Thanks God I’m in London, finally. Last year, Janoo didn’t let me come na. Said pound was too mehnga. Kanjoos, makhi choos. So, I was forced to do summers in Pakistan only. Imagine karo! This time also, pound is same price, but I think so, Janoo has realised that, from now onwards, it’s going to be like this only.

Anyways, first two three days after we arrived, it was so hot, so hot kay I began to think longingly of Nathiagali. Who knew, I said to Kulchoo, kay Global Warning had also come to London? He gave me a look and said, ‘That’s why it’s called global warming. Because it’s global.’ Unfortunately, he’s gone on his father in his bore schoolmaster type lectures. His Dada marhoom was like this also. It’s genital.

Khair, back to London, here tau, you know what it’s like in the heat na — na koi AC, na pool, na kuchh. Not even a punkha. So Third World waisay. Apparently, some people have had those window type ACs put, but they’re also only desis and Arabs. I sent Kulchoo to buy a punkha. He came back saying they were sold out. Also, so Third World. Finally, we managed to order a couple on the inner net, thanks God.

The man who delivered the punkhas was Indian. Also, the man who delivered the Deliveroo. Also the man who I gave my Mew Mew shirt to dry clean. And the master ji who sat in the front of the dry cleaners shop with a sowing machine. The Uber driver also was Indian and the man in the white coat at the chemists also. Even the waiter who served us at Horrery restaurant, where we paid hundreds of such mehnga pounds to eat three botis of beef with two carrots the size of my chhee chhee finger and a single aaloo, he was also Indian.

A simmering London brings Butterfly to melting point, but at least she still has her ears intact...

Thanks God we didn’t pay the hundreds of pounds ka bill at Horrerry. We were taken by a gora friend of Janoo’s. Left to myself, I’d have gone to Royal China, or if I’d really wanted to urrao hundreds of pounds on lunch rather than on a Story Burch bag, then I’d have gone to this new Indian restaurant called Bibi in May Fair, that everyone’s raving about, where you get served two spoonfuls of khana on quarter plates like the servants in Aunty Pussy’s house get, but at least you get seen by all the rich desis, who want to eat like that and pay millions for it.

But unfortunately, the Indians that I really wanted to see aren’t here. Kaun say Indians? Oho baba, all my fave Bollywood stars, who I normally spot in Selfridges and get my selfie taken with. But they, poor things, were doing their duty at the Ambani wedding na. After four months of hectic dancing, they must have thukkoed.

Still, I made three, four chakkars of Selfridges kay shayad koi nazar aa jaye, but no such luck. Kulchoo says that he’s worried about my stalker type behaviour, but I told him apni khair manao. Haan. (I told you na, it’s genital.)

Haan, so Indians everywhere. And if not Indians, then Chinese. Voh bhi darjanon kay hisaab se. I feel for the poor goras waisay. They’ve become like foreigners in their own country. Waisay, they’ve brought it on themselves. Now, if you do Brexit and refuse to let poor goras from other poor gora countries like Poland and Crow Asia vaghera in, phir yahi hona hai. At least they’ve got the Indian out of Drowning Street.

But now, an Indian is about to come into the White House. I didn’t know, but apparently that Kamala Haaris, she’s Indian. But Janoo says her chances of beating Trump are smaller than the helpings at Bibi. And that the Democracks have been living far too long in their own ego chamber and can no longer take the pulse of their country.

I didn’t know the Democracks were hakeems, but I didn’t ask Janoo, in case I received another long bore lecture. I told you na, it’s genital. And then Janoo went on to say kay, after that assassination attempt on him, Trump has become unbeatable. Some Democracks are apparently saying that the attempt was too dheela and that there is some kala in the daal, but Trumpist believers are all going about with bandaged ears in sympathy with their leader. Thanks God the shooter didn’t blow his arm off, varna pata nahin what his followers would have had to do to themselves.

Meanwhiles, my cousin Minnie in California is saying that so much of heat wave has come over there, that they are also fleeing to the hills. Who knew that America had hill stations? Also, who knew that Global Warning had come to America also?

Published in Dawn, EOS, July 28th, 2024