Tender Hooks

Read 25 Jun 2011

Brilliant book by Moni Mohsin!! In a very toungue in cheek style she shows the flamboyant and fickle attitude of the idle wives of Pakistan’s rich Punjabi landlords and industrialists.

Social Butterfly with her adorable dumbness is back and this time with some dose of moral sensitivity. Of course like last time there is a fair amount of show off, expensive clothes and jewellery, foreign holidays, gossip and rumours, fretting over servants and electricity, kitty parties and GTs (oooffoo GT means Get Together). All the News in the world or the country only comes down to how she can’t get to a foreign holiday or how scary it is for her to send her husband and child or how it is difficult to get decent & trained servants. I love her when she says ‘Good Radiance’ and ‘Haw!! crack sa’. How sometimes she understands the social dynamics more than any one and sometimes she fails to understand the simplest of conversations or cues.

To top it all there is big tamasha of match making and bride hunting for her cousin Jonkers (aunty Pussy’s son).  Its all about rich marrying richer, after all its all about similar bagggrounds..  Jaanu (u know na her husband) is not so reclusive types anymore, showing some feelings for her and even certain influence over her conscious.

But there are more reasons to why I loved this book. It so reminds me of Chandigarh and typical Punjabi social set up. After all Punjabis are Punjabis whether India or Pakistan. The same show-shaa, foon-faan, hi-fi, dikhawa-shikhawa, loud laughter, social status and gossip. Probably all communities have the same characteristics but no one can beat Punjabis in flamboyance and loudness. Being a Punjabi myself I can totally relate to the conversations and social happenings in Moni’s book. At times I felt that the conversations were picked up straight from my own home, my mother and her kitty parties, her group of friends, shopping sprees, wedding preparations and match making business.

OOOOhhh I have grown up with all this around, and as much I sometimes hate to be in the middle of it, you just can’t avoid being amused watching and reading it as an outsider. I can probably write a book of my own about such funny conversations and situations that social butterfly would look gentle and angelic in front of the antics of my extended Punjabi family. Not to forget joint family issues, mother in law and daughter in law tiffs, matches made in weddings than heaven, give and take, gossiping and leg pulling just for the fun of it.

But there are some light moments which warm your heart and the Punjabi spirit is so infectious that you can say whatever, but in reality you actually love us for all we are!!

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