Poor Baby, itna hand hua hai na uskay saath, kay don’t even ask. Atif, her one and only son has come back from Standfort University where he did his Law – Baby’s been eating our heads for ten full years show offing about how clever he was, how considerable, how obedient – and out of the bloom, he’s announced kay he doesn’t want to be a lawyer. What he really wants to do, is to be a maali. Imagine! Baby bechari, she tau straight away went into shock. And Toto, his father, he laughed nervously at first but when he realised Atif was serious he exploded like a land mind.
Baby called and wailed to me: ‘He wants to be a land escape gardener.’ Turns out in his holidays he’s been touring Europe and when Baby and Toto were boasting about him meeting lawyer shawyers he was actually chori, chori visiting famous gardens. He’s told Baby that gardening is his passion and he only did his law for them but he’d rather die than become a lawyer. ‘Even as a child,’ Baby sobbed, ‘he’d spend all his time, after school and tuition, gardening with our old maali. I thought it was ajeeb even then – I mean which boy in his right mind cares about bootas and pansies, but then I thought, chalo it’s harmless. How was I to know he’d end up shaming us like this? And after Standfort also. Who will give him their daughter now? With dirty nails and black sun burnt face?’
Inside I was thinking it serves you right for being so show offy and boasting about my Atif got this prize and my Atif won that award and making us ashamed of our stupid lazy children but oopar say I said, ‘You never know. Maybe they’ll make a Netfix ka drama about him. After all if they can do on khansamahs why not on maalis, haan?’ That brought another flood of tears so I said, ‘Chalo, Baby, it could be worst. At least he doesn’t want to be a bearer.’ At that she slammed down the phone. Haw, look at her! How ungrateful, how sarrhial…
Baby called and wailed to me: ‘He wants to be a land escape gardener.’ Turns out in his holidays he’s been touring Europe and when Baby and Toto were boasting about him meeting lawyer shawyers he was actually chori, chori visiting famous gardens. He’s told Baby that gardening is his passion and he only did his law for them but he’d rather die than become a lawyer. ‘Even as a child,’ Baby sobbed, ‘he’d spend all his time, after school and tuition, gardening with our old maali. I thought it was ajeeb even then – I mean which boy in his right mind cares about bootas and pansies, but then I thought, chalo it’s harmless. How was I to know he’d end up shaming us like this? And after Standfort also. Who will give him their daughter now? With dirty nails and black sun burnt face?’
Inside I was thinking it serves you right for being so show offy and boasting about my Atif got this prize and my Atif won that award and making us ashamed of our stupid lazy children but oopar say I said, ‘You never know. Maybe they’ll make a Netfix ka drama about him. After all if they can do on khansamahs why not on maalis, haan?’ That brought another flood of tears so I said, ‘Chalo, Baby, it could be worst. At least he doesn’t want to be a bearer.’ At that she slammed down the phone. Haw, look at her! How ungrateful, how sarrhial…