years later as a fresh college graduate in the Big Apple, Stan-O was surprisingly more generous and obvious with his flirting. He seemed pleased, almost ecstatic to see me return and immediately offered me back the job while I searched for other, more appropriate jobs. The sexual tension between us was becoming hot and heavier. Now of course we were both missing the fantasy element of the flirtation, since he would practically see me naked at work every night and I had seen him naked many a times…well… in my dreams; we still had to improvise and be creative to sustain the chemistry. Long story short, after I stayed back to help him close the club one night, we ended up naked in his DJ booth. We made love to the spinning record of a Lords of Acid Vinyl. Very trashy I must say even for a woman like myself, because personally I would have preferred something more mellow or more romantic like…lets just say…some Michael Bolton or Sade perhaps but I must admit it was an experience. Unfortunately once it was over, the post-sex cigarette we shared was far more uncomfortable than the lewd lyrics we had just banged to a few minutes ago. Though our cigarette eventually managed to fizzle away…the awkwardness between us didn’t. He coldly resumed the role of boss with an added title of jerk and I was left to wonder of all the other similar girls in his life and all the other notches under his belt or his DJ booth. The irony of it all…I would now always ask him to play our song from that night ‘I Sit on Acid’ every time I walked on stage to do my routine. Youtube the song and you’ll know that DJ Stan-O was a pure, unadulterated freak! Dag I loved him!

Oh and as I mentioned earlier, I wasn’t and never will be the only Pakistani stripper in any city of the world. Once when Ebonii and I were bonding over cigarettes, I made a comment along the lines of how strange it was to be a Pakistani girl doing this. She took one hard look at me and replied ‘Don’t flatter yourself honey, you aint the only girl!’ I agreed that I probably wasn’t the only desi stripper in this city but I was shocked to hear that another Pakistani used to work not just in the same city but at the same club too. Eboni later showed me pictures of an attractive girl with olive skin and bleached hair (the most unflattering of her physical traits). I asked if she was a student like myself but Eboni told me that as far as she knew the girl had immigrated to the US when she was 11. She lived in Jackson Heights with her family in a one bedroom apartment and Eboni seriously had her doubts about the girl having gone to anything but a community college. The story didn’t end just there. One night, I arrived to work to find a balled up silhouette curled fast asleep on the raggedy couch of our dressing room. When I inquired about her, the girls informed me that it was an old friend of Eboni’s. Trying to ignore the fetal mess in the corner, I prepped for the night. Still, I couldn’t help but watch from the mirror as Eboni came and sat down next to the girl, cradling her with a cup of herbal tea. The girl truly looked like a train wreck; a couple of her front teeth missing, cheeks sunken in and her eyes glazing droopily at the world before her. Dizzily and sluggishly, she slurred the few words that escaped her mouth but they were enough for me to discern that this chaos of a girl whom I watched covertly in my mirror was the other Pakistani stripper.

I can still vividly remember her icy stares as she sipped her tea ‘That the new Rosa? Where she from?’ She squeezed her eyes as if she could decipher the familiarity of our ethnicities.
‘Mind yo business and drink your tea. I gotta get ready for work.’ Eboni’s replies.
‘You know I used to be the Latina firecracker on a pole.’ She was still speaking to me as she chuckled sarcastically.
‘Girl, didn’t I tell you to shut up and drink the tea that just cost me 2.99.’ Eboni’s last words to her followed by ‘And when you gonna check yourself into a program like I done told you to?’

When I returned back from my set, the girl was already gone and Eboni sat smearing bright red lipstick on her lips. She appeared cold, as if to deliberately avoid the barrage of my several concerned queries.
‘Is that the one I replaced?” I remember asking.
‘Everybody replace every body up in this joint if you not careful.’
‘Drugs?’ I probed further.
‘Girl, mind yo business.’
I was struck with a strange sense of disgust and fear. I realized for the first time that I did not want to be just another Rosa. I did not want to go on and further replace her as another sob story. I feel that she was there that night to warn me, of what I could become. I quit Club Candy shortly after when I finally got my first job as an administrative assistant at an Ad Agency. I still kept in touch with most of the people from the club but eventually we all lost touch. Rocky is the only one who still works there, the rest of them have all moved on with their lives. I was particularly amazed to hear that Eboni too had quit since she had been working there the longest and had never expressed a desire to do anything else. Sometimes, I wish I could get back in touch with all of them but in a city like New York where you can run into the same strangers every day of the week, you can also loose your closest friends in the crowds and never once see them again. All I have now are memories of special moments shared between us. The giggles, the tears and the jokes about clients that still bring a smile to my face.

Oh those clients. I mean the normal ones were the drunken frat boys that would slur their ‘Rosa caliente’ or the lugubriously nostalgic Wall Street yuppies in their skinny ties. But every now and then, a client would walk in, so exceptionally odd that you questioned the myth that such characters only existed in cheesy, B-grade movies. But then again, fictional characters have always been known to take their muse from reality, right? I could go on and on about the strange clients like the female-to-male transsexual who still thinks to this day that everyone in the club was oblivious to her little post-op secret. Instead we had guessed the minute she had swaggered into the club that he was once a she, but still we pretended to make ‘him’ feel like we had no idea and ‘he’ in turn kept the tips rolling like raindrops. That one was in love with Ebonii. Also not the only person to skew the club’s hetero saturation, there was a loyal regular who would usually be found prancing around the club, lip-synching to Britney remixes. I still chuckle when I think of how Stan-O despised Britney but Snowflake insisted that it was either Britney or Aguilera. So he had to cave especially because she drove the men wild with her genie in a bottle routine. The effeminate, Britney aficionado would also spend hours raving about the fact that although he liked to drop the soap on purpose, he still loved to come here and ‘appreciate the female body’. That and he also ‘like totally loved the fabulous music, duh!.’ I always wondered if I should introduce him to the same surgeon who did the gender reassignment for the other FTM client but believe it or not, he was one of our good tippers too. But those were just the regulars. The weirder ones were the whack-jobs who never returned after just one cameo but boy did they leave their mark at the club. One particular cat, I cant ever seem to forget was a lanky, almost reclusive desi boy in his late teens. He could easily have been a fresh off the boat freshmen, wallowing in the combined gloom of homesickness, intimidation, loneliness and libidinousness now trying to cheer himself up with a guilty trip to his first titty bar. I would have mistook him for just another frat boy save for the fact that he was sitting all by himself in tight black-jeans with an unnoticeable presence for the most part. As I entered the stage to do my routine, I remembered he kept getting close to the stage almost crawling onto it. Tip after tip, he dished out like free Kleenex for a jilted woman. I didn’t think much of it till I finished and realized that my thong was stuffed with nothing but 20s. “Dag girl, what was you doing out there, stripping or robbing?” one of the girls remarked. Later, a girl informed me that he was waiting outside and wanted to talk to me. It was normal for us to sit and have a nice conversation with our admirers. It ensured their return especially if they were good tippers. We had a good conversation and I was right. He was a privileged little Indian boy raised in Oman. He showered me with awkward compliments which were endearing in a boyish and geeky sort of a way. I reciprocated with coquettish smiles but when he requested a private dance, I politely declined. I still didn’t hold that against him because such requests were normal from clients. I informed him, that we had no champagne rooms at Candy and I never did private shows either. He insisted some more, I remained adamant. Somewhere along the way his persistence morphed into begging. ‘Please, just one song…please…I promise…’ He also began to double his monetary offers. From hundreds he began suggesting thousands as if he was bidding on an original Monet at an art auction. I tried to steer him towards some of the girls, who would accept his offer by the time he got to triple digits but he insisted that he was not interested in any of the other girls, he only wanted a South Asian. When he began to make me uncomfortable, I excused myself back to the dressing room. I had barely begun describing my strange encounter with a potential stalker to the other girls when he entered the dressing room. No one is ever allowed back there and we were amazed that he managed to sneak back. I remember tears streaming down his cheeks as he kept on begging in Hindi. ‘Please…you don’t understand…you don’t understand…just do this for me’. Eboni was not having any of it. She sensed my discomfort as the other girls began to yell at him and the next minute Eboni was dragging him out and yelling for Rocky. I remember the ruckus at the club. I was overcome with both fear and pity for this poor lonely boy as I watched Rocky and Stan-O literally man-handle him out of the door. The boy kept sobbing and crying for me. I was petrified and I hated that I had caused all of this. Stan-O sent me home for the rest of the night and made sure Rocky escorted me all the way to a cab. In hindsight, I’m sure the boy had mental health issues but to this day I can’t ever seem to forget that scary and strange look in his eyes.

Not all of the incidents were as scary. Some were equally freaky but when an insensitive soul would crack a joke about them at the diner, we would discover the humor in every tragedy and cackle with irony at how crazy our lives had become. For example, there was an older client who often frequented the club. Rich but not very elegant, always attired in a suit and carried with him an overworked demeanor. I also remember he was balding with a bad comb-over and his suits were always of different shades of gray and no other color. Slightly paunchy, thick glasses on a stubby nose and an ominously awkward stutter. We would joke behind his back that he was probably some sleazy snuff pornographer or maybe even the next serial killer but to his face we treated him no less than the most handsome man in the world. He never really said much and was as invisible and unnoticeable at the club as he may have been anywhere else in his life. Always in the back sipping his strawberry daiquiri in the dark. He would walk over to the stage, stuff a few bills. Smile clumsily, blush when the girls would wink and then retreat shyly back. As he sat gawking he was probably pondering over something totally unrelated to the nudity in front. It was a night similar to that when we got done with work and as we walked out planning our trip to the Tick Tock diner for breakfast, we saw that he was still slumped in his usual spot even after the lights had been turned on. A few minutes later, the bar-back rushed over to the DJ booth to inform Stan-O that the man wasn’t asleep but in fact, dead. I will never forget how all the girls huddled around him while Stan-O and Rocky checked for his pulse. Eboni was the only one brave enough – and smart enough – to plan for what lay ahead. Stan-O wanted to get his ID but Eboni stopped him and pulled out a wedding band from his front pocket. ‘What you gonna tell em? Kids tell your momma when she gets home from Pilates, that daddy just done breathed his last at a strip club.’ She had a point. Apparently, he wasn’t the first client to have died in front of Eboni because she seemed calm and performing a routine she had once practiced earlier. I too quietly took notes in case stripping also became my long-term career. I remember we drove him to the hospital and dropped him off. Stan-O, Rocky and Eboni spoke with the people inside while the rest of us sat in the car biting our nails and fidgeting with the radio dial. From what I could tell, this was not an unfamiliar situation for the people who worked at the hospital either. Word of advice: don’t frequent strip clubs if you already have a weak heart.

The sun had already risen by the time we all sat down in a booth to grieve over a quiet breakfast. Everyone ordered their usuals and sat mournfully. Even Stan-O sat besides us and he had never joined us for breakfast before. But that night we were all acting civil to each other. The man’s death had forced us all to put our differences and our pasts aside.
‘Well….’ Double Debby finally sighed ‘There goes my twenties….’
Eboni immediately spun around to shoot an angry look at the heartless comment but surprised us with her reply ‘Biotch, you think you’re mad, he had just promised to pay my sprint pcs bill.’
We all cracked up! It was heartless, it was wrong and we knew that. But such was the profession. You weren’t ever supposed to get emotionally attached to the clients. They all arrived at the club with their own share of histories and baggage tucked somewhere away in the back-pockets of their suits. We too performed for them shedding away our own histories and baggage in the back along with our clothes and neither of the parties were to be interested in the other’s histories or baggage.
‘I knew he was gonna die at the club…he just looked like somebody who would die at a strip club or a porn movie theater.’ One of the girls chimed in.
‘I just thought, he was gonna die of weight trauma. Getting run over by a truck or getting a lap dance by Debby!’
‘Girl who you think you is…them mens come from all over the world to see me. You cant super size these shakes, legs or thighs in no KFC bucket’.

By the end we were all in hysterics. Napkins flung at each other. Stan-O and Rocky in fits of laughter watching us cat-fight at the diner!
‘Ya all girls aint never up to no good’ One of the old and withered waitresses smirked as she passed by juggling her orange juice cups.

And that really was it. These were my friends, my coworkers, my family at that particular time. We didn’t care where we came from, where we were going or where we would end up. We didn’t even care what the world thought of us. Because at moments like these when you have all just driven across the city together with a dead corpse whose lap you have all sat in at one point, you learn the most important rule in life. The infamous words once echoed by Lady Chablis to John Kelso at his arrival in Savannah, Georgia:
‘Two tears in a bucket, motherf&%k it!’

Afia from Karachi Company!!!

People often wonder – as I do so myself – of the things that shaped me into the person that I am today. Defiant, carefree, brazen maybe even controversial. Of course, events had a lot to do with it but also the people who waltzed their way in and out, leaving a mark in their own special way. Friends, lovers, foes. I was always unlucky in love but very lucky when it came to friendship. Platonic companions who taught me how to live with a balance between sanity and hedonism. Girls these days may seem a dime-a-dozen with their aped shock-the-world attitude but back when we were all supposed to be ‘sweet’, ‘haughty’ and ‘innocent’ – such girls were not only a rarity but also heavily penalized for their unabashed demeanors. Yet, I chose to befriend such girls and learn from each and every one of them. Alisha (the promiscuous and unconventional girl from the States in Pakistan for the first time). Afia (the over-ambitious girl determined and destined to leave the mediocrity of her Karachi Company home for a life of glamour and decadence). And then there was Jenny (A best friend in college who personified class and poise yet possessed the street-smart astuteness of a girl raised in the projects of Compton). I could dedicate a section to each of them in this piece but it wouldn’t be fair. And since there is just too much ground to cover, we really should tread along. Shall we?

Why Yes!

Before I had ever met my Jenny from the block and a few months after having dealt with the mysterious disappearance of my best friend Alisha; there came into my life an inspiring, go-getter called Afia from Karachi Company. We had met on the #Pakistan channel on mIRC. For those of you who don’t know what those acronyms mean, I’m revoking your FOB membership card. Also, just to make it very clear, I wasn’t really trolling the chat-rooms for women – my elevator doesn’t stop on the lesbian floor – I was simply chatting with random people on the main screen. A certain nick called Pakizah caught my eye and we immediately bonded over our shared habitual sarcasm when it came to misspelled nicks that typed ‘Madam-can-I-be-your-boyfriend’ on the main screen. Pakizah was hilarious and I was instantly drawn to a girl who was enjoying typed praises from all the men in the chat-room. Every five minutes a loser with an equally sad nick like ‘L0V3RofallFR13NDS’ would profess his undying love for Pakizah along with a pitiable rose crafted on the keyboard: @}—‘,---

Her replies: ‘LOL, ROFLMAO I need a man with money not a cyber-café loser!’

Apparently a chat-room regular, she was savoring each click and tap of her cyber popularity. As snooty as she seemed, the boys remained relentless in pursuing her.

And I had to agree, all these acne-layered boys who probably sat in their shorts and shalwars hoping to meet a Lara Croft on the internet, were not worth our time. So I chatted with Pakizah instead and pretty soon, we were typing ‘hahaha’s’ and ‘LOL’s’ as we made fun of the losers on the main screen together. So honored was she to have met a female like herself, she gave me 3 free passwords. Ok, for those of you who weren’t around during those days, internet access in Pakistan was bought from shady offices called Supernet or Cybernet that sold hours. Pakizah on other hand boasted of a list of passwords with several pre-paid hours. Later, she told me how easy it was for her. She would flirt with the boys in chat-rooms, call them a few times to let them hear a girl’s voice. Then, carefully she would craft a sob story of how she lived with conservative parents who wouldn’t allow her to talk on the phone so the only way she could communicate with them was over the net (emails/chat/ICQ). The men – now already falling in love with their first girlfriend – gave her their passwords along with sappy and mushy Blue-Mountain cards with animated hearts and corny ring-tone-ish ballads beeping in the background. The words ‘Missing You’ shimmying across her email inbox with such desperate longing only to be deleted. But the passwords she kept for herself. In a few months, the boys would realize that they had just been conned and they would eventually change their passwords. Still, the fact that Pakizah’s stash of pre-paid passwords were never depleted should be indicative of how many boys in Pakistan would kill for a ‘garrfrand’. As for Pakizah, I loved her already and we decided to stay good friends.

In the beginning, we exchanged a few customary emails, then one day we decided to talk on the phone. The minute I heard her voice, I was shocked.
‘Hello Padash, hoe are you, I am Afia from Karachi Company. Pakizah is my nick-handle on Pakistan channel’.
She sounded nothing like I had imagined. A mousy voice drenched in a strong Punjabi accent. While her cyber persona had invoked an image of a badass and sultry Angelina Jolie-esque vamp, all I could picture now was an Anjuman Cholie in a long, oiled braid. Still, even with this anti-climactic discovery she sounded interesting. Her words were almost endearing when inserted statements like ‘This is me only, love me or hate me, I damn care’ would pop up out of the blue! Later that day, I was meeting up with some school friends for bowling at Hot Shots and the next thing I know, Afia shows up like a stalker to say ‘just hello, hi’. My friends instantly began to scrutinize this local girl with judgmental eyes while wondering how I could know such a paendoo girl. Still, in an effort to be courteous, I sat down with her and engaged in polite small-talk. Afia too was well aware of the disapproving looks and sniggers being flung her way but she really did ‘damn care’ as she continued to rant and rave about herself. Instantly, I knew that Afia was no ordinary girl from around the corner. She was a woman with much bigger dreams for herself than what her Karachi Company life offered.

As the weeks rolled by, Afia and I became closer. It was almost refreshing to meet a friend outside of the private and elitist walls of UCI where everyone looked and acted the same way. Aptly referred to as Burger Central by the lafungas who hung outside our gates for hungered peeks of girls in tight tops and jeans instead of the boring white and pallid shalwar kurta uniforms. Afia would shamelessly confess that she wanted nothing more than to be a burger herself. An IT student at Quaid-e-Azam University, she would proudly wear jeans and T-shirts bought from local, knock-off stores and would then devise ways of infiltrating into the world of burgerdom herself. Whenever we talked, she wanted to know about dance parties, restaurants and the celebrities (or their kids) that I went to school with. A world alien to her, she wanted me to describe everything in detail and then she would admit her utmost desire to experience it herself one day.

So determined to transform herself into a celebutaunt, Afia would spend hours repeating dialogues in American movies while imitating accents. I remember when she wouldn’t stop saying ‘As if’ like a broken record after having memorized all of Alicia Silverstone’s quips from Clueless. Still, I encouraged her as much as possible while slowly beginning to detest this tragic culture of elitism in Pakistani society. Afia, became hope for me – or even an experiment unraveling before my eyes– of how this unjust and pre-destined system could in fact be changed. Sure, the noveau riche could one day, swivel a party invite from a contact, private schools for their children and maybe a country club membership from a bribe but would they ever be truly accepted by the so-called true elites? These born-rich, English medium, US educated, Cuaba smoking and Cognac drinking snobs that seem to clout the social scene and the decision-making in Pakistani gentry.

You see, mimicking American accents and British slang from movies and music videos, only allowed Afia the ability to mask her background on the surface. But to enter the social and elitist scene of Islamabad, she had to offer something of potential use in return: a well-connected patriarch, a glamorous name for others to drop or a simply a colossal bungalow to entertain in. Still, naïve to that fact, she would spend hours asking me to detail the self-indulgent lifestyles of spoilt, daddy’s girls of Froebells and UCI. It would invoke in her, a strange excitement, as she would imagine the possibility of being chauffeured in expensive cars to parties where youth danced, smoked, drank and conversed in flawless English. All superficial fantasies in hindsight but had I not met Afia at that age, I would never have known what others outside of our little bubbled world perceived us as. How they would stare from afar and maybe even wish to one day touch: this fate of being born in a privileged family and all the glamour that came with it.

Luckily Afia had discovered the internet at just the right time to help her achieve her dreams. In cyber-space, a person’s class and social status didn’t matter. One could envelope their fabricated personas into whatever they hoped to be. So Afia spent hours trolling the internet for connections or coat-tails to sneak her way past the velvet ropes of the upper class. At first she began talking to boys who lived in the affluent sectors of Islamabad; F-10, F-11 or F-420. These were boys who may have been privileged but were socially awkward at the same time. They existed invisibly or as social misfits in their schools. Lack of self-confidence usually brought upon by a nerdy appearance, obesity or an irksome stutter. They too were able to live out their fantasies of being studs and gods in cyber-space since one really couldn’t see what they actually looked like. A match made in heaven for social-climbing and materialistic girls like Afia. So while the world struck up conversations on mIRC with asl? (age, sex, location?) Afia usually typed in ‘What school do you go to?’ or ‘Where sector do you live in?’ She also made frequent appearances on channels such as #Froebells and #UCI to cruise for similar prey. I have to admit, I was amazed at this girl’s determination. She would ask me if I knew of a boy called blah blah at my school. I would confirm that he was a pimpled, overweight boy who never left a corner in his classroom. ‘Purfect’ she would then hiss like a business savy exec closing a lucrative deal. After all, she got rides in expensive cars, meals at expensive restaurants and gifts bought from vacations abroad. The boys in turn began to return to school with raised self-esteem. Amazing what having a ‘garrfrand’ can do to a boy’s ego at that age. For my friends and I, lunch at Pappasalis or dessert at Hot Spot was part of a commonplace routine after school. For Afia, it was a novel experience she had only heard others talk about. Slowly, I began to appreciate what I had long taken for granted.

Soon, Afia moved on to bigger and better things when she began to frolic around the city with certain species we like to call ‘Uncles’. Married men who too had discovered chat-rooms from their glass-castle offices in Blue Area. Chatting with a girl like Afia, gave them the ego massage they had long bid farewell to somewhere after their fourth kid, the last patch of hair on their head and the seventh inch added to their own waistline. Afia was young and hot and thus the perfect candidate for a casual fling or a clandestine rendezvous for these bored but wealthy men. And for Afia, they were men who didn’t have to ask their fathers for money. They were the fathers with the money. Thus began Afia’s escapades with her countless sugar-daddies.

Now sometimes she would meet a man that sounded interesting on paper but when she found a richer, wealthier man the first one had to be ditched. It was a similar experience with a boy called Akbar whom she passed on to me. Desperate for a boyfriend at that time, I embarked on a 9-month relationship with the boy. Most of you may have already read about him in my previous piece (Happy Effing VD to you too!). An opportunist by nature, each man Afia met was an open door or a free ticket out of the middle-class. Each ‘uncle’ she canoodled with sparked a new idea for a possible escape from her current life. She thought about becoming a model, she desired to be a fashion designer, a business executive, a socialite begum of a rich industrialist and once she even toyed with the idea of becoming a fashion photographer. Sure, a little confused but she was inspiring nonetheless. A girl almost the same age as I who savored each chance and chased every opportunity only to make something of herself. I could get all the same things at the snap of a finger but instead I was too lazy and uninterested. I will never forget when she excitedly disclosed to me about the married Ad exec she was having an affair with. He was fearful of his suspicious wife so she suggested an internship at his agency. That way, not only could they carry on their illicit hanky-panky in his mammoth office but she could also walk out with a fictitious yet lionized description on her resume of projects she worked on and all the ‘wonderful’ tasks she had accomplished at this agency.

While some men merely gilded her resume with make-believe internships, others took Afia out for lavish feasts at exclusive country clubs. Places she had only wondered about from the other side of the members-only bougainvillea walls, she now sashayed around alongside the city’s crème de la crème.

Besides being impressed with Afia’s drive to design her own future and destiny, I also admired in her the honesty with which she lived her life and the unapologetic way she lived it. Affairs with married men, sizing up potential dates by their take-home salaries, courting men for dinners and lunches and carrying on pretend ‘relationships’ for free internet passwords were all laurels under her belt. And so jaded had I become with the female clones that cat-walked along the walls of UCI with their droned whining and their priceless accessories, that I welcomed her into my life more and more. I secretly detested those bratty girls who knew nothing but to sneer down at ordinary, inadequacy and difference. So self-righteous they pretended to be with their noses stuck up in the air because in their world, class was synonymous with conceit. On the other hand, I found Afia’s honest confessions both refreshing and exciting. I immediately realized that these were the kind of friends I felt comfortable around and wanted to have in my life. That is why our friendship, even though we belonged to two very different worlds, continued to last.

Now of course, Afia was only able to conveniently pursue her dreams and her antics because she enjoyed a certain independence which other girls in her neighborhood didn’t. She could drive her father Suzuki FX to university or to her cyber dates. Once when we shared ice-cream at Yummy 36, she told me her story. She was the youngest of three children. The eldest of the siblings was a cherished brother whom the entire family had pinned their hopes and dreams on. He was schooled in private institutions while Afia and her sister would take a wagon to Model School. Still he was their pride and joy and so when it came time to study further, their father used all his savings to send him off to England. Sure Afia was resentful of the favoritism and envious of such blatant sexism but she hoped that her cherished brother would one day return home to whisk them off to a better life. One which came with a kothee in F-10. After he graduated, the brother informed his Karachi Company family that he had met a British Pakistani girl and was getting married. The family called and asked if they too could be a part of the wedding but he argued that it was too expensive and all he wanted were their blessings. Discouraged, they still decided to support him. The girl apparently belonged to a rich family and immediately the brother moved in with her family and began working for their father. After that, Afia’s family got a total of four abrupt aerogrammes from him and eventually he faded away from their lives. Afia’s family concluded that although they were happy for him they belonged right here in the mediocrity of Karachi Company themselves. Her parents then immediately busied themselves in saving up for their daughter’s wedding but Afia decided she was going to do what her brother had once promised. She immediately assumed the role of a son in the household. Driving her family around the city, bargaining with plumbers and electricians and negotiating with landlords. She also promised them that one day, she would bring home enough income to not only support them but shower them with comfort. So headstrong had she become that she even argued with her father about pursuing an IT degree over Home Economics. She had decided early on that it was a more lucrative career choice. All her decisions, she made for herself and then dreamt of success, which she struggled each day to make a reality.

I could go on and on about my friendship with Afia because we managed to become extremely close in those two years. How she stood by me after my failed relationship with Akbar and when I wanted to end an affair with a married politician myself, I conveniently passed him on to Afia. (‘Happy Effing VD to you too’) Afia’s men weren’t limited to just rich businessmen. She was later escorting high-powered celebrities around the capital’s party circuit; politicians, television artists even diplomats. Unfortunately, no names will be mentioned as I remain sworn to secrecy for a true friend.

Our friendship didn’t always remain hunky dory either. We had our share of arguments. Nations have warred each other on merely being different, so it was inevitable that the two of us – as different as we were – would one day squabble. A brawl in particular strained our relationship to an irreparable point. Afia had always asked me to invite her to a UCI dance party. Although I would often spend time with Afia to escape the superficiality of my classmates, our friendship was essentially of the furtive and covert kind. She took me to a different world when I wanted but then I would return to my cushioned life built on the fortune of being raised with comforts. What I was accustomed to and what Afia fantasized about. Still, towards the end of my A-levels, I decided to finally invite Afia to a friend’s party. Usually, I would be lucky to have received a invitation myself but since this was a friend’s party, I managed to get an extra one for Afia as well.

She was ecstatic and immediately borrowed an old top of mine to wear. The party was no different from any other party where we swayed to bubble gum beats and smoked our menthols to assert our roles as popular girls and high school elites. It was not till much later when Muzna, the host of the party and one of the most popular girls in school huffed over to my corner and emitted a theatrical and deliberate shudder.
‘What’s wrong darling?’ her friends fawned over her.
‘Gate crashers yaar what else’ Muzna scowled ‘So many cheapsters have snuck in.’
“Uff I cant stand stags. Why cant they just stay on their Vespas where they belong. Isn’t the guard doing his job?”
“He is but you know how they are, they still sneak in. Not just boys. Girls too. You should see this third-class, Bollywood type dancing like a whore. Bitch thinks my party’s a damn mujra.”
The girls cackled and pointed at the girl. Spiteful comments were then flung conspicuously her way as she tried her best to ignore them while dancing by herself.
‘Oh my God! What the hell is she doing?’
‘What a paendoo loser yaar!’
They howled and soon some of the boys even joined in “Dude she winked at me! Where did this weirdo come from anyway?”
I stood there with my ‘friends’. People who had made me popular by association. Girls who had allowed me the privilege of acceptance in high school. Who I would never dare upset. So as they mocked and ridiculed Afia – who really did look out of place on the floor with her filmy dance moves – I pretended I didn’t know who she was either. In truth, I hid behind the other girls petrified that Muzna would find out that I was in fact the culprit who had invited this ‘wierdo’ to her party. For the rest of the night, I avoided Afia. When a couple of friends decided to leave the party early, I immediately tagged along before Afia could spot me. It was a weird feeling of both embarrassment from my peers and guilt from Afia.

The next day as expected, I got a call from Afia. She wasn’t her usual chirpy self. Instead she began her tirade right away.
‘Stuck up bimbos. You are a snob too. What do you guys think of yourself. No one talked to me, no one danced with me…I damn care.’
I wanted to inform Afia that her perception of our world was heavily twisted. That here, people did not socialize at social gatherings. Mingling was reserved solely for familiar faces and conversations were reserved for gossip about mutual acquaintances. Everyone was to represent a surname here even if they were oblivious to that fact. Instead, I shot back. ‘What else did you expect Afia? This is how we are, this is how I am! You cant just become a part of Islamabad’s in-crowd by simply donning a designer T-shirt which must I remind you, came from me. And these boys aren’t your horny married men who will come running when you flirt with them, they have class. They have standards! They don’t date girls from Quaid-e-Azam University or Karachi Company! Did you even see the way you were dancing? You looked like a fool!’

Wont go into much detail but eventually we made peace. Our friendship however was now at an eternally different place. Irremediable. When each word, each thought, each gesture became formal, calculated and deliberate. Fear of being judged by the other during conversations, honesty and comfort now took a backseat. So we spoke only of what the other wanted to hear. Or what we thought they wanted to hear.

After my A-levels, I left for college. Afia and I stayed in touch through sporadic email exchanges. She was genuinely excited for me and wished it was her who was starting an all-expense-paid life in the West. I was glad that even though our little incident had tarnished our relationship’s innocence, it still did not discourage her from chasing her dreams. She still ‘met’ men with important names and notable job titles. A year later, when her agency offered to transfer her to their Germany office, she jumped at the opportunity. She was finally leaving a home and a life she had longed to flee from. Her emails now gushed with optimism. She loved her job, she had bought a cozy flat in Frankfurt and was even able to send home a big fat paycheck to her proud parents. I too was genuinely happy for her.

We met again last year in LA. I was going up for my 28th birthday. Afia had informed me that she too was going to be in LA for work and we instantly planned to meet up. Though we both had other plans, we decided to meet every night for 4am breakfasts in her room.

Meeting Afia was surreal. She looked nothing like I had last seen her. Dressed in a dapper Dolce & Gabana suit, she looked elegant and sure in her short, power bob. Her make-up meticulous, her Blahnik’s intimidating. She welcomed me with a big smile from the top of the lobby’s balustrade as if she was a princess and The Omni, her castle. I had arrived at her hotel after a night of clubbing, a brown paper bag in my hand full of greasy diner food.
‘You look marvelous darling! I love the transformation.’ She exclaimed as we hugged and kissed each other’s cheeks.
‘So do you?’ I reciprocated the compliment, meaning it.
‘I sure hope so. I paid a hefty sum for these.’ She grabbed her two round breasts ‘They don’t lie when they say beauty and perfection comes with a price and a plastic surgeon.’
We spent the next few hours catching up on life on her bed as we stuffed our faces with French fries soaked in Tobasco.
I couldn’t believe how much she had changed. She had become so European even in the way she dangled her clove cigarette. Not a single trace of Karachi Company in the same girl who had once fanaticized about this life. I sat before her in my tube-top and leather pants. How much we had both changed. The protected little daddy’s girl living life out of her shell, perfectly content with her modest bed and breakfast. My clothes worn more for sex appeal than the brand stitched meticulously on the back. Afia on the other hand was enjoying a stay in a five-star luxury hotel as she commented about how much she adored Europe and how unimpressed she was by America. Her parents had even managed to leave Karachi Company and were now living in a nice house thanks to their youngest daughter who had once decided to assume the role of both daughter and son. We had breakfast again a few times after that and then we even shared a limo to the airport together. She giggled lovingly at my NYU sweatshirt, ripped jeans and a backpack as I slid into the cab with her royal highness. Her three pairs of matching Burberry luggage, and her designer suit to travel in. Channel shades on her nose and a chiffon scarf wrapped around her neck as if she was on her way to high-tea at a country club instead of an international flight.
‘God you have become so American!’ she joked. ‘You always did have that hippie streak in you!’
‘God you have become so Euro’ I laughed back ‘You always had that diva streak in you.’
And so we celebrated the fact that we were both finally content in the women we had now become.

I will always admire Afia for everything she taught me. The brash and carefree lifestyle I live today is attributed to what I once learned from that ambitious girl in an orange T-shirt and knock-off jeans I met a long time ago outside a bowling alley. Afia taught me many things but most importantly, that one should always dare to dream. She is a walking example of a person who managed to leave her middle-class life to achieve what she had always set out to accomplish. Her past no longer matters because today, she rubs shoulders with the same people who may have never looked at her twice. When we are young some of us struggle some of us don’t have to. But come tomorrow, its all fair game and that certain classmate, that peculiar acquaintance and that boring cousin we thought would never amount to much may end up being the one we send our resumes to. Even in a nepotistic nation like Pakistan where mostly those born sucking on Cerelac in golden spoons are able to pay their way through a VIP ride.

I don’t know what Muzna or my friends from UCI are currently doing. I have a hunch they are all running a tired boutique bought by husbands and fathers. But I know very well what my Afia from Karachi Company is doing….or should I now say my Afia from Europe!