A cola shot and a flavored drag
By Anum Pasha
So I’ve been reminiscing about the good ol’ days when a couple of us snuggled in front of the idiot box for a rerun of the American-driven, Friends series, a household name across the globe. My favorite parts were certainly those when all the characters got together for a mugga’ coffee…latte, cappuccino, and… well, very mouth-watering to see Chandler and Monica snuggle cozily on a sofa in Manhattan. And then there was the very girly, Gilmore Girls, where a day at the Stars Hollow began at six am with a hot, cuppa’ coffee at Luke’s Diner, where the entire town’s population hurried in for scrambled eggs, iced tea, bagel and what not. Yum.
Recently, while I sat through a lecture on ‘society and culture,’ some God-sent female raised a point on the fast-developing café culture in Lahore. Karachi was always hipper, sexier and all the works… but Lahore? Kitchen Cuisine started with a big, big bang and back in fourth grade, it was a luxury to tease the taste buds with the biggest, chocolaty-est cupcakes in the city! Then came the Coffee, tea and Company and it wasn’t long before, a tornado happened, and left us culture-confused people in the midst of Café Rocks, Café Sevenzzz, the Pancake lounge ( oh, you get the yummiest smoked, cheese omelet there but…) Café Life (err..life?) and another trillion, cafes which have names I have trouble remembering at twenty.
Just last night, I had a far-fetched argument with the granny about generation gaps… well, the two words scare the life out of me now, because even while I got rid of my teens, I feel the time is here when I’m feeling ‘it’ with my younger brother and his teeny-boppers. These are a bunch of boys and girls who like going to dark, dingy places like the one above Pancake Lounge (ya, I’ve forgotten the name)… for sheesha and perhaps, a drag of the fags they stole from daddy dearest’s cigarette box. These are a bunch of boys and girls who have their cards laid out on the coffee (?) table… I don’t want to hurl mockery at fifteen something’s prattling smoke- rings out of their small mouths somewhere in Mini-golf, but it makes me laugh quietly.
So we got that right. Dark, dingy and smoke-y – the question is, why are bursting hormones asking for such environments? Is it very essential for a sheesha evening out with classmates to be one which might shock the living daylights out of a parent who might just be passing by? Last year, the infamous ‘cat fight’ video that sped faster than germs, was one scoffed at by the entire student male population of the city…oh wait, even my forty-something bawarchi and his driver friends had it saved in their Nokia 1100’s. Apparently, the 17-year old females come from a prestigious English medium school, with branches all over the city – and one in Islamabad too, now. No… this wasn’t that verbal, you-re-a-b***h battle. It was one where pretty girls (oh well…) kicked each other in the a**, in the front, and almost everywhere else. Most uncles and aunties, who discussed the scene over dinner tables, presumed it had to be a love triangle… or some 18-year old macho that went to that huge boys’ school. The missing point of discussion, remains, that this blow happened just outside the Pancake Lounge in Defence- in the wee hours of the morning when the girls thought it were a good idea to bunk sociology class. Nevertheless, it’s sad how a breakfast lounge turned home to a scandal that not only blemished the reputation of these crazy females, but left a strong question mark on the cultural values within this generation… if there are any, at all.
Another one thing that I fail to understand is the distressing ambience at places like Café Zouk. Normally, when dinner evenings happen, a group of friends get together for catching up and exchanging grapevine… not, blaring music and lights so dim you can barely read the menu. For sure, there has to be a defining difference between a ‘café’ and a ‘club,’ – unfortunately, this city hasn’t really gathered that as yet. Abroad, café’s are nice and cozy with clean fun but when you take some foreign friends to a Café Life which is a swarm of hooligans adorning bandanas and holding a Marlboro, the picture isn’t that pretty.
Just recently, a sixteen-year old was telling me about his trip to Pizza Hut during Ramadan… apparently, the customers ran out of patience because they weren’t being served on time, and hence, this resulted into a fist fight – actually, a pizza fight which was brought to death by police intervention. Funnily enough, the boy’s eyes sparkled with excitement and pride as he continued to narrate the experience when he made sure he had destroyed five of their pizzas. So this is what a bunch of boys do when let loose, for iftari…nice.
In all seriousness, the borrowed ‘café’ culture from the West is a failed one in my poor country. The experience of growing up with kids who only like meeting up with homies in murky venues is a distressing one and the thought about my own growing up like that, already frights me. I don’t want to start a blame game here like them politicians are on national television, these days… but at the end of the day, parents who know little are held responsible for adolescent, public behavior. So much for a cola drag and a flavored shot!
In all seriousness, the borrowed ‘café’ culture from the West is a failed one in my poor country. The experience of growing up with kids who only like meeting up with homies in murky venues is a distressing one and the thought about my own growing up like that, already frights me. I don’t want to start a blame game here like them politicians are on national television, these days… but at the end of the day, parents who know little are held responsible for adolescent, public behavior. So much for a cola drag and a flavored shot!
Anum Pasha 
