Family and I were invited for dinner at Aban’s last night. With shan, aban and alhan’s appetite missing, the dinner still very nice. Amrat, as I have said a zillion times already is a very very very good cook. And as always, the discussion varied from television shows to politics and religion. And my problem is that when I start talking, I cannot eat. So by the time I finished narrating how imbeciles are running the electronic media (ahem) I was only left with a lamb chop while everybody else had finished their Kheer. I actually felt like asking amrat ‘please ma’am! Can I have some more?’

After the dinner, Amrat and I sat down by the fire place and we started talking about our careers. She was recently offered a very good job which is she turned down because she didn’t want to spend 12 hrs a day working with no eid holidays. The problem with being in the media is that you have to be available all the time. If you miss something, you might be missing something big and the chances of redeeming oneself are pretty low. That is the main reason why I know that by staying in this field I will be exhausted pretty soon. So I do agree with what Amrat said. The conversation then turned towards…yes you guessed it, Marriage.
I started off with the whole independent speech, how we are strong capable women and we don’t need this etc. But Amrat simply said that she wants to get married. I believe that Amrat is one person who has her heart and her head in the right place. And I agree it’s often a question of our wants rather than needs. But what bothers me is that why is this particular topic engulfing our lives? Every friend I call is either getting married, engaged, having babies etc. I really wish I could fast forward this phase and get it all over with.

I am the king of the news desk today. An is off once again to get someone in her family married. Dogar sahab is as usual missing in action and Farrukh sahib takes Saturday off. Pakistan is playing against India and is 470-4 with Younis batting at 99. I just finished making frantic phone calls to our Bajur Agency correspondent as what everyone in every news agency wants to confirm is if Zawahiri really was the target in these attacks?

I want popcorn!