Sweets revenge

When my friend returned, I was in the US. “Courier them to Bombay” I texted.

My friend V asked me: when people are mean to you, aren’t you tempted to take revenge by writing about them in your column? “No” I said nobly. I believe in Do No Harm (kasam se, I do). But circumstances have forced me to change. Recently, my fancy and high-minded friend went to Lahore. There, our common friend, the filmmaker Farjad Nabi, ever so sweetly gave her a gift for me: a box of fingersticks biscuits.

Fingersticks, legend has it, were named for Lady Aitchison’s slender fingers, and created by South Asia’s perhaps first modern bakery, Mokham-ud-din and Sons which has stood in Lahore’s Anarkali bazaar since 1879. Next to this bakery was where my father grew up, in a home left behind at Partition. I grew up hearing and dreaming about fingersticks. Then, luck and work took me to Lahore. I found my father’s old house by asking about the famous fingersticks bakery. I returned with a piece of brick from the house and a box of fingersticks. I wrote about this very emotional experience elsewhere some years later. As stories can, this one created a tender place in my friends’ hearts. When they send fingersticks, it’s like an aunt sending you sweets from a hometown left behind. When my friend returned, I was in the US. “Courier them to Bombay” I texted.

“Dekhte hain kiski kismet mein likhe hain” she responded and I laughed. Obviously, who could mean it, given their loaded and senti history? Oh, how innocent. I returned and enquired after my biscuits. Her reply: I’ll get you a big packet next time. Next time? Is Lahore Jaipur? Frenz, shocked is too mild to describe my feelings. Hindustani has a better word: hairaan (I now understand why it was invented). Yaniki, helpless, incredulous, aghast and a few more things. “I will complain to Farjad” I sputtered. “Nahiin” she texted, with absolute insincerity, instantly triggering memories of cousins and classmates who watched slyly while I got scolded for their misdemeanours, knowing I was too sincere to sneak on them. You know the type na? I complained to Farjad whose shayrana response was “uffo bahut bhooki hai.” 

This was not satisfying. It was like those teachers who would say “Swati is anyway a gone case. I expected more from you Paromita.” Why from me? Jaan loge kya acche bacche ki? Why not Swati?

Fine. I may not have my biscuits but I shall have sweet revenge. So, I declare, my friend (so-called) Natasha Badhwar is a bad girl who ate my biscuits. I name her; and that’s how I claim her. After all what’s life without friends who feel free to misbehave and so, give us a lifetime license to complain. Shikayat is a true bond. Haq, expectations and claims echo in its faux outrage. Only such cheerful shamelessness can make anecdotes with which to bore your grandkids—they are after all the historical record of relationship.

In these times when we would rather outrage than be outrageous, where we pretend our distances are personal space and talk of boundaries masks our disconnection; when we would rather judge than engage, and disengage rather than risk love’s vulnerability, I hope someone eats up your sweets too, so you can give them a gaali that sounds like an endearment. Happy Diwali everyone. Natasha ko toh main baad mein dekh loongi.

Paromita Vohra is an award-winning Mumbai-based filmmaker, writer and curator working with fiction and non-fiction. Reach her at paromita.vohra@mid-day.com

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