the olive ream

To: The Olive Ream, while you were out, your conscience called and left the following message.

You vacationing little git! How dare you leave on holiday with out me, leaving me here to stew in my own juices. Have you any idea what I’ve been going through? While you were gorging on sumptuous meals in fancy restaurants and maxing out your credit card on clothes you don’t need and art that you can’t afford (and don’t understand), I’ve been keeping track of things that you should have noticed while on holiday in Lahore. But I am not going to tell you any of those things, as you don’t deserve to know.

I am not going to tell you that not everyone that knocked on the car window at traffic signal was a beggar. Some of them were genuinely trying to sell you something (a news paper, a garland of flowers and incense sticks) and were generally more deserving than the wave of your hand to motion them to leave.

I am not going to tell you, that the waiter at Cooco’s Den was deserving of an additional tip because he was the only waiter there after the official closing time serving you and your friends on the roof top terrace (when the temperature was -2).

I am not going to mention that revulsion (and resulting hysterics) you should have suffered staring at the ubiquitous billboards with the image of the Punjab Chief Minister (and his ever-present constipated smile). Apparently, he is inaugurating or launching or promoting every new government initiative there is or ever likely to be in Lahore.

I am not going to tell you that you should have actually spent time admiring the architecture of the old buildings, rather than taking pictures of them like a Japanese tourist.

I am not going to mention that you should have spent more time talking to the students at NCA, rather than just admiring that art work. What an amazingly talented group of individuals they all are.

I am going to tell you that you should have spoken to the old man with the wheelbarrow collecting plastics bags that you saw every morning in Askari rather than to just photograph him.

I am not going to mention that you shouldn’t have laughed so much at the call to prayer by the tone-deaf muezzin at the Askari mosque, and his desperate attempts to sound in tune. (You will be going straight to hell for this one!)

I am not going to mention that you should have sourced the curator of the Lahore Museum and asked why a building that houses original Sadequain art work, is below freezing in temperature during the winter months. Is it an experiment in cryogenics to ensure posterity of the collection or an experiment in cryonics to ensure the posterity of the visitors to the museum?

And I am not even going to mention the international news that you missed out on while on vacation. With endless calls for exiting Iraq, Bush obliges by increasing the numbers of troops to be deployed to Iraq (naturally), which results in more deaths and chaos every day in that peace forsaken country, which leads to increase hostility in the region, which would result in moving forward the US/Israel plans to attack Iran, which would result in some insane Al Qaeda-labeled terrorist attack, which could possibly escalate to a nuclear war, and in turn cause even Paris Hilton to be concerned about more than just having a bad hair day. So, as far as international news is concerned, not much has changed while you were on vacation.