A diary is a record with discrete entries arranged by date
reporting on what has happened over the day, or another period. It
is a powerful form of writing, it reflects a person’s emotions, hope, plans,
and inner thought.
Background of The Novel
The Diary of a Social Butterfly is a comedy novel by a Pakistani
writer MONI MOHSIN written in the form of a journal. The humor is
derived from the constant misspellings and incorrect pronunciations. This book
is a compilation of some of the MONI MOHSIN columns published in the
(Friday times of Lahore), covering seven (7) critical years in Pakistani
history from 2001 to 2008. Firstly, portraying the geopolitical history of the
world, including wars, militarization, the 9/11 incident, the president Us
dilemma, earthquake, emergency rule, Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, and
fundamentalist policies larger socio-political and economic trends of recent
years, the rise of consumerism, increasing cultural alienation between rich and
poor, the gradual breakdown of law and order, the face-off between civil
society and army, women’s growing presence in the workplace, the tension
between the landed gentry and nouveau riche, and the multifarious pleasures and
pains of globalization. Secondly presenting the vain outlook of a typical
subcontinent socialite and the people around her. It is almost difficult to
believe that anyone can extract humor out of it in a light-hearted manner.
The diary provides an insight into how the political and
economic turmoil in Pakistan simply slide over butterfly-like gossip sessions
with her friend who are snobbish regardless of the bombs exploding around her.
At first glance, it seems inconceivable that the period which saw Pakistan turn
into one of the most unstable countries in the world could be the source of
comedy to anyone.
Critical Analysis
The main attraction of this book is the protagonist BUTTERFLY who
lives in Lahore, is married to JANOO, and has a
teenaged son KULCHOO. BUTTERFLY
seems to be shallow, pretentious, party postulant out of touch with reality.
Her husband JANOO is a sane,
sedate, Oxford graduate, intensifies the presence of one another. Pakistan may
be making headlines - but BUTTERFLY is set to conquer the world. BUTTERFLY is
a silly, insensible, and inane socialite based in Lahore who not only loves to
eat her husband's head but also gleefully raves and rants about different
geopolitical situations of her country.
One of the book’s greatest strengths is butterfly’s style of
speaking, misspellings resulting from false phonetic realizations of words,
incorrect intonations, funny parsing, inter-language rhythmic parallels in word
selections, literal translations of idioms and proverbs, Urdu phrases,
imitation of Urdu morphological patterns .casual code borrowing, cute
contractions, all intended and well thought out. However, our central character
butterfly could not care less even she needed were parties, social engagements
perfect attires, shoes, and hairstyles, shawls, and accessories.
The butterfly begins each entry of the diary by just mentioning
the major political development followed by another event that plays a major
role and social satire. She has a distinct identity which can make this
exaggerated satire on incorrigible socialite’s life. This book has a
multilayered structure, despite its moments of comic relief the diary does get
predictable and boring towards the end. Misspelling bad grammar and repetition
revolves throughout the book.
This article is written by Hira Wazir, one of the contributors at the School of Literature.
