The Saturday Party Wrap Up
Hey again yaars!
You might have noticed that I have yet to mention my details of Saturday's events. There's good reason to, I had to gather my thoughts before I said something that might make me sound crazy (well, crazier than normal). Here's my recollection of events:
The day started of quite well. I made the decision to stay out of my mom's way by going out to a few malls with Zan (the brother). We kicked around the Scarborough Town Centre and Fairview Mall until about 6, when my mother phoned to let us know that we were to pick up food from the Pakistani grocer/restaurant at 7. We killed an hour in our car listening to our iPods individually. I hate that my brother is so quiet!
At 7 we hit Karchi Bazaar, where we went up to the restaurant section to pick up the biryani. The restauranteur said he hadn't received an order of any sort for food by anyone and said we should call our mother to check. Me and Zan - about to piss ourselves - quickly got on the phone, only to find that the guy was pulling our leg! The food was there and ready to be picked. It was about 7:20, and since our mother is all about panicking, she phones to ask where we are and what's taking so long (and you guys think that I'm neurotic!).
Arriving home we were welcomed by about 40 pairs of shoes in front of our door, and 20 hungry Pakistani-Canadians! I freak out, realizing I have left my room, computer, and drawers open for the picking. And in true desi fashion, I had a smattering of children and tweeners surrounding my beautiful computer! Later on when I asked why my mother she didn't make me room off limits, she responded by saying "I had no idea they even left the living room!". I felt so patronized!
As I previously mentioned, the children had halal pizza for dinner, and true to form - it was nasty. Of course we were lucky to have brought biryani, and my mom being my mom, she cooked about 4 side dishes to accompany it. Which begs the question : What was the point of ordering biryani and pizza when you were going to cook anyways?
Being the eldest male in the house, I basically had to play all-rounder, socializing with the auntie's, uncle's, children, and young-adults. It was obvious the uncles were a bit bored, until I managed to find a classic Noor Jehan tape from my dad's collection. (Noor Jehan was kinda like the Madonna of Pakistan from the 50s-80s, who actually had a good voice). The men were in awe at the performances my dad had collected over the years, a testament to the fact that us Rathore's love our bootlegging! Thankfully that film, and a few ashtrays, held them over for the night.
The aunties were, as always, content with gossipping amongst themselves. The young adult group ended up gabbing and watching the football game. Of course the kids managed to hog my own computer to the extent that I could barely fit into my own room!
Things seemed decent until about 9:00, when all hell broke loose. For starters, the kids ended up eating all of the desert, which was MEANT for the adults! I was REALLY looking forward to the rus malai, and got screwed over! That wasn't the first time it's happened either! Secondly, they managed to cut the power to my computer while it was on! And instead of calling me, an idiot 8-year old tried to turn it on himself by REPEATEDLY hitting the power button until he saw something. Since it takes about 5 seconds to see anything on screen, he MUST have hit it quite a bit, because once it was loading, it took WAYYYY too long. A startup which takes 3-5 minutes was still trying to load after 25 minutes! I promptly kicked the kids off, and went to work in attempts to save my computer. No worries though, the operation was successful. Not only did I fix the slowness (it needed defragmentation and error checking), I managed to get the kids off of the computer! And to top it off, I managed to get one of the mothers to yell at all the kids for being so rude all night!
The rest of the night went hunky-dory, culminating in one of the uncle's arguing that Pakistan could fight off an American invasion (this was all dependant on the U.S. fighting numerous battles around the world simultaneously). I still dont believe it, simply because of the logistics. Like Afghanistan, there could be a cunning and shrewd resistance, but the ending would be inevitable. Of course this is all hypothetical, there's no way the U.S. would be stupid enough to start a fight, seeing as Pakistan is the one country who can help find Osama!
OK OK, the tangent is done. The night ended about at that point with the war talk, and one final thing kinda irked me. When everyone left, as per custom, the host family sees them off at the door. My brother and myself did so, but my mother was in her room! To top it off, everyone kept complimenting one of my AUNTIES on hosting the party! I told my mom this, and she knew about this! She said she thought it would be weird socializing with men, and chose to stay in her room. I MIGHT have agreed with her at times, but many of the "men" have known my mother, and knew my father, from before even I was born. I hardly think a joke here or there would lead to the dreaded "evil eye". My mother is always so self-concious about her image as a widow. She never wants anyone to get the wrong impression about herself. OK, I guess I know where I get that from now....
That's the abbreviated extended version (if that makes any sense at all).
You might have noticed that I have yet to mention my details of Saturday's events. There's good reason to, I had to gather my thoughts before I said something that might make me sound crazy (well, crazier than normal). Here's my recollection of events:
The day started of quite well. I made the decision to stay out of my mom's way by going out to a few malls with Zan (the brother). We kicked around the Scarborough Town Centre and Fairview Mall until about 6, when my mother phoned to let us know that we were to pick up food from the Pakistani grocer/restaurant at 7. We killed an hour in our car listening to our iPods individually. I hate that my brother is so quiet!
At 7 we hit Karchi Bazaar, where we went up to the restaurant section to pick up the biryani. The restauranteur said he hadn't received an order of any sort for food by anyone and said we should call our mother to check. Me and Zan - about to piss ourselves - quickly got on the phone, only to find that the guy was pulling our leg! The food was there and ready to be picked. It was about 7:20, and since our mother is all about panicking, she phones to ask where we are and what's taking so long (and you guys think that I'm neurotic!).
Arriving home we were welcomed by about 40 pairs of shoes in front of our door, and 20 hungry Pakistani-Canadians! I freak out, realizing I have left my room, computer, and drawers open for the picking. And in true desi fashion, I had a smattering of children and tweeners surrounding my beautiful computer! Later on when I asked why my mother she didn't make me room off limits, she responded by saying "I had no idea they even left the living room!". I felt so patronized!
As I previously mentioned, the children had halal pizza for dinner, and true to form - it was nasty. Of course we were lucky to have brought biryani, and my mom being my mom, she cooked about 4 side dishes to accompany it. Which begs the question : What was the point of ordering biryani and pizza when you were going to cook anyways?
Being the eldest male in the house, I basically had to play all-rounder, socializing with the auntie's, uncle's, children, and young-adults. It was obvious the uncles were a bit bored, until I managed to find a classic Noor Jehan tape from my dad's collection. (Noor Jehan was kinda like the Madonna of Pakistan from the 50s-80s, who actually had a good voice). The men were in awe at the performances my dad had collected over the years, a testament to the fact that us Rathore's love our bootlegging! Thankfully that film, and a few ashtrays, held them over for the night.
The aunties were, as always, content with gossipping amongst themselves. The young adult group ended up gabbing and watching the football game. Of course the kids managed to hog my own computer to the extent that I could barely fit into my own room!
Things seemed decent until about 9:00, when all hell broke loose. For starters, the kids ended up eating all of the desert, which was MEANT for the adults! I was REALLY looking forward to the rus malai, and got screwed over! That wasn't the first time it's happened either! Secondly, they managed to cut the power to my computer while it was on! And instead of calling me, an idiot 8-year old tried to turn it on himself by REPEATEDLY hitting the power button until he saw something. Since it takes about 5 seconds to see anything on screen, he MUST have hit it quite a bit, because once it was loading, it took WAYYYY too long. A startup which takes 3-5 minutes was still trying to load after 25 minutes! I promptly kicked the kids off, and went to work in attempts to save my computer. No worries though, the operation was successful. Not only did I fix the slowness (it needed defragmentation and error checking), I managed to get the kids off of the computer! And to top it off, I managed to get one of the mothers to yell at all the kids for being so rude all night!
The rest of the night went hunky-dory, culminating in one of the uncle's arguing that Pakistan could fight off an American invasion (this was all dependant on the U.S. fighting numerous battles around the world simultaneously). I still dont believe it, simply because of the logistics. Like Afghanistan, there could be a cunning and shrewd resistance, but the ending would be inevitable. Of course this is all hypothetical, there's no way the U.S. would be stupid enough to start a fight, seeing as Pakistan is the one country who can help find Osama!
OK OK, the tangent is done. The night ended about at that point with the war talk, and one final thing kinda irked me. When everyone left, as per custom, the host family sees them off at the door. My brother and myself did so, but my mother was in her room! To top it off, everyone kept complimenting one of my AUNTIES on hosting the party! I told my mom this, and she knew about this! She said she thought it would be weird socializing with men, and chose to stay in her room. I MIGHT have agreed with her at times, but many of the "men" have known my mother, and knew my father, from before even I was born. I hardly think a joke here or there would lead to the dreaded "evil eye". My mother is always so self-concious about her image as a widow. She never wants anyone to get the wrong impression about herself. OK, I guess I know where I get that from now....
That's the abbreviated extended version (if that makes any sense at all).
posted by Naveed at
12:30 AM
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