Dear Diary.
Hello. I’m Captain Jawad Generic, an officer in the sensitive agencies in the service of the motherland. I’ve been feeling under the weather lately, very much fatigued and angsty. I really can’t say what this affliction is, although my trusted colleague and old boarding school mate suggests that it is probably stress that is to be blamed. We work long and hard hours in the forces you see. And sometimes the workload gets to us, rendering us antisocial and irritable. He recommends that I start putting my thoughts down on paper to relieve some of this pressure. He had personally done this last year during his posting as Station Chief New Delhi (a most tough posting I hear), and it apparently worked wonders for him. So, I’m giving it a shot.
I will begin documenting and archiving the events of my life in my diary (recently purchased from Saeed Book Bank, Jinnah Super Market, Islamabad as part of a fabulous discount for forces’ employees buying a copy of Jeremy Scahill’s expose on Blackwater!). These events will be re-told as they happen, with an obvious addition of my own opinions on the matters at hand.
Regards, Captain Generic.
Captain Jawad Generic
Monday
Duty outside Indian High Commission, Diplomatic Enclave, Islamabad.
Sigh. My week got off to the worst possible start. I was posted outside the Indian High Commission visa section on espionage duty, where my job entailed establishing the motivations of those poor, hapless souls who applied for Indian visas. It is exasperating work by any standard, being out in the sun with one measly tent to offer protection. On top of that, imagine the indignity of having to borrow drinking water from the Indian Embassy personnel.
Worst, though, are the visa applicants: wretched scum of this pure soil who for whichever Godforsaken reason want to cross the border and visit the Other Country. Such characters I saw! There was this pathetic old lady who was mumbling something about wanting to see long lost relatives for Eid. She apparently was in some delusion that she will cook finger licking-good mutton karahi and will be put on a glamorous train that zooms through the fields of Punjab and ends up in New Delhi, where she will take a charming tonga ride through the cramped, rustic streets of the Muslim neighborhoods of the old city, finally arriving at her magnificent ancestral haveli where she will be greeted by her estranged brothers, sisters, cousins, their sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters, their neighbors, their neighbors’ sons and daughters, their neighbors’ grandsons and granddaughters, the old mochi, kasai, halwai, sunar, kumhar, lohar, and their sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters and other assorted characters from the ol’ mohalla. I tried to reason with the woman: madam, this only happens in TV ads such as these.
She would, of course, have none of it, and got in the visa application line, only to come face to face with a filthy bald Hindu who rejected her application on the pretext of her not having filled out the application form. At all. Apparently women grew up illiterate in magnificent havelis in inner city neighborhoods in pre-partition northern India.
And then there was this silly motley crew of young university-going boys and girls who wanted to attended some “youth development and cultural exchange” conference next month. Say what? This always drives me nuts. Every once in a while this random group or the other come sauntering in with an influential-sounding letter from some big shot industrialist and hope they will get a bloody Indian visa in time for their alcohol-laden debauchery festival in some wretched Indian city or the other masquerading as a fucking “youth development and cultural exchange” conference. My blood boils looking at these snobs and their desire to go party with hot Delhi girls and then post pictures on the internet with comments such as “Yaro Yehi Dosti Hai, Kismat Se Jo Milli Hai.” Fuck me.
Thankfully this is one issue where the bald Hindu and I see eye to eye. He summarily dismissed their “application” and practically tore their influential big shot’s letter into pieces, saying he doesn’t want these kids to go prancing around Hyderabad Deccan with a video camera recording tourist attractions and then handing over that stuff to some naughty people with bad motives.
Now how the fuck he came up with that ludicrous idea is beyond me! But, on second thought, it’s fascinating isn’t it? I wonder if we can use it in our next, um, assignment.
Posted by Gulbadan 
