THERE’s something about Zoha

If you ever see her, you’ll never forget her. If you talk to her, you’ll never forget the conversation and if you get into a fight with her, you’ll never make it out alive.

Ladies and gentlemen that’s the phenomenon known as Zoha Baber.

As long as I can remember I’ve been best friends with her.

Crazy. Hilarious. Stupid. Flamboyant. On top.

Troubled. Emotional. Scared if you know her deep inside.

And then she has this way with boys. Wherever she goes she leaves behind a trail of panting men.

Most women are either scared of her or completely intimidated.

If she doesn’t like you now….she never will.

And she’ll make sure she tells you that.

But if you’re on her good side.

You’re in for some crazy drives all around Karachi. Add some random conversations and throw some doodh ki botallein in for good measure and you know what it’s like to be friends with her.

She’s taught me everything from wearing makeup to the tricks of tossing your hair.

Sometimes I wonder if she’s stuck in the wrong decade. Like a lost child from the 80’s.

Don’t worry…you’ll figure this out when she’ll make you listen to Madonna ALL THE TIME.

Maybe she’ll sit and convince you that you have Attention Deficit Disorder and make fun of you later because you fell for it.

But no matter what she’ll be there right outside when you want to sneak out of your house. She’ll convince you to call that cute boy from your biology class. She’ll even let you borrow her sexy black dress on your first big date.

But whatever you do, DONT make her wear flats. Or convince her to buy beige or brown clothes. Talk about politics or god forbid SPORTS or dare to tell her to tone down her makeup or force her to watch Shawshank Redemption or teach her how to use a computer.

But most importantly I’ll never forgive you if you ask her to grow up and act normal.

I have faith that when I’m 45 menopausing with three runny nosed kids, she’ll still come in her beat up red Toyota, wearing bright lipstick and high heels. SCREAM SABA KHALID. And take me out for a crazy girl’s night out.

The Set-up

Saba!”

“ZOHa!”

“I just saw a guy you’re going to LOVE?”

“Is he on TV?”

No..Hes Real and so cute and he has this great car..and he went to Harvard and he’s so hot and he said he likes difficult girls and wefhefw qeiufheif ewfiohguierg wuefeghuwergh” (I blank out and start counting the ruffles on my curtains)

After she’s done giving me his whole life story I ask:

“Is he a Grammarian?”

“Yes!”

“Does he want a relationship?”

“No”

“Does he want marriage?”

“No”

“Does he want a one night stand?”

“Maybe”

“How many times have you met him?”

“Once”

“Why are we having this conversation?”

“Because he’s so HOTTTTTT”

If you haven’t guessed already my best friend loves setting my up.

In my opinion she likes to see me squirm and squiggle in front of an audience of not so single boys.

Just kidding.

She always has great intentions.

But in her dating history she has never failed to set me up with one of her boyfriends’ best friends.

Hmmm….the first guy she tried to set me up with looked at me briefly and said:

“Not her you idiot….I was talking about the other friend”

So I spat at him and called him a kutta ka bacha. (I was fourteen and that was an insanely bad word. I was such a rebel- I tell you)

The next one was in a serious relationship with a girl for two years but didn’t mind seeing ME on the side. (The nerve)

Then a grammarian. (He thought I wore too much makeup)

Then a guy with a great car and a dudly personality.

Then a guy who scratched his balls in front of me.

The list goes on.

And no matter how hard I try to convince my best friend not to set me up, she still somehow convinces me to go and meet this new guy anyway.

The date always starts smooth.

But it usually ends up with me walking off.

But there’s hope for me! She’s getting married in December inshallah.

Which means?

You guessed it!

No set-ups

No married men, no cross dressers, no axe murderers, no nothing for me to be set up with for eternity.

The only thing I might actually miss is making fun of these guys a week after the date.

Neutering my baby!

My eyes were blurry from all the researching reading and contemplating. If I had worked as hard on one of my own papers I’d probably would have finished school early. But this was important. It could alter my baby’s life in every way. The procedure was supposedly painless and quick under general anesthesia. The risks were minimal. My mind boggled from the callous terms carelessly thrown in on various websites. Neutering, castration, spaying. Could I really let some vet take away my little doggie’s masculinity? What could be the consequences? And the painnnnnn…..Images of little Travis gaining weight and growing boobs came to my mind.

Of course he had some problems. The lifting the leg and urinating in front of friends and family was one. The scratches and bruises from his humping on my leg was another. The running out of the gate to meet his many “girlfriends” was by far the biggest. But cutting of his erm reproductive organs was alittle too severe. The whole night I tossed and turned. The dreams always started with SNIP SNIP and then blood and gore falling everywhere. I woke up twice in between and gave travis a big kiss on his furry little ear. He opened one of his eyes and I could’ve sworn he said “aunty are you really going to cut me off”.

2 months later

He's still urinating with one leg up...he still leaves the house for hours and doesnt return...and my leg...lets just say...i need some therapy

I think the doctor cut off the wrong organ or something..

If anyone knows anything about neuteration...CALL ME!

The Reverse Card

One of my male friends asked me today what the best way to get a girl was. I’ve never been a relationship expert but I knew this particular one at the back of my hand.

I said, “Nothing works better than ignoring a girl, then making fun of her and if you manage to make her feel insecure and ugly you’ve hit the real jackpot”.

Yes, we are dumb enough to fall for the cheapest reverse psychology tactic in the world.

It’s maddening for a girl to see that no amount of hair flicking, eyelid batting is going to make this one person pay attention.

Some step up the game.

They wear their mum’s expensive French perfume. Nails and hair are done a little suggestively maybe even a slightly low-cut blouse.

Yet he will pass by, make a face and say “How much perfume are you wearing?”

This is when realization hits. Anything and everything will be done to change his mind. The more you run after him the bitchier he gets and the more in love you become with him.

The asshole wins.

But it’s stupid to think reverse psychology only works on women.

The suggestive attention seeking woman ALWAYS has a best friend.

This guy gives great advice when she needs it.

Brings Kleenex and Bridget Jones when she gets told she has a big butt.

And although she doesn’t treat this best friend unkindly she doesn’t pay attention to him either.

So he continues to cook her Chinese when she’s too depressed to eat.

He persists on shopping till she drops and holding her bag while she tries five different feel better jeans.

Wait.

This best friend has a girl in class who thinks he’s adorable. She wears the too much perfume and low cut blouses BUT the best friend never notices. So here we go again. The cycle continues forever and ever.

Until one of us gets that Wild Card we all continue to enjoy the reverse cards.

Dreaming with so much ugliness

I often spend hours imaging this elaborate scene in my head. I’m standing in a hot pink dress. My hair is long and tousled sexily. I’m wearing the slightest makeup but it hardly shows on my almost perfect skin. I have four inch prada heels on and a drink in my hand. My group of adoring friends are standing in a circle around me. Someone makes a joke and I toss my perfect hair backwards, laugh prettily and raise my glass.

I look down and there he is. The asshole who burnt a hole in my heart, crushed and stampeded on it and then forgot to return my phone calls. Ofcourse, none other than the X factor.

With each dream his appearance gets worse. This time he’s bald and has a pot belly. He’s sitting alone and looking miserable. His shirt un tucked, his shoes unmatched and looking absolutely blah. He looks at me and for a second cannot believe his eyes.

He tries to say something but I look away untouched by his presence. Instead of running away and crying I sit directly in front of him. But he still doesn’t have the guts to say anything. Suddenly (this is my favorite part) the music slows down, the glasses stop clattering and the voices die down. The DJ announces that the club would like to welcome the world renowned writer Saba Khalid today. He goes on about he loves my sex and Karachi column. And I stand up gracefully take a little bow and the crowd claps appreciatively. throng sof waiters bring expensive drinks on the house towards me. I pick a nice pink one and raise it towards the X factor. He looks away flustered.

His wife returns to the table right then. She gets fatter and uglier in each dream. He knows exactly why I have my glass raised. He knows I’m thanking him for his betrayal. Showing gratitude for the mess he left. Because if it wasn’t for his cruelness, I’d never be able to be brave and show the world who I really am.

These crazy elaborate imaginings have done great things for me. Whenever I’m feeling down and leaving the house looking like a mess. I go back and change. Put something extraordinary on and then leave. Never in a million years do I ever want him to see me looking like a mess. When I feel tired from giving interviews and think I should just sit at home and become a nobody. I try again. Because I want to be more successful than him. When I gain weight…I….you get the idea. You might disagree with me and call me utterly superficial and stupid. But to me, looking fabulous and being successful is the best way of taking my own silent revenge.

Bosnia

I was very young when Yugoslavia was dissolved. I don’t remember everything clearly except a particular exhibition my political activist mother took me to. It had many pictures and documentaries of children crying, wounded men and women in war struck Bosnia. To this day, the images are hard to forget.

A decade later when I read that a former Bosnian Serb soldier was sentenced to 15 years in prison for raping and torturing Muslim women and girls in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina, those images returned. I wanted badly to know how this nation had recovered from such a huge tragedy.

After hours and hours of extensive research I realized, it really hasn’t. Children who had been born out of the systematic raping of Bosnian women had all grown up. They had started questioning who their fathers were. Some women had given up their babies to orphanages scared of the fact that they might never be able to love them. Suzannah, a rape baby living in an orphanage has no birth certificate or bank account. When she was born the Croatians refused to register her. To this day, donations for Suzannah cannot reach her directly. Unfortunately, Suzannah isn’t the only one with a sad story in the orphanage.

The state does nothing for the abandoned and sexually abused women and children. The rapes were committed in order for these Bosnian women to give birth to Serbian children. No counseling or help has been given to them. They were shunned from their communities left by their husbands with little babies to raise. Most were teenagers when this mental and physical abuse occurred. Some raped women find it difficult to hold jobs and are extremely impoverished. Very few of them have kept their babies while majority of them have given them up to orphanages.
One of the rape victims detailed that she was imprisoned in her own house for a year and raped in front of her children. She suffers from extreme depression and has tried to commit suicide a number of times. It is sad how no international organization has focused their attention on the women and children of post war Bosnia. The war has still not ended for many Bosnian women. They can still see the perptrators around their community. The police and the state are well aware of their identities but do nothing to catch them. Some abused women have photographs of their abusers but are not willing to come forward with this evidence. Some are scared of the response of their coommunities or that the Serbs might come to take revenge once again. Very few women have testified and government has started paying a minimal amount to rape victims.

Kiyun Ke Saas Bhee Kabhi

wake up to the most beautiful sunny day. I know it’s a Sunday when I smell the aroma of aloo parathas in my room. I feel the hot summer breeze and I smile to myself. I love Karachi summers. In spite of mother electricity dying out on us every day, the monsoon rains stomping on us and the scorching sun glaring at us in all its glory I just can’t help loving it.

I get out of bed and happily jump on the weigh scale, five pounds overweight. That’s okay! Sitting around the house and eating aloo parathas can do its course. I decide to get my beautiful Jennifer-Lopez –size-of-Brazil bum to a nearby gym for quick weight loss recovery. My gym is a place filled with married stinking rich forty year olds. Somehow being a twenty year old works very well there. They fill me in on the miracles of Atkins diet and the latest Khaadi prints. And I tell them about my life as a singleton, my crazy escapades and my mad crushes.

So I happily stumble inside the gym and see my friends in their designer spandex glued to the TV. Not surprising at all. I was used to watching the bold and the beautiful with them. Instead, I find Indian faces whitewashed in cheap concealer and red lipstick and I say to myself this can’t be true. My horizontally challenged menopauseing friends could not be watching STAR PLUS. I clearly remember dissing Hindi films and their running around the fields dances with them. Before I could even adjust my eyes to this scenario Mariam Aunty comes running to me and shakes my shoulders aggressively and screams “PEOSH IS DEAD….SOOJAL KILLED HIM”. Their faces are white with fear, some almost in tears. My Alfred Hitchcock instincts come into play; do they mean the Hindu janitor we have? His name was Mahesh, Raj or maybe Peosh, they all sound so similar. Poor guy must’ve been rivalry. But why are my friends who have never cared about the famine war poverty actually worried about our Hindu janitor. For some reason, they still stay glued to the TV.

Soon enough I realize it’s not the janitor but some character on STAR PLUS who died but not really died. Someone exchanged bodies and switched the DNA. The absurdity of it all makes me laugh. So I jump on the treadmill and try to understand the obsession with these dramas.

2 weeks later

I weighed myself today while humming the theme to “kiyun ke saas bhee” with no embarrassment, regret or mortification. I had lost my 5 pounds but gained another addiction. I can’t go to sleep without having my daily dose of STARPLUS.