Shobhaa De, Moni Mohsin do India-Pakistan talks, find same-difference only

Letter from Lahore 

Dear Shobhaa, 

Hello ji! Soo much I've been saving to tell you since we last met. I would've come to see you earlier if it hadn't been for this visa shisa ka stuppid jaisa nonsense. Honestly, kya museebat hai, yaar? Can't even cross the border without having to beg a hundred, hundred favours. It's bad enough that we have to go and beg goras for visas but you know pleading in front of desis doesn't look nice. At least not for us khaata peeta types. Unlike the poors who have to beg every day for everything, hum used to nahin hain na. 

Talking of visas suna hai our foreign secretaries have also been doing chit chat quietly, quietly in the backside. I think so they are trying to do sulla after two years of kutti. Janoo says their talks have ended in stale meat. Vaisay voh tau hona hi tha. I mean if you're going to bang on and on about bore jhagras like Kashmir and Siaching and Sir Creep (vaisay, who's this man, Sir Creep?) tau naturally baba, you're not going to make any head away. Now instead of those bore babus from Isloo and South Block if our guvmunts had sent you and me to do the talking everything would have been sorted in the squint of an eye because you know, you and me, kitna kuch we have in common?  

We have cricket in common, we have all our celeb friends in common, we have Bollywood in common, we have paans, mangoes, shaadis, shulloos and Sholay in common. And then we have all our Khans in common - bhai Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Irrfan Khan, Fawad Khan, Imran Khan, Reham Khan and of course never to forget the most important Khan of all - Khan Market. You know, for me, Shobhaa, first there's Harrods, then there's Dubai Mall - the one with the antiquarium with sharks and all - and then there's Khan Market. Bus. As soon as an antiquarium opens in Khan Market also I will move it up to Number Two. Meanwhile please accept my sorrys. 

Haan yaad aya, we also have our TV dramas in commons. Mummy tau is totally luttoo over some cereal of yours called Chakori or something. Everytime I call she pretends she's in the toilet and so she can't speak to me but I know she's watching Chakori. Either that or she's got aerobic dysentry. Vaisay imagine wanting to watch a drama more than talking to your own daughter! One shouldn't say bad things about your mother of course but Mummy's such a dhokhaybaaz na.  

But I must confess Shobhaa, I myself have become hooked onto these Turkish soaps that we're getting in Pakistan nowdays. Hai you have to watch. The men, I tell you, they're such hulks - tall jaisay, fear and handsome. My absolute fave was this cereal called Mera Sultan which was about Suleiman the Magnificent. I got so revolved in it kay kya bataoon. After it finished I called my Aunty Pussy and I said to her, "Hai Aunty I'm so depress, so depress kay don't even ask," and she said, "But why beta?" and I said "Because my Turkish soap has finished." And she said "You know beta I tau swear by Dove. It gives best lather."

Haan Shobha, yaad aya, one more thing we have in commons: bans! So for us basant is banned. Guvmunts says it is for our own goods because lot of kids used to fall off their roofs while flying kites. But what I'm wondering is this: if guvmunt cares so much about our safety then why they haven't banned Kalashnicoughs, haan? Voh tau you can buy as easily as chappatis in the bazaar. And also YouTube is banned for us in case we come across something that will shock innocent, pious people like us which if we watch by mistake we go straight to hell.  

Also I'm guessing that it is for same sort of reasons beef is banned for you Bombay wallahs - hai, can I say Bombay or is that word also banned? Don't want to offend na, being a guest with a singly entry visa and that also after so much of grovelling shovelling….And also I hear BBC documentaries are banned for you all? In case you get shocked by their contents? Honestly, it's so nice to have guvmunts that care so much for our moral welfear, no?  

Vaisay, Shobha why do foreigners have to make hurtful shows and say things in them that shock us so much? And also give such a bad image of us to the rest of the world, haan? I mean why can't they say nice, nice things about us? Between, you, me and the four walls, I think so it's a conspiracy to underline us. That's the only explanation. Otherwise tau Shobha we are advanced ancient civilisation, no? I mean hamari olden times ki cities of Harappa and Moenjodaro -- bhai apni Indus Valley civilisation nahin thi? - in those they found proper brick lined sewers and drains vaghera. Imagine! Four thousand years ago when London and New York wallahs were wearing bearskins and eating keerha makorhas we were sitting on Duravit kay flushing toilets. Ji haan! And last week a person from some United Nations ki branch came to us and told us that 40 million Pakistanis are doing bathroom in the outside and that this was not nice. I wanted to tell her that bhai, I'm sorry that the poors have forgotten how to sit on toilets and are doing bathroom outside now but it's not our fault if they're suffering from amnesia, okay? 

Aur bus, Shobha, at my end it's business as usual - parties, khanas, GT's oho baba, Get Togethers, weddings vaghera. Everybody who's everybody invites you and if you don't go then people mind kar jaatay hain na. So you know Shobha, no rest for us hard working types. Okay dahling, have to rush off to a kitty party now. 

Mwah, mwah! 

Moni