After our long sohani spring, I thought kay climate change means we will be changing for the better and that, from now on, we will be having lovely, cool summers. Bhai, like Antarctica and Baked Alaska and all, which are all looking forward to mild si, pleasant si summers, like Murree in the olden days, when it had forests and only khaata peeta tourists. But no.

Turns out, I was living in a phool’s paradise. Climate change for us means we will be living in dozakh. Like the weather nowadays, with tandoori temperatures going up to 50 Sell See Us. It’s already happening in places in Sindh. And it’s hardly June yet.

Zara imagine karo! All I know is kay my bijli ka bill is going to be astrophysical this year. But ab what to do, baba? Generator tau is a must, na, even if we have to sell Janoo’s jaddi pushti family lands to run it. Choice is between dying of heat and dying of poverty. We’ll probably end up landless pheasants like the poors in Janoo’s village but, chalo, at least I’ll be cool till my dying day.

Vaisay, if it’s going to be so bad for us, tau what is going to happen to these hot dessert type places, like Saudi and Qatar and all? At least we have some trees shees and rivers vaghera, and some mountains also with snow on top. They tau have only sand and rock and glassy sky scrappers. I guess they’ll have to air con their outside also, now.

Palestine, Azad Kashmir, London, Sindh… the heat is on everywhere. But nowhere as much as in Butterfly’s own home

Like Qatar did their stadiums for the football World Cup — they’ll have to do that for the whole country. A bit like Israel’s Iron Dome, except that it will be air con dome. Maybe, that’s why Shehbaz Sharif has come back from Saudi with only promises. They need to keep their cash to build their cooling dome.

In other news, Janoo says that Spain, Ireland and No Way have all recognised Palestine. The rest of Europe and America must be having sterile dementia, that they can see Palestine when it’s standing right in front of them, or lying in rubble in front of them, but not recognise — like poor Uncle Cock-Up, who doesn’t recognise Aunty Pussy, his wife of 50 years, even when she’s sitting next to him on the sofa.

With America, tau, it makes sense, with that budha baba Biden, who mixes up Mexico with Egypt. But imagine, theek thaak young ones, like Not So Dishy Rishi and Macwrong of France not recognising? Janoo’s mother, the old bag, who still recognises everything and everyone despite being 150 years old — and hale and hatty, oopar say — says that these are kiyamat kay nishaan. I think so she is right. On this one thing we agree. Finally.

Talking of Palestine, Janoo is very angry about Amal Clooney, who, it turns out, is Palestinian herself from somewhere. Haw, and here I was thinking she was a foreigner! Just shows how you think someone is one thing, but they turn out be another.

Like Mummy used to love this English singer from olden times, called Cleft Richards, but when she discovered he was born in India, she went off him, because, she said, he may as well have been Mukesh in that case.

Anyways, back to Amal Clooney. Apparently, all this time, she’s been wearing nice, nice, designer dresses and posing for cameras, looking thin and glam, but keeping mum about Palestine. So now, after seven months of bombing and fighting, she’s spoken up, but he says she shouldn’t have stayed mum for so long. I told him she’s a mother, it’s her job to be mum. He gave me a funny si look and then sighed and shook his head.

So, I just gave Janoo multilatum then. I said, baba, I’m telling you from now only that I want to be in London for all of summers, well at least the chip chip type humid summers. He said, with the exchange rate what it is, he can’t afford it.

It’s not just London you can’t afford, I told him, I think so you can’t afford me. When I married you, I thought I was marrying the old rich. Now, it seems like I married the new poor. He laughed and said, ‘That seems about right.’ Look at him, doesn’t even feel any shame.

Then he gave me long lecture about unrest in Azad Kashmir and how wrong it is to talk of foreign holidays now. Typical him, vaisay, to worry about unrest in faraway places and not the unrest in his own home. Like budha Biden, who can’t recognise things even when they’re staring him in the face.

I think so Janoo should become American president. He’s fully qualified.

Published in Dawn, EOS, June 2nd, 2024