Aliya feels hungry when a traditional dish is about to be ready in the kitchen. Aliya gives it the final touch, as per written instruction by Samia. Aliya has no idea about the difference between dhania and pudina. she is familiar with it as 'some green thing.' Although she has done the way paper by Samia tells her. Still, she is with Masood that,' two hands on one spoon spoilt the flavor of a dish.'
Aliya introduces Masood, the chef in the novel, at Sammi's place, showing that he is not only an expert but also has a profound knowledge of his profession. The description of the spirituality of chicken Karahi is also fascinating, i.e., "when the spices and the meat dissolve the boundaries between them." This, again, is told by Masood.
She was not yet satisfied with her appetite when she listened to Khaleel's voice. He was calling her name, and it was a pretty pleasant and shocking surprise for her to see Khaleel outside her house, exhibiting himself as an 'American Cliche. Through her suitcase tag, he managed to get to her address.
Khaleel started from where their last meeting ended. He asked about their sudden exit from the train as soon as he told them about his hometown. Aliya tried to cover and handle the situation showing she did not want to hurt Khaleel for some reason, which will be disclosed in the later chapters. Furthermore, Aliya, contrary to her family, especially Dadi, is against the so-called class division in Pakistan. Although Khaleel later shared such embarrassing situations, he faced them in his school times. That is the reason he felt Samia's abrupt reaction.
Aliya and Khaleel discussed Karachi's change from a swamp kind of 'wasteland to a concrete kind of 'Wasteland' it is not only a real-time picture but also click us about T.S. Eliot's Wasteland, a critical, dramatic monologue written in the wake of modern alienation of humankind due to Industrial Revolution.
They both went to a nearby cafe to have a cup of coffee or to make the meeting longer. Aliya talked about her visits to Karachi. She always plans her visits officially during her spring break, but she plans exactly the months she knows Dadi will not be there. Her Dadi spent June, July, and August with her younger son in Paris. She left on 16th June instead of her son's birthday. Khaleel told her about the hot weather in Paris during these same months, as he is a French citizen. He also told her about his parents and that they are physics professors by profession, as he does not want to be pigeonholed in Liaquatabad.
Dadi leaves Karachi during the summer, especially when the monsoon is around Karachi. It is Dadi's deliberate departure to avoid monsoon, which otherwise is considered a pleasant and frivolous season of the year, as this can be the only way to escape her lovely memories during these monsoon months. The writer wonderfully describes the festivity of the monsoon season in Pakistan, the singing of the songs, the swinging of the swings, the clinking of the bangles, the special feasts, the mango parties, and many more. Above all, in Dadi's time, the girl who swung highest received a diamond gift from Nawab. These are the sentimental and emotional memories that haunt Dadi, and she leaves Karachi every year during monsoon "so that she would not remember all those girls she sang with and all the luster of her early life."
A very interesting was created by Khaleel when he poured his tea into a saucer and made slurping sounds. He intentionally did the practice to see how Aliya reacted. Moreover, how Aliya's eyes took a round of the cafe hall explains everything to Khaleel and the reader. Khaleel's tea-taking move, on the one hand, helps Aliya to understand Khaleel, and she guesses him from a lower middle class whose parents are not Professors; instead, they somehow made it to America by chance or by luck, or he spent a year or so in the land of opportunity and now going back to Karachi to brandish his degree to his relatives over there. On the other hand, Aliya's rotating eyes helped Khaleel to decide to say Goodbye to the relationship at the very onset. It shows her average and catty behavior, as Samia had shown to Khaleel. Moreover, this is also reflected in Khaleel's dialogue, "The insurmountable problem is that when you think of me, there is logic to your thoughts."
Khaleel is right. Aliya behaved like an average character, but his bidding goodbye forced her to reveal her fears. She started with MariumApa and Masood. How MariumApa only liked to talk to him and took the food cooked by Masood. From Marium and Masood, she shifted the talks back to the Mughal empire and its tragic end in 1957. The pathetic state of the last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafer. Meanwhile, Khaleel taunts Aliya for being the descendant of the last Mughal Emporer in response to the fears Aliya shows about Dard e Dill. "Would it make you happier if I told you I was a Mughal prince?' he says to Aliya.
Aliya then gives a comprehensive insight into the Not quite Twin idea from where it originated. Kulsoom and Sharukh's birth started the theory of Not quite twins that runs through the novel as one of the main themes.
The reference to "Adam's arm reaching towards God" shows the grip of the writer's artistic taste. Moreover, the use of "a UFO had landed behind the Ritz" shows the writer's imaginative flight. MariumApa's careful attitude towards the hibiscus bush, "with one branch that curved out from the rest of the plant," symbolically explains MariumApa's status in the Dard e Dill family. The diction used is simple. The spirituality of the cooked chicken Karahi is the ultimate description.
