I'm so confuse. One minute we’re on the blink of a revolution with revolting masses on the roads shouting themselves horse ke a red line has been crossed and maroing naaras that a new don has donned and firing up the corpse commander’s house and taking their ghussa out on innocent buses.

And next minute it’s back to the past with military taranas playing on TV and bijli khumbas dressed in big big posters of generals and all the revolution ke leaders slinking home saying ke bhai we are blameless and all these protestors just went rabbit on their own and, by the way, we are leaving politics for goods. In two weeks flat.

So I asked Janoo, “What happened?”

“What always happens” he sighed. “Yet again, they’ve taken advantage of our inability to form a civilian consensus. Thanks to the botched revolution, the repression is worse than ever.” Aik tau Janoo always speaks in such rhymes and riddles na.

So I called my friend Mulloo, who as you know is a pukki PTI patriot and say “bhai Mulloo what happened? One minute you are leading jalooses down the road and shouting naaras and having your selfies taken and burning …”

“I never led any jaloos, okay?” she interrupted. “Or shout any naaras or take any selfies. The only thing I’ve burnt are calories in the gym.”

In the confusing political climate at home following the events of May 9, Butterfly tries to get a sense of the situation…

“But you said you’d become an urban gorilla!”

“Me? A gorilla? I’m a simple housewife, sitting at home ordering my servants about.”

“But what about your undying demotion to your Kaptaan?”

“Khan Saab is such a principal man,” she whispered. “Never has anyone been so upright, so brave, spoken such truth, and offered to go to jail so many times. Never in the history of Pakistan have any followers been so loyal and suffered greater regression by The Powers That Be.

“But,” she added hurriedly, “You know na that I’m a patriot first and last? And all this loot maar that these goondas from every party except PTI has done, I condemn totally. After all, we are parrha likha khaata peeta patriots, why would we put ourselves in danger for nothing?”

I’d just got off the phone to Mulloo when I got a call from our friend Pumpy who is a pukki PTI waali but she’s an ex-Pak because lives in Surrey, which is a city in outer skirts of London, and straightaway, without even so much as a hello hi and aur sunao, she wailed, “Why has Mulloo got off our WA [WhatsApp] group and why isn’t she answering my phone and why have we still not managed to throw out this corrupt, dirty guvmunt?”

“Yaar Pumpy you tau must be knowing,” I said, “That I can’t throw up any guvmunt because I’m least bothered about bore politics and I’m tau always happy with the status go. But I’ve heard there’s been a real crack down from army with dhumkees of jail, and so all our PTI friends are sitting at home chup chaap, in case instead of spending their summers in London they end up spending them in in Kot Lakhpat Jail, which is very hot with no AC and so, natch, no one wants to go there. Least of all the leaders.”

“Honestly!” she cried. “How depressing.”

“Vaisay Pumpy why don’t you come here and bring the guvmunt down yourself only?”

“I’d come futta futt except my son’s got his A Levels and we’ve been invited to a Sindhi wedding in Spain in July and I’m three months away from swearing legions to the King.”

“King Imran?”

“No, silly. King Charles. You have to swear legions to the sovereign to get UK passport.”

“So what are you doing for the revolution there?”

“Mashallah say, we’re doing important work here. Every Sunday me and my three desi besties, we drive up to London and spend the morning shouting abuses outside Avenfield House and doing khoob naak mein dum of MNS [Mian Nawaz Sharif] and his neighbours. And then we go for shopping to Selfridges and lunch at Roti Chai before driving home to Surrey.”

“But how about you and your besties doing some shor sharaba in Drowning Street and some torrh phorrh in Buckingham Palace to get sarrhial Sunak’s attention?”

“Are you crazy? That churrail Sohaila Braverman will put me on the next flight to Rwanda! Or I’ll be deported to Pakistan and get stuck up there forever. Imagine karo!”

“I don’t need to imagine,” I commented. But she completely ignore-karoed me.

“I’ve no choice,” she sighed. “I’ll just have to carry on being depress about Pakistan from here only. I’m so depress I can’t even sleep at night.”

Pumpy bechari. Sleepless in Surrey.

The writer is a columnist and a satirist and has published six books previously, including the bestselling Social Butterfly series.

She tweets @Moni_butterfly

Published in Dawn, EOS, June 4th, 2023