Family dinners in
most Pakistani households are also the occasion to air
one’s encounters with corruption and venality in the
course of a day. We are outraged at politicians,
officials, businessmen, and doctors and all else and
endlessly repeat stories of how everybody fleeces
everybody, while entertaining a sense of moral
superiority about ourselves. There is a pervasive
feeling that our society is falling apart, yet in the
same breath we talk about the West’s immorality.
