BackExcerpt | The Return of the Butterfly
One of the sharpest satirists of our time comes back with the third instalment of her popular series
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Sharkpur saga
January 2008
Benazir’s assassination leaves chasm in coming elections
Butterfly hopes Janoo will become High Commissioner in London
There’s a big fasaad in Janoo’s family. And for once it’s not about me. It’s about the elections and whose side Janoo is taking. Basically Psycho’s not talking to Janoo. (Psycho is the pet name I’ve given to Saiqa, Janoo’s older sister. The younger one is Qubra, whom I call Cobra, pyaar say, na.) Anyways, Psycho’s going round saying that qiamat is coming. Otherwise why would her own flesh and blood brother, born from same mother and same father, cut her nose and blacken her face like that by helping their second cousin to defeat her husband in the election, haan? On top, the second cousin is also from wrong side of the family, because, long ago, in fact in olden times, the second cousin’s father wanted to marry Janoo’s mother, The Old Bag—imagine!—and Janoo’s grandfather said that no, we can’t give our daughter to you because your son, he is a little bit on the demented side.
So this wrong side of the family, they’ve held a budge against Janoo’s side of the family ever since. And in every election that comes, they kharha karo a candidate of their own in Sharkpur against Janoo’s brothers-in-law, who, like the show-offers that they are, are very fond of fighting elections. The wrong side of the family has never won of course, but they do it just out of saarh, to spoil the chances of Janoo’s side of the family.
Janoo’s got lots of votes in Sharkpur, na. Ever since he built those schools and gave all the landless pheasants sewage in their homes, he’s become their favourite feudal. So Psycho thought that when her husband, Billoo, took PML-Q ka ticket he would cash in on Janoo’s popularity and ride all the way to Isloo on Janoo’s shoulders. PML-Q was the hot party in the last election, basically because it was Musharraf ’s party (even though he’s a general and not supposed to have parties but still...). So naturally it was stuffed full of his cronies, toadies, chaprhassis and pitthoos and all. Janoo always called it the Qing’s party and naturally he hated it from the bottoms of his heart because he thought that a general had no business having parties.
Anyways, because in the last election PML-Q had done so well, Billoo thought that chalo, I’ll take PML-Q ka ticket again and because of my connection to Janoo I’ll get all the votes in Sharkpur. And he also thought keh the evil cousin from the wrong branch of the family who took Benazir’s PPP ka ticket would obviously loose. So without even bothering to ask Janoo keh bhai, is it okay with you if we use your name to win seats, Billoo and Psycho they started using his name in Sharkpur as if it was their very own while Janoo was busy being a civil society wallah in Lahore and attending this vigil and that rally and this protest and that jaloos. And even though Janoo hates PML-Q from the bottoms of his heart, he didn’t go and expose Billoo in Sharkpur because he couldn’t do that to his sister even though she is a shameless user.
But then Benazir bechari—hai, itna mein ne usski death ko feel kiya hai na—was killed and then Mush came on TV in an open necked shirt as if he’d just returned from playing golf and announced without even a tear in his eye or a sad look on his face that she was dead and that a lever in her Lexus jeep ki roof had hit her in the head and murdered her, and it wasn’t the fundos at all and he also complied that really it was her own fault that she’d died because despite of his warnings, she’d not been security minded. And then they rushed her body out of Pindi and they washed away all the evidence the next day—I saw it with my own eyes on TV, the police hosing down the spot where she’d been killed—then tau Janoo went completely mad and decided then and there only that in Sharkpur at least her sacrifice wouldn’t go in wain. So he rushed off there to go and campaign for the PPP ka candidate, who just happened to be from the wrong side of the family. But Janoo damn cared.
Since then he’s being going around Sharkpur with the evil cousin and saying to his villagers that give my votes to him only and that we all owe it to Benazir. So Billoo has been deflated like a prickled balloon and Psycho’s saying qiamat is coming and I’m telling Janoo that if you aren’t going to stand in elections and win PPP ki seat yourself then at least let Asif Zardari know what, what you are doing for him so at least when he becomes PM he’ll send you as High Remissioner to London. But will he listen? ‘I’m not doing it for Asif,’ he says. ‘I’m doing it because it’s the right thing to do. We owe Benazir and we’ve had enough of Musharraf. Eleven years of military rule is no joke.’
Loser jaisa. I keep telling him that we’ve got to get Kulchoo married off also. And just think how many nice families would want their daughters to marry him if his father became ambassador. Vaisay every time I see Mush on TV now I feel like throwing something at the screen. And if it wasn’t a brand new wall-to-wall flat screen plasma, I probably would have also. Hai, mein Benazir ko itna miss karti hoon na...
Excerpted from The Return of the Butterfly ( ₹ 299) with permission from Penguin Books India.
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