Good advice for Pakistanis

What I figured out a long time ago was that you guys were different in a lot of ways. While we were stuck with ours for decades, even now there are traces, your giver of freedom, read = M.A. Jinnah, Esq., died early on in Pakistani history and left no heirs except for a maker of towels. In India. So you got prohibition instead.

I don’t know why, but serves you right. All I knew was that if there was pleasant bantering bordering on minor insult, Pakistani shipmates would get excited and lose in 3-patti! say "Kashmir Karachi Cox Bazaar" and they would try to bluff on 7 top.

So. Obviously your type lost it somewhere.

The first Pakistanis I ever met were great fans of Black Dog. Nothing would convince them that even hard-luck Indian actors then were drinking Vat-69 instead. Subsequently, the quality improved, and I got to know the Single Malt type.

Ever since then I have been on a crusade. Colonials out-out. The name of this crusade is "Who Are You, Who Who." Those who are old enough to remember and can hum this song may go into the chorus . . . now.

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Crusade # 1:-

You must please ask your Indian friends to introduce you to Old Monk Rum. (Old Monk Gold is just not available anymore, sadly, despite what some people say) Then cut a nimboo (not a huge lemon, a small desi nimboo dia about 1 inch or so). Squeeze one half into about 75-90 ml of Old Monk in a tall glass, seeds optional. Throw in the squeezed half. Add lots of ice, the funny pointy circumcised shaped one with holes in the middle if possible (this has nothing to do with religion, OK?) From your Indian friend’s wife, ask for a few leaves of tulsi, crush them gently on top of the ice. Add equal parts of soda, tonic water and Limca type cloudy lemon soda.

Swirl, don’t drink it as yet.

To the whole lot, add very gently along one side about 5ml of Tia Maria and 5ml of banana puree. Let these settle to the bottom. Do not use those pointy useless glass sticks you purloined from your last evening at the Red "A" Pretty Boy Floyd Lounge, even if they are very pretty and expensive.

Drink once. Drink twice. Drink thrice. Repeat exactly each time. Pretend you are Phil Collins and sing Paradise, Another Day, In. Drink more times if you can count till then. At the end of the whole lot, you will be a very successful and happy man and may have to call a cab driven by a serial murderer who takes pity on you, to go home. Or try to walk to the South Pole. Maybe you will reach Dadar. (See Crusade # 2).

Before taking a taxi, checking out penguins, or tripping to Dadar, however, take what is left at the bottom of the glass. (A mix of 3 or more x nimboo ka halfs and some congealed chocolate-banana mix.) Micro-wave the whole lot, briefly, for about 10-15 seconds only. After it has been heated up, do phich-phich khimchify with a stainless steel fork, full size, and mix the whole thing up some more. If unable understand this, ask somebody’s wife, preferably the patient sort.

Raid pantry fridge for something as close as possible to rum-raisin ice-cream as made by Nirula’s Delhi. Actually, at this stage, worst case scenario, even vanilla will do, though I once found an expensive brand with Bailey’s Irish Cream, Haagen Daaz?

Pour the hot mixture on top of the ice-cream, and wade through it, lime and all. It is healthier than amla, and tastier also.

Therefore, your ancestors are not gora log. Don’t give me gyaan about Single Malt.

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Crusade # 2:-

Mark Tully once bemoaned loudly that they did not serve vada-pao on Pakistani Railway Stations. This is indeed very strange, but then I guess we don’t see too much of it in Punjab either. It is all egg leg peg, maybe the other way around, and paneer pakode for dessert.

The best vada-pao on any Railway station in the whole world, with the exception of probably Cuba, is found c/o the tender mercies of the convienience stall on the Southern end of Dadar (fast) on the Central Railway line.

In Pakistan, I am reliably informed, there are hamburger (mutton? beef? buff?) stalls on platforms. There are egg paratha stalls adrift all over. For all I know Sri Lankan String Hopper may also be available in the space below the pedestrian walkways, the diagonal kind of space? Sure, there must be chop-suey degchi frying noodles and hot tomato pumpkin sauce, called Golden Dragon? China is Crusade # 3.

But you have to get pao-vada stalls.

First is proper pao. Naan will not do. Pao has to be baked in groups of 8, by old Irani type bakeries with average IQ of 32 per head. Or at Goan Catholic type bakeries, where IQ is measured as hockey playing skills, and you have to say 43 in vernacular to them to get a response.

In either case, do NOT stare at their women.

At Goan bakeries they have figured out a new trick:- add butter with garlic and charge fancy prices, with menu card in Italian. Do not fall for this. Speak Portugese. "Maca pao de re" is a good start.

The vada involves skill, and I don’t have the faintest clue on how the guy at Dadar gets it right every time. Maybe you will have to let the Frontier Mail run till Peshawar again.

Therefore we are not your ancestors either. You don’t know good vada from saburdana kee kheer.

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Crusade # 3:-

Long ago, when Chowk was young and denizens stalked the ether looking for enemies to fight on grounds of historical issues between Jinnah and Nehru, a great to-do was made about how the new public toilet at Khan Market was made of green ceramic tiles.

This was An Important Debate.

Thusly on one fine and lazy afternoon, I went there, to Khan Market, Delhi, stuck my car with PRESS sticker in the NO PARKING area with all the other sarkari and diplomat cars, and found that (a) the toilet was locked due to some legal issues, (b) the tiles were a uniform shade of dull yellow and (c) grass was green and so were DTC buses.

Since then this issue about Pakistan and the colour green has amazed me. Till one day it struck me, this was, also, the colour of the Ming Dynasty.

Definitely, the Chinese were not your ancestors. Seen Woon Lee told me so. His family ran the shoe shop there, still do.

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So, who are you guys, anyway?

Let it roll.