Wakeup time is somewhere around noon. It’s truly becoming habit now sleeping at 4.00 in the morning and getting up around 12.00, a habit I seemed to have slipped into quite easily but I still manage to be ready for my 1.00 pickup. I had agreed with Sharjeel yesterday that he would take me to Mall Road at 1.00 and it’s now 1.30 and we are no where near getting to the door as he starts making a fuss about going. You take her he tells his younger brother who in turn just wants me to give him the list of things I want, I’ll go get them on my own he replies. Being talked over for 10 minutes as the two brothers to and fro about who will take me I have enough and put my foot down. Listen, don’t piss me around, ether tell me when we are going or tell me you don’t want to take me and I’ll get a rickshaw, I didn’t need this shit. I hate being pissed around, either we go or tell me that you do not want to go, I’m not forcing you to take me and I’m not going to beg you, with that I go back to packing my bags. OK I‘ll take you Sharjeel concedes before we go through the whole drama again but this time it’s about getting my bags weighed. I need to know how much stuff I have before I can buy anything else, even though I may have a 40kg limit it’s not confirmed yet and I have stuff I need to take back for Aneela so don’t want to over do it. No one seems to have a set of working weighing scales in this place so the next best thing is to take my bags down to the rag and bone man down the road who has a huge setoff those old fashion weighing scales and weights but Sharjeel and Yalmaaaz get into another argument about who should take the stuff down there. You go no you go, I’m taking her shopping so you go. Stuff the both of you I’ll go I say picking up my box and storming to the front door only to be stopped by Samra who forces Yalmaaz to go stating how bad it would look to the neighbours that a guest is carrying her won bags and that to a female when the house is full of boys. Why is everything so stressful around here! Things between Sharjeel and I have been very strained this time around whereas last time I spent most of my time with him this time I find myself more and more in Samra and Yalmaaz’s company. Compared to him his younger brother is a lot more mature and easy going. Speaking of which he returns to let me know that my box weighs 9 and a half kgs and my backpack weighs 18, so 27 kg is still within the allowable limit of the 30kg I do know that I have.

Don’t pay more then 30-40 rupees for a DVD Sharjeel coaches me when we are in the car. OK I reply trying to keep conversation to a minimum as he cries on. I’ll do the talking he continues; I’ll get you a good price. OK I repeat not even paying attention, well that was until he gets in a sarcastic comment. Oh it’s OK for me to do the talking for you but not OK to hand the money over on your behalf. I knew it, I knew he still had a bee in his bonnet about me paying for the lens myself and not giving him the money so he could hand it over. Listen I square up to him, regardless of you talking on my behalf or not I’ll still be handing the money over myself so get used to it. You’re problem is you want to be man but I don’t need to rely on a man, I’m not like the rest of the women in this country so you are just going to have to get used to that. I appreciate that you drive me around but it would not be the end of the world if I had to go out on my own and with that it’s the end of the conversation as he pulls a face. I can’ believe he is still sulking about the lens.

Parking up we go into the first shop Sharjeel decides is worthy of our custom and I ask for the DVD’s I am interested in. 90 rupees per DVD I am told, well Sharjeel is told even though I am doing the asking. I just stand back and let him talk, I know from Yalmaaz that the price of each DVD is 80-90 rupees so I know there is not a chance in hell that the price will be cut in half, there is no way the guy will come down that low and besides Yalmaaz buys DVD’s all the time so he is far more in touch with the prices but Sharjeel being Sharjeel thinks he is always right and starts his bargaining. 40 he says addressing the shop holder who just laughs at him and says no 80. Go on mate it’s 40 he tries again and is told if he does not like the price he can go elsewhere, he takes a step back. That’s it that is Sharjeel’s attempt at being man over with, that is just so typical Sharjeel, he gives it all big, so sure he is right that he can get things done, knows the right people in the right places and then nothing, he just concedes. He is like a Katherine wheel left in the rain, promises to be the highlight in the finale but just ends up with a couple of sparks and then just a lot of smoke, a big disappoint. If only I could nail him to the wall and leave him there ;p. the whole scenario just makes me laugh, angry but makes me pity him at the same time. Talking to the shop owner I find out I can buy the originals for 150 per disc (it’s hard to get originals in Pakistan, everything is counterfeit) so end up doing that instead and getting a music CD for 60. Every shop in Pakistan sells pirated DVD’s and software openly, there’s no crackdown on buying or selling counterfeit but there is on taking it out of the country so I would prefer to pay the extra and know that I will not be stopped at the airport. Anything you buy in Pakistan comes in 3 varieties. Level 1 is the real deal, the original real product. Level 2 is a fake made to look like the real thing and the 3rd level is a total out and out fake. It doesn’t pretend to be something else, it’s not packaged to look like a brand, it’s shite in a box. DVD in hand Sharjeel doesn’t even attempt at trying to take the money of off me to pay, the boy is finally learning.

That done in half an hour I get dropped of at Arshad’s house and ask him to pick me up after he has opened his fast and done the evening prayers. Yeah OK is his answer as he speeds of and I spend the afternoon catching up with the Mirza family. I’m getting stick for not coming round earlier but I manage to get out of it by pointing out that I was ill. They have brought me a nose stud along with a bed sheets and pillow cases and Bhaji’s mother gives me some suit material as a leaving present but above all I get my ticket out of here and check to see that indeed my weight limit has been pushed up to 40kg, 10 over the normal allowance so take some of Aneela’s stuff that she left behind last time, 6kg of the extra 10 goes on her stuff which is fair enough as she got me the extra allowance and on the plus side it will stop me buying much in Dubai. Lying around waiting for fasting to break I start asking about Saudi and how I can get there. You will not b allowed to go there on your own Sonia informs me, as she has lived out there and is waiting for her visa to return. Why can’t I go out there on my own, who will stop me? You will never get a visa in the first place she carries on explaining the situation for me. There is no tourism in Saudi, so the only visa you will get is either a work visa or a Haj one. Seeing as they mostly only have jobs for men as I woman you will come in on your husband’s visa as family. Oki get that so what about a Haj visa? I ask, I can get one of those. No not as a single visa, women can only go on Haj with a man, the man has to be either her brother, father, husband or son. You will only get a Haj visa if you apply with a guy related to you she continues. OK so I apply for one with a male family member and then they don’t catch the flight, I pretend they are ill and go on my own. You will get there she says but you will not be allowed out of the airport, they will keep your passport and put you on the next flight back. That’s preposterous what if I am an orphan with no husband or son and I want to go on Haj? They can’t let a Muslim not go to Haj. You can still go she says but then will have to go in an organised tour group. What if I do and then give them the slip? You can’t, they will keep your passport until you get back on the plane out. No, I refuse to believe that I can not go there on my own without a man, up until now I have had no interest to go to Saudi but now it’s a challenge, it’s become personal I will find a way to go to Saudi and I will go on my own I promise her as she says somehow I think you will find a way. What have I just done? I don’t even want to go there, I never have but someone for got to tell my big mouth that! The conversation continues over dinner and the more I hear about the country the more hypocritical and pretentious I find it, nothing I hear about the country and it’s rules warms me to it, from the way the men treat the women to the Friday after prayers executions everyone is forced to watch, crazy totally crazy. Saudi calls itself true Muslim country but half the things they do are not what Islam preaches.

After dinner starts the waiting game, come 11.00 and there is still no sign of Sharjeel, his time keeping really pisses me off and finally I give him a ring as I know this lot like to go to sleep by this time. Oh mum and Yalmaaz left half an hour ago, they are coming to pick you up. Cool, we will be hitting the town, when Sahrjeel drives he hates to take his mother anywhere but between us we can manage to talk Yalmaaz to stop of somewhere. 20 minutes later they finally turn up, the customary greetings and invitation to come in and have tea noises are made before we make the right excuses and are let off with a next time you must come in. I say a final goodbye to everyone and with my goodies in the boot of the car we drive of towards Liberty, the upmarket shopping and hangout area for the rich Lahore only to find the shops closing up for the night. I don’t get these Ramadan timings, do they ever open? We decide to check out a few of the sops that are still open before heading back home for dinner at 2.30 in the morning.

As I sit outside in the open dining area one of the women from upstairs Sunny turns up to join in. Totally ignoring Sharjeel she asks me if I am leaving tomorrow. She knows fully well that I am, yes early Friday morning I reply trying to keep conversation as short as possible but this does not stop her questions and somehow I end up accepting an offer for iftari tomorrow thinking this is lunch but once she leaves Sharjeel corrects me. Iftari is when people open their fast, 7.00 he informs me. Bugger, that was when I had planned to take Samra and the kids out for food, I’m opening their fast tomorrow night. I am going to have to get out of this one somehow without starting a family feud and believe me there have been family wars started for less then this. I’ll think of something tomorrow, right now I need to get some sleep, its way past 4.00 and as we hit the bed Samra is in a talkative mood and in-between Shumail moaning about the heat we manage to work out that we have 58 cousins in common as the topic of conversation is family. Can we turn on the A/C Shumail keeps moaning as we try to talk and Samra keeps telling him no as I feel cold but finally we give in as Shumail quips oh it’s so hot in here, I feel like I am sleeping in a poor person’s house. So as the A/C goes on the lights go out and so do I.