Last week my mother wanted an adventure. I, always happy to oblige when mayhem and excitement is involved, asked her what she had in mind. “Oh, how about we go to one of those day markets my students are always talking about.” It being Tuesday, one of the three days of the week said markets are open, and I being a newly-initiated bazaar-shopper, I felt up to the challenge of providing this adventure.

This was an adventuresome adventure. Before we even got there, I took a wrong turn. To rectify my wrong, I went cut into on coming traffic, faced off against a gimundo bus and then took a sharp turn in front of it. Yes, here two wrongs can make a right.

This very adequately put the fear of God (and bad drivers) into my dear mom, who was left spluttering for a good few minutes. “You’re a TERRIBLE DRIVER!” she gasped. Impertinent me, I laughed, “No mom, I’m a Pakistani driver. What I did was illegal, but not that risky. There’s a subtle difference.” Hey man, in boring old Islamabad, sometimes the greatest thrill I'll have all day is surviving my own driving.

Then, as we turned onto the one-way street that led into the parking lot we had another near scrape. The road was heavily congested. As we sat waiting in the three-car-wide queue, we noticed a worse jam up ahead. A taxi was trying very hard to cut a swath through traffic, all while going the wrong way. Cheeky little bugger, I laughed, but my mom wasn’t amused.

As he pushed his way closer, a mother and her three children stepped in front of my stationary car and moved to cross the road. After checking for cars coming from the only direction she would rightly expect to see them, she stepped out, right in front of the taxi as it came up the wrong way. I jammed on the horn, trying to warn her, while the taxi did the same. She came within inches of being hit by it before she realized what was happening and stepped back.

All of this, of course, happened within the blink of an eye and didn’t even cause a second’s pause in the mayhem of the bazaar. It takes more than a small brush with death and dismemberment to rile up Pakistanis. The woman looked a little shaken by her near-miss, but crossed the street at the next chance and went on her way.

My mom though, Awesome Angry American that she is, is never one to let an injustice go unpunished. When the taxi passed us, she quickly rolled down her window and smacked the driver’s side window, while yelling “Stupid! You’re going the wrong way! Get off the road!” I can only wonder at his confusion when he saw my Amreeki momma, full of righteous indignation, beating on poor beat-up ‘76 Toyota.

Me though, I could only sigh and thank God no one was hurt. This isn’t the first time any of this has happened. Life here makes you hard to shock. All I said was, “Momma darling, please don’t hit the other cars. It’s bad form. If one of them takes offense, there’s not much I’ll be able to do if he gets out of his car and starts bashing on ours.” Still upset, my plucky momma answered, “Ah, I’ll beat them up if they try.” Now you guys know where I get my vinegar from.

Eventually, we did get inside the lot and after a few minutes found parking spot. Sidestepping the popcorn and cotton candywalas who clogged the entrance, we pushed through the throng and made it in, where I introduced my mother to the Tuesday Bazaar.

It was like any tent market here, loud, dirty, and crowded - just how I like them. Stretching over hundreds of yards were stalls offering anything from wickerware from Mutlan to fried snacks from Karachi. In between the odd specaility stalls were rough groupings of traders selling wholesale produce, glassware, fabric, shoes, electronics, shawls, hardware, pottery, second-hand clothing, linens, bracelets and kitchenware.

Hundreds of people walked its dusty unpaved paths from stall to stall. There were middle class aunties doing their weekly grocery shopping, poor families on outings, groups of young guys on the prowl, memsahibs with hired boys balancing baskets of shopping on their head, and strangely, lots of foreigners hunting bargains. It’s not that things are too expensive here, rather, it’s just that Islamabad is so boring a place that people go shopping for kicks, and the more seedy and uncertain the market, the better.

Within a few minutes my mom had her third adventure. As we threaded our way through the crowd in a skinny gully we came across two beggars. The two women dressed in the green satin of the holy fakirs seemed a bit off as they stood in the middle of the walkway thrusting out their black begging bowls. Making garbled noises, they turned to each shopper as they passed, asking for alms. When we tried to pass, one of them turned to my mom and latched on to her. *Blinks* You’ve got to be crazy to do that to my mom. She kept her calm though, I guess realizing they weren’t in their senses, and took the woman by her arms and gently removed her. Bravo momma!

When I stopped to buy my momma a ball of gajack (sesame spun sugar), the desi version of cotton candy, momma got to witness the typical reaction women in Pakistan encounter when they leave their homes. While I dug in my purse, trying to find some change, a group of bandy-legged YOUFs passed by. When one came close, he began singing. I didn’t notice. Between the calls of the hawkers, the din of the traffic and the talking, some pre-pubescent scarecrow's trilling didn’t really make a mark. When I handed mom her gajack, she laughingly said, "Was that a walk-by sing-at I just saw?" "Er, I guess." Thankfully, I'm pretty unappealing, so they didn't make a second pass.

The rest of the outing we spent wandering from one booth to the next, laughing at the oddities for sale like five-inch purple platform shoes, Christmas sweaters, and hideous lacy socks. We tried looking politely interested instead of tickled to death as we surveyed orange fiber-covered hoodies and apple-shaped dishes. I picked up a jacket for the housekeeper and some cavernous mugs for my morning cups of joe and seriously considered adding rabbit-fur lined aviator cap to my collection of fun headwear.

It began to grow cold and dark, so we decided to call it a day. On the way out we picked up a giant bag of ash-roasted popcorn. All I needed was a happy helium balloon to make the day complete. You can’t say we don’t know how to have a good time in Islamabad. ;)

Abez and I are like The Odd Couple. For sisters who are called 'The Two Headed Monster,' are collectively referred to as 'Abezaniraz' by everyone, and are interchangeable to their parents, we couldn't be more different. We're both aliens, yes, but from different planets. We be clashing all over the place. Don't believe me? Read this.

Waking up: My alarm goes off. I hear it and wake up The box says this is a normal reaction to them. For Abez, the alarm goes off, she starts dreaming about beeping hamburgers, and later that afternoon, when she finally drags herself out of bed, she asks us what the funny noise was.

(Abez: Someone I know, possibly my roomie, believes strongly in the snooze button. When the alarm goes off, she pops up in bed like a piece of toast out of a toaster, whams her hand down on the button, and then falls asleep, face-first and sideways on the bed. I maintain that simply ignoring the alarm clock for the next nine minutes is a much more energy efficient practice. We're both going to snooze, but I, at least, didn't have to get out of bed first. Let the hamburger beep I say.)

Going to bed: I literally throw myself into my unmade bed, whatever state it's in. The quilt is under me, my pillows on me, and my whole bed is littered with whatever books I'm reading at the time. For me, the drama of never knowing whether I'll land spleen-first on the edge of a hardcover book adds excitement to the bedtime ritual. My two pillows are floppy and flat - mere formalities – and are often thrown overboard. My blankets are crumpled, on sideways, or on the floor. I don't mind. I stick my feet out the bottom of my blanket, cover up my head, and dig out whatever book is jabbing me in the rib and read.

Before she can get into bed, Abez sister has to 'arrange' it. Abez's ritual involves straightening her sheets, arranging her vast mountain of pillows, and then spreading her quilts. When everything is lovely and beautiful, she slips into bed, barely making a wrinkle in her ocean of bedding. I watch all this with amusement from beneath the awning of my quilt-hat. I rarely comment though, because the time she takes to get ready is happily used by me to get a few more minutes of reading in.

(When Owlie goes to bed, it involves a flying leap onto a nest of blankets that she burrows under (wombat-style) and then allows her face and feet to appear in the wrinkly openings. The head will be hatted, the feet will be bare and the toes will be wriggling. Some people can't sleep with the lights on. Aniraz can't sleep with her toes covered.)

Work: I work six days a week and have been doing so nearly since I was out of high school. Why do I work? Cuz I feel loathsome when I'm not being productive or earning my keep. Abez is between jobs right now and couldn't care less.

(When Owlie feels bored or unworthy, she attacks the freezer. She defrosted it with a monkey wrench last time, whanging away without actually waiting for the ice to melt, and then returned upstairs triumphant and in a better mood. I would just take a nap.)

Food: I eat a lot of fruit, sometimes three or four pieces a day. And I eat almost any kind of fruit. Sure, some I like more than others, but they're all good to me. Abez doesn't eat 'fruit.' She eats unblemished bananas and really pretty oranges. Nothing else! Anyways, serious fruit eaters know bananas aren't real fruit, as they require no peeling, seeding, cutting, dissecting or washing. Bananas are fruits for whusses. Offer Abez a guava, mango, papaya, peach or plum and watch her wrinkle her nose in disgust and hurry away. Repeated suggestions will only have her questioning your friendship and sanity. She also doesn't believe in chicken unless it's deboned and deveined white-meat.

(I actually do eat fruit, but I consider it a supplement to my diet and not the main course. Or rather, five main courses. Someone I know eats 3-4 apples a day and makes it a point to leave the swiftly browning cores in places conspicuous to me- on top of books, on the computer table, resting stickily by the mouse… She's right, I don't eat guavas and blasphemously enough I find mangoes overrated and peaches are best eaten from a can (there were put there by a man, in a factory downtown). Papayas are minions of the devil.

(Something I find terribly amusing about Aniraz is that she's a culinary Spartan. She'll have five cups of tea but none of them will have sugar. She will only eat half of a cookie at a time (I'm obligated to eat the other half), eat dry old roti as a snack and tries to make food with as little fat as possible. This is in direct conflict with what I do, because instead of cutting back on my food, I just work-out harder. I have my cake and eat hers too. I have cream in my tea when I can, and I maintain that a sauce without butter is like a night without stars. Owlie takes calcium, I drink it. By the litre. She won’t have milk in her coffee because it's fattening, my coffee is black too, but my drink of choice is good ol' milk straight from the box. Be not alarmed, there's only a two to three pound difference between the two of us at any given time, but I maintain I am just that much happier.)

Clothes: I'm not finicky about my clothes. Who cares if they're ugly, 10 sizes too big, hopelessly outdated or odd? Awright, maybe me. But one thing I'm a bit particular about is what is done with the clothing while they're not on my person. If they're dirty, they go into the clothes hamper. If they're clean, they are hung up, folded and/ or stored in the appropriate drawer, shelf, basket or closet. Like a grouchy Mr Rogers, when I come home the first thing I do is hang my hijab on a hook, put my jilbaya on a hanger in the closet and my shoes beside my bed, while stepping over Abez's disgorged wardrobe.

Abez, while particular about the comfort and look of clothing, is blasé about treatment. You can tell what Abez has worn and when for the past two weeks by looking at the desk and chair near her bed. She goes through a number of costume changes a day, so both are totally buried with the more recent outfits being on the top and the older ones on the bottom. Other odds and ends of clothing can be found hanging off doorknobs and handles in the bed and bathroom, or worse, thrown across my pillow. Who needs a pillow mint when you can have old socks!

(All I can say is that if we didn't share clothes she would look like a bum. Owlie has the luxury of wearing my clothes because I would hate to see the family image go down, and I simply place them in plain view over the back of a chair, or on the floor, or on her bed for her to see.)

Social interaction: I don't call people. If I phone you, it would only be to let you that I have died. I answer the phone when it rings, but I usually hand it off to someone else. I'm also pretty terrible at being diplomatic and am infamous for putting my large feet in my mouth. Abez is the family secretary and social wrangler. She plans parties, networks, schedules appointments, offers condolences, plays referee and smoothes over everything. She also smiles a lot. Me, I forget how.

(In another life, Owlie was a hermit. A grouchy one from the top of a mountain. Who grew curmudgeonly eating nothing but lichen. In this life, she bears faint traces of said existence, and since there was no phone on her mountaintop, she is loath to use one now. She's also averse to other forms of technology, like my cell phone (it's making noises! Make it stop!) the Playstation, the computer, the microwave, the toaster, the light switches… When I leave (when I join the circus) all of the technology and electrical appliances will break down and the house will go back to a simpler time in history, specifically the Mesozoic era.)

Mark of the Beast: This is a term we use to describe each other's trademark, which when stumbled upon is always met with a disgusted but triumphant shout of "BEAST!". Abez's are used tissues and dirty dishes. Mine are apple cores and manhandled books. We both leave them everywhere, much to the exasperation of the other.

We do seem to agree on one thing though....

(Owlie is my pumpkin, my cow. The love of my life and the other monkey in my habitat. I wouldn't want it any other way. Aw look, a cute little desiccated apple core…)
Abez is my hamburger. Sure she's kooky, but as you can see, it runs in the family. If you think this is bad, you should see my brothers ;)

Highlights of my Eidul Adha:

* An Eid-Eve 2am Literati battle to the death with my favorite elusive med student Chai, complete with captive audience. It was a photo finish so close we had to have a witness, so we kept Baji with us and didn't even let her play. Punks we are, no doubt. Had I let Chai wipe the floor with me, as I usually graciously do, this would have been a lowlight. But because she let me win by two whopping points, this makes the cut.

# Having a completely sleep deprived Abez ask me, upon waking her up for Eid prayer two hours after we went to bed, "Are you sure there's a prayer for this Eid?" That girl is hella slippery when sleepy. Her tired brain pulls out all the stops to fool me into letting her go back to bed. Luckily, my shoddy self-confidence was bolstered with oatmeal, so I was able to hold my ground and insist she wake up and get her butt to the masjid.

* Making Khan Family History by being SO EARLY for Eid prayer that we thought we'd missed it. This was also the first time it was just me and the other monkey in my habitat taking the quiet road to Faisal Masjid, instead of dad and the brothular units. Methinks that's why we were early – didn't have to wait on them vain menfolk and their preening. Yep.

* Getting a front row seat at the masjid, perched over the main gallery. I love being able to see the lines of faithful grow; watching them arrive alone, or in groups, find a friend, greet them with a smile and a hug, and settle themselves besides the nearest fellow Muslim.

* Huddling beneath our lone wooly shawl with Abez and Chai as we recited the Takabeer with the Imam in the chill morning air.

* Being part of the world's most inclusive and diverse religion. Even in this tiny backwater we had Muslims from every race, hailing from dozens of countries, speaking different languages, dressed in many ways, following various sects, joining together as one to remember the sacrifice of the honored Prophet Ibrahim (peace be upon him).

* Confusing people with my culturally ambiguous self. I was in close proximity to some Arabs on the way to the parking lot. They were talking earnestly the entire time, about what I can only guess, as my colloquial Arabic is worse than my fus-ha, if such a thing is possible. Suddenly I saw one gesture with their head to me and ask the other "Bakistania?" Aaaah, um, no.

* Watching Abez turn an innocuous bowl of sheerkhorma into a tasty missile. Apparently, when dropped from a height of 3 feet and upwards, landing upright, the stuff can be launched a good ten feet across a room. There wasn't a corner of the Admiral's Quarters that didn't have a bit of noodle dangling from it. Bless Chai for her laidback self. She just laughed and went to go find a wet rag.

* Eid donuts. *wiggles eyebrows*

* My lil goony brother calling home to wish us a happy Eid and instructing us to hug each other from him, and hug the dog too.

* Sharing Eid with my mom, sister, Crayon, Iman and Maryams 1, 2 and 3.

There are so many things about journalism in Pakistan that drive me mad. I’ve had four years of it, so I’ve mellowed out quite a bit in my acidic frustration, but the dissatisfaction is still there. I’ve swallowed it, but the bitter taste is still in my mouth.

What really irritates me is the status quo in the English print media, specifically the newspapers. Someone must have forgotten to tell this country’s editors and writers that journalism is about information for the purposes of change. Journalists are meant to be the defenders of the truth and those who give voice to the voiceless. We’re supposed to help better our nations and people, not distract them with brain-rotting fluff and eye-candy.

For the most part though, journalism here seems to be an exercise in self-perpetuation. The majority of the English dailies exist simply for the sake of existing, printing anything to fill print space, having print space purely to get advertisements to fuel the cycle of futility, never pushing the letter or working with a goal in mind. It’s all about keeping your publication going so you can continue to draw a salary.

The only way evolution comes here is if one of the exclusive clubhouses called news groups here decides to try something Western, like say, a column by an It-Girl. Within weeks the groups that fancy themselves as competition will hurriedly find their own party-animal to be our guide to the exclusive night-life of Lahore. Are we any better informed about the woes of this country, no, but we know who’s dating who and what she wore at Mishy’s GT.

I remember at a magazine where I was briefly assistant EinC, after many hours where we deliberated as to how we could become Pakistan’s Time Magazine, our boss boldly took his course of action – he decided we needed a glossy fashion spread. Photos of bleached-out girls in T-shirts and jeans was his idea of a societal wake-up call. The old-school chiefs think they’ve done something for the progress of Pakistan if we get chick-lit by way of an agony-aunty and a page of recipes.

But when it comes to emulating the constructive aspects of Western media, like investigative reporting and accountability, they turn a blind eye. If we want to stick it to a multi-national for pedaling products that are banned in the first world, we’re reminded “Hey, remember who bought the back page!” When a well-known politician takes the definition of corruption to a whole new level, instead of declaring his misdeeds, we hear “Ignore it. He’s a friend of the financer,” or worse “If you want a career, you’ll forget about this.”

Scores of young graduates and foreign interns are opting to work in Pakistan, but few are making the impact they’d like. We knock on doors, and no one lets us in. We put our passion onto paper and find no takers. We demand a living wage, and we hear laughs. We rail, and find only other recipients of the cold shoulder as sympathizers. We start writing fashion, music, movies and sex, and suddenly, everyone’s listening. Sell your soul, and we’ll buy!

Alright, perhaps I haven’t swallowed it. Perhaps I have become it - embittered.

If only I was invisible. That’s a sentence I often find myself turning over in my mind. It shows up when I’m at the market, parties, or passing through interesting places. It’s a subconscious whisper goes as quickly as it comes, leaving me puzzled.

I was thinking about it yesterday as I sat in The Enchanted Grotto (aka the empty room we chill in). Why is it that I want to be invisible? It’s definitely not the super power I’d picked out when I was a comic-reading kid. Nope, Ms Fantastic was a spazz, I’d much rather have been Rogue or Marrow. To be invisible seems to be a desire connected to timidity, a want held by those who are in terror of being seen or known. I don’t think that’s me. Though I am on the anti-social side, I wouldn’t consider myself shy. I’m just internal.

I imagine invisibility to be the ability to observe without being seen, and no I don’t mean voyeuring. I’ve lived nearly five years in Pakistan now, and yet I feel like I haven’t been able to experience it as it really is. I’m not allowed to go so many places, and the places I can visit are altered by my presence. I want to see things as they are, not how they pretend to be when foreigners are around. I have a whole list of places I want to visit before I leave this part of the world – Moenjedaro, Hunza, Uygur, Rampur, Mysore – but I worry that they’ll be reduced to boring hotels, over-priced continental food and blankly smiling knickknack sellers. If I can’t be the common man, I’d rather not be at all.

If I were to ever travel, it wouldn’t be to the famous places in the world. It would be to the forgotten villages, small towns and remote settlements, where the colors and flavors unique to that region are still authentic. Elsewhere, we are made too similar and bland by the global culture. I want to be a witness to the wonderful variables of tradition, lifestyle and geospecific realities while seeing the commonality of the human experience.

When I read Rudyard Kipling’s Kim, I couldn’t help but be seriously envious of the main character. Kim was an Anglo-Indian – an English boy born in India – who was not at all limited by his foreign origin, unlike me. Through disguise and bluff, he was able to pass himself off as any of the thousands of persons of Hindustan, and thus got a ringside seat to life there. Not only was he able to see it all, he was not afraid to participate either, something I also wish I shared.

I’m envious of backpackers who have made the world as vast as their legs will carry them. For them budget, safety, responsibility and reality have little hold. They live on their feet and deal with obstacles in their journeys as they come. They are the heirs to the adventurers of the previous centuries - Lawrence of Arabia, Lewis and Clark, Dr Livingston, and the countless others who’ve gone unrecorded by history.

Abez hit the nail on the head when she said, “Sounds like invisibility to you means freedom.” As it is, I don’t feel free. I’m bound by my own considerations and limitations. I’m a woman and I’ve been taught that means I am vulnerable and an easy target. As a realist, I’m wary of being out of work and out of touch for long periods of time. As a cheapskate, I always have to account for budgetary constraints. As a Muslim, I have to wonder if I’ll be able to find halal food, and whether or not I need Mahram with me. And as a chicken, I’d always be worrying about the what-if worst-case scenarios.

I got an unexpected taste of invisibility last week. On Monday I woke up after fajr and realized that my alarm clock wasn’t working. Afraid of sleeping in and missing work, I ran upstairs to my parents room and launched myself into their empty bed, not before asking to be woken up at the appropriate hour.

I was happily sleeping when suddenly a massively large and heavy object was dropped on me. I think I gurgled something in shock and tried to roll over, but found myself pinned. My mom, who herself had been getting ready for work, turned around, saw what had happened and started laughing.

Turns out my poor dad had come in with the month’s washing from the dhobi, all nicely arranged in a giant man-sized bundle. It was heavy and slippery so he rushed into the house and dropped it into his bed before it could fall. Just my luck though, I was in that bed.

It didn’t hurt all that much, though my ribs felt it the next day, but my poor dad was aghast. “Oh no beta, I didn’t see you! The bed looked empty. You know I can’t see you when you’re under the covers. You’re too small! I’m so sorry beta!” He was torn between remorse for squishing his sleeping child and telling me off for not being wide enough to manage a large enough mound in the bedding.

Next time I go invisible, I’d better find a safer place to sleep.

(Abez thought it would be funny if we wrote blog entries for each other. This is hers, pretending to be me. Visit www.abezavecrat.blogspot.com to see how I fared as her.)

Untoward Sock Acquisition on Rise in Capital
Report by De Owl

ISLAMABAD: It is my personal belief, logic and science not withstanding, that hordes of ornery foot-covering devices are uniting against me in unholy conspiracy. I could simply say that my socks were out to get me, but gruelling years of editing Pakistani journalism have warped my vocabulary to the tune of way too much. Now let us mull.

Settling comfortably in for a long winter’s night, I put socks on both of my feet and a hat on my head before burrowing into the blankets and hibernating until morning. Come morning, however and in as much as which, only one of two previously covered feet are still adorned with woolly wonderfulness that is known as ‘sock.’ One foot is naked. Its respective sock has gone AWOL from ZBED and will not be GPS’ed due to its phenomenal skills of evading capture.

I embark on a fact-finding mission with the express intent of locating and capturing the rogue sock, the first place worthy of search deemed to be beneath my bed, ergo I pop my head underneath of said article of furniture. There I am greeted by hordes of adoring denizens of Dust-Bunny Land, who show their enthusiasm by rushing into my nostrils. I show my appreciation by sneezing them out. It is eventually learned that my sock is not present. I solicit the shoes for help, but they offer no such assistance.

Anonymous sources suggest that perhaps the sock has been lifted by dacoits in the recent brigandry spree currently affecting much of Punjab, Sindh, and the North West Frontier Province. Officials spring swiftly into action by deciding what punishment should be meted out to said offender, and the proposal is drafted as a bill and approved by National Assembly by the very same week. Police and army officials are briefed of the situation and quickly alter their previous plans of launching a city-wide drive to harass taxi drivers for sixteen straight hours.

Although said sock has yet to be located, the legislation surrounding it has been approved of by both the ruling and opposition parties, as well as the PML-Q, PPP-P, ICU-P, MIN-T, and BLA-H and spokesmen from several parties were present to give the following statement:

“The Federal Government will take all necessary steps to eradicate future untoward acquisition of such foot-covering device or devices in the metropolitan area. General Musharraf has expressed his heartfelt concern. Taxes on all socks will be increased 30 percent. Thank you.”

-AFP Abezi Fraud Press

(Meanwhile, back at the Batcave)

Owl: (covered in dust and tangled in legal jargon) Have you seen my sock?

Abez: Which one, the orange one with the teacups all over it?

Owl: Yeah, I can’t find it.

Abez: It’s on my foot.

Owl: *implodes*

I have an announcement to make….

I am a giant paani poori.

*sloshes*

After weeks of threatening and demanding, I finally got my gol gappay, aka paani poori. Actually, demanding isn’t the right word, hinting through subliminal messaging would probably be more accurate. I think I quietly said a few times, “I could really go for some gol gappay” and then just sighed with sadness when they didn’t materialize.

Not that it did me any good to bother anyone else about them. Dad doesn’t like them, and thus, can’t remember to buy them. I tried making plans with Abez and momma for lunch at my favorite snack-shack, where I could get some gol gappay without a reasonable risk of dying from our version of Delhi Belly, but they weren’t game. That left me to go out and get them myself, said the little red hen, and I did.

But what are gol gappay? What is this strange food of which I speak? How can I expect you to understand and appreciate the fact that I am a living paani poori unless you guys are told what that is?

The first name I learnt for this Pakistani snack would roughly be translated ‘Round Roundies.’ Not very articulate, I know, but that’s what they’re called in Karachi. Paani poori, which is what they’re called in Punjab, makes a little more sense. It means ‘Water Poppers,’ or something like that? Being a fan of the absurd, I prefer Round Roundies.

Gol gappay is this wonderfully unhealthy and slightly toxic dish I discovered when I lived three years in Pakistan back in the early 1990s. Back then, my siblings and I had gone totally native. We had integrated into Pakistani life, and for all intents and purposes, were wild local kids and no one would have guessed otherwise. We ran amok in the streets, ditched school, made friends with everyone and lived for games of hide’n’seek, dodge-mango (like dodgeball, but with a mango pit) and blind tag on the stairs of the apartment plazas.

Part of our weekly madness was to scrounge up ten rupees and run down to the Wednesday Bazaar. There we’d meet ‘Our Gol Gappaywala.’ He was this nice old guy (though now when I think of it, he probably wasn’t older than 30, but it seemed ancient then) who sold the best Round Roundies our side of F. B Area. Plus, he let us have as much of the sweet chutney as we wanted, for nothing extra. He was also the cleanest cartwala we knew, and we only found ants floating in the sour water a few times, nothing fatal.

We’d run down to his spot in the market and slap our ten rupees on his cart. He'd look up, and with much ceremony, Uncle Gol Gappaywala would begin assembling our order. First he counted out our ‘roundies’ from his glass aquarium where they lived. These are little circles of farina dough that are deep fried into paper thin, crisp, hollow balls. I think we got 10 for our order. He’d arrange them on a plate and delicately tap a whole into the top of each of them.

Then he’d solemnly ask us if we wanted sweet or regular. “BOTH!” we’d always answer. Now when I think of it though, that was a silly thing to say. If you wanted regular, you just got the roundies, the filling and the sour water. If you wanted sweet, you got the roundies, filling, sour water and the two extra chutneys. We’d have got what we wanted if we just said sweet, but I think we thought we were being slick, if not greedy. Ah well, hindsight is always the best sight.

From another pot he scooped out some boiled chickpeas and potatoes. A tablespoon of the filling would be spooned into the top of each roundy. Then, using his long-handled ladle, he’d dip into another cold clay matka that kept my favorite ingredient, the sweet and sour sauce. It was probably just a bit of tamarind with sugar, tatric acid and a bit of cornstarch for thickening, but I didn’t care. Back then I dreamt of the day when I was a rich grownup and I could buy my own giant pot of sweet and sour sauce and climb inside. This sauce would be quickly spooned into all the roundies, followed by a spoon full of yogurty raita.

Lastly, he would grab a porcelain bowl and dip into the biggest clay pot – the one covered in red fabric that sat majestically in the middle of his cart, advertising his specialty. His arm would disappear into it and return with an overflowing bowl of sour water. This is what makes gol gappay magical. It’s made of tamarind, chat Masala, onion seed, salt and red pepper – and is sour enough to make your tonsils sorry you passed on that ectomy when you were six.

Uncle Gol Gappaywala would set the plate full of roundies and the bowl of sour water in front of you and then turn his back on you while he wiped down his workstation. I think though, that the clean-up was just a formality. In reality, he was just being polite, because gol gappay eating isn’t a spectator sport. It's the messiest, craziest and funnest food out there and I can’t imagine us inexperienced Amreeki brats managed them too well.

What you do is you take your roundy, holding it gently from the sides so as not to crush it, and you quickly dunk it in the sour water. When it fills up you pull it out and pop it in your mouth. The shock comes when you bite into it the unsuspecting little roundy. Then you do a little dance as your mouth fills with a sudden explosion of sour water, then sweet sauce and then cooling raita. If you’re a little kid, like we were, and like me, have an annoyingly small mouth, then keeping all this inside was and is a real struggle, but one that’s well worth it. When you’ve swallowed it down, you have to sit there in shock for a minute there, wondering what’s just happened in your mouth, before you grab your next one and do it again.

So that is mystery and the majesty of the gol gappay. Now hopefully you can understand, and perhaps forgive, the next part of my story.

Today I went out and after months and months, bought two orders of gol gappay. I brought them home, poured all the ingredients out into their own bowls, and set to work. Within a few minutes, I’d eaten nearly a whole order and sat there, looking a bit watery and unwell. I called up Abez then, to dispatch the remainder. She ate the rest of the roundies, and I, never one to waste food, then drank the leftover sour water. That is why, my dears, I am today a giant overstuffed, chickpea, potato, chutney and yogurt filled paani poori. And I like it!

Job-hunting has gotta be the most ‘complexing’ thing a person can do. And by complexing, I mean the definition used by eweryones heer – that is ‘mental complex causing.’ Who says Pakistan has contributed nothing to the English language (aside from contagious brain rot)? There’s a linguistic revolution going on here, and doesn’t involve just the abolition of the letter V.

Anyways, I’ve been sending my resume out right, left and center for the past few weeks in the hopes of getting a job in the UAE and lemme say, it’s been an emotional roller coaster ride. You’ll have to forgive me if I sound neurotic in this entry. It’s a fair cop, but society is to blame.

First comes the bio-data preparation. I can’t help but feel like a total fraud as I sit trying to enumerate my vast and exceptional talents. The problem being, well, nothing about me is vast, except maybe my feet, and though I’ve got exceptionally brown eyes, calling them a talent would be debatable. I’m just average. I know how to do some stuffs. Let’s leave it at that. It seems so very unnatural to list your supposed skills. I’d never go about mouthing off about my abilities in the real. If someone were to ask me “And what makes you special?” I’d probably have to smile and say, “You tell me.” Doesn’t work for jobs though. I’ve tried.

Then you have the classifieds. You have to read through hundreds, considering them all, holding each one up for size, hoping one will fit. Turns out, there don’t seem to be many offers for the field I’m in – crud correction. Instead, I end up wondering how I’d do as a “Professional Filipino Aluminum Production Engineer” and hoping my complete lack of experience wouldn’t hold me back from a successful career as a “Continental Chef.” Hey, I’m from a continent, that’s a beginning.

When you do find something that you may actually be qualified for, then comes the hard part. You have to put your heart on the line and MAKE CONTACT. Every time I send my data out, it’s like tossing a message in a bottle that reads “VALIDATE ME! Prove to my parents my education wasn’t a complete waste of money. Let not all the years of my life spent in toil have been for naught! Don’t let Mr Jones’ prediction of ‘Owl, unpaid master sarcaster’ come true! I wanna be a contendah!”

When they don’t respond you can’t help but feel seriously rejected. If this was real life, and you’d just sat there and rattled off all that you’ve done and can do, you’d at least expect an answer. Nothing would be a bigger diss than complete silence – like that “I’m not even going to validate that with a response” type deal authority figures everywhere like to pull. At least give me a ‘talk to the hand cuz the elbow just don’t understand.’ That would be the point where I’d melt into my boots and pour myself out the door. Or throw a paperweight. Depending.

But what’s really sad is, when you DO get a call back, it really is validation. Of a sort. It’s always nice to know people want you. It’s a Sally Field “You like me, you really like me!” moment. Now if only they’d be so kind as to want me enough to shell out mountains of money for minimal work. THAT is exactly the sort of job I need. If you guys hear of an opening for a high-end corporate do-nothing, put in a good word for me, eh?

Would some kind soul please send me some new literature? Just a little bit? I promise I’ll cherish it. Though I’ve collected a pretty intimidating hoard of books since we’ve moved to Pakistan, they’ve all become old. I’ve read everything at least once and a frightening amount of them twice and thrice.

Last week I was so bored I started pulling out things from the shelf of “crap.” Crap would be old Westerns, murder mysteries, fantasy nonsense and junks of the sort that you can read with one eye while calculating binary with the other. Hey man, at 20 rupees a pop, even Terry Brooks cannot be passed by. Makes for an hour of escapism.

But sigh, a brain cannot be fed on crap alone. You can really only read one, two max, before you figure out the plots to them all and have to toss them at Abez’s bed in disgust. That’s when you trudge back to the ‘Wall of Wordage,’ but this time head to the shelf of ‘books what are heavyish.’

Now I’m back to reading Victorian classics. They’re not great, but they’re not particularly bad either. I think their chief charm is in the mental endurance challenge of making it through the deep dark forests of deadwood. That and you get to feel all snooty when you get their esoteric symbolism and archaic English. Plus you get the most bang for you buck with classics, because they’ve got so much going on you discover something new every time you read it.

That’s my long and drawn out reason why I’m reading Pride and Prejudice for the nth time. Dude, it was either that or King Lear, and Shakespeare makes me talk funny for weeks. And yes, with aged romance one does have to justify themselves. There seem to be weird Darcy fans out there who read the book religiously.

So what’d I notice this time around? Abez reminds me of Jane. She’s generous with her good opinions, kind and tolerant, you know, the type that makes the rest of us look bad. She’s been upsetting the curve for years. I guess that would make me like Eliza. But no wait, I’m not half as good natured as she. I’m in between Eliza and Darcy and maybe a pinch of the pedantic Mary for good measure. Whoa, that’s gotta be an ugly mix. No one would ever be writing hardbacks about me.

Egad, suddenly I’m struck by how very weird and spazzy this is. What starts off with finding similarities between yourself and fictional characters ends with you in costume at a Klingon Convention restaging the Great War of 5365. I should quit while I’m ahead and end this with a plea – take pity on a book-starved bookworm. Send any extra literature my way. You know the place - behind the third pillar at the docks after midnight. I’ll be Worf.

It’s easier to tell stories than to explain feelings. You can’t fail with things that have happened. They’re real, linear and depthless. You just have to write them and leave the reader tp do their bit. Nothing to interpret or hope for. No marks missed. Little underlying.

So I need a story. I’m not much of a storyteller though. That’s Abez’s department. She loves to tell stories, which is as well, considering that I usually muddle them anyways and can’t remember whether they’ve happened to me, her, or were a dream. Reality is a handful of smoke.

I live in my mind. Within the dark chamber of my skull there is impossible light. I can see endless pictures and live a thousand lives. They need not have purpose or plot. Only premise. This doesn’t make for good literature, but the pools are deep enough to dive into and lose oneself for a while.

This explains why I have a collection of stories begun but not done. They all have a pearl of promise, but I’m not bothered to have them live up to their potential. To take them in hand, walk them through and run them out is ruination. They’re too soon despoiled by the fallible author. I’d rather keep them as they are, still, expectant, like snow globes in a cabinet, waiting to be shaken.

Things are better left unsaid.