10 things nosy ‘Pak’ers love to ask

Next time a busybody asks you an annoying question, answer with one of these conveniently snappy responses.

Do you ever get riled up by busybodies asking annoying questions to ‘place’ people in their social world? Well, here are some conveniently snappy answers we wish we could respond with (you might even get away with some of them if you did; sarcasm is often lost on the unwitting).

1. Have you found anyone eligible yet?

Yes (enter Mashallah), I have won the marriage lottery! She/he is, Mashallah, loaded and divorced only thrice.

2. Who is your father?

 He is Mian/Chaudhry (enter name) and owns (enter name of mill/bank).

3. What does your husband do?

See answer number 2 please.

4. What village are you from?

It doesn’t matter if you have never seen cow-dung in real life, you have to name the villages your grandparents lived in pre and post partition. To be cheeky, you can always say:

 “I am from Greenwich Village.”

5. Who is your family and your in-laws?

This has to be answered with the name of a steel, oil, or textile mill as a prefix and adding ‘walla’ as a suffix (especially if you’re a Karachiite. Here it goes;

“You must have heard of the Steelwallas?”

6. So what do you do all day?

This question is usually directed towards the the spouse/offspring of affluent industrialists and corrupt politicians:

 “I spend money and pretend to work.”

7. What’s their background?

Here you may provide a synopsis of said person’s birth, ethnicity and ancestry, political and romantic scandals, education and career achievements and, especially, failures.

8. Who are your friends?

Name anyone famous or infamous, preferably several years younger so you appear more youthful by association. It's more preferable if they feature in Pakistan’s top 20 richest families list.

9. What is his/her ‘scene?’

Answer with a read-between-the-lines synopsis of the said person’s lifestyle and romantic status, like:

“She is very outgoing (ie skanky) or

“She’s on the hunt for someone loaded” (that means she is a gold digger) or

“He hasn't had a serious relationship” (which suggests that he is probably gay) or

“They used to be very rich” (ie he has no money of his own).

10. Where is your accent from? Amrika? Ing-land? Canayda?

"I learned to fake it at a call centre” or

“I’m an RJ at FM89.”