It was an extremely hot Wednesday afternoon. Champa Begum was sitting in her living room trying to read and analyse the news. She and her husband had to attend a high society dinner that weekend and she wanted to impress all the other banker/ industrialist wives with her knowledge on current affairs.

Apart from memorising the news and the op-eds, she also had the stressful task of deciding which designer she should wear -- some brands screamed "new and black money" while some screamed "not enough money" -- and finding the right balance between the two was an art very few women had mastered.

She read about the Chinese workers getting killed and the security being tightened for Chinese officials. Last weekend, Champa had started discussing the CPEC with other bankers’ wives, how much of this money was an investment? How much of it was loan? Will the local population get any job opportunities? How far will it take the economy? The transparency of it all was being questioned and everyone from political scientists, economists, investment bankers, bloggers to social media activists looked at it from their perspective…

Lots of arguments ensued. Lots of people wrote articles and blogs. The wives read everything or so it appeared as they repeated everything they read. It was hard keeping up with them. Some even tweeted regularly.

People had stated their fear that Pakistan was being colonised again. Some intellectual with a sense of humour wondered if a Chinese accent would have the same snob appeal as a British accent. Will Shanghai be the new London?

All Champa could think of, while this was being discussed, was whether the Chinese will start importing pork and bacon. Will Champa’s children be sitting next to the Chinese children as they eat pork sandwiches?

Although this thought gave Champa a tiny anxiety attack, she stayed quiet and made a mental note to google more information on CPEC.

The other wives were also investing in the Karachi Stock Exchange. They had a portfolio of stock they traded regularly. Thanks to CPEC, the stock market seemed to be fluctuating rather happily as investors were getting more and more optimistic but had their bad moods. Champa wondered if Shan food was selling its shares in the stock exchange which she could buy. Their ad with s Chinese model made her think the Chinese would buy up all the Shan biryani masala and their net worth would shoot up.

Another, rather juicy news that seemed to be giving people some anxiety was Nawaz Sharif having to prove the whiteness of his ‘questionably owned’, seemingly black assets. She wasn’t too sure what this meant for the country -- what will happen to the CPEC and the country if Nawaz gets fired.

What confused her the most was that such hue and cry was being created out of alleged corruption.

In Pakistan everyone’s assets are a little black, Champa thought. Everyone laundered money, that is how all the high society events are funded. She had even attended a lecture once on how money was laundered into white money by helping the underprivileged and throwing parties for government officials.

The next thing Champa read on was the Joint Investigation Committee (JIT). She wondered what this JIT was, how was it even formed. Then she read that the "SC formed the JIT". At first she thought SC stood for Sindh Club, then she thought maybe Sindh Court, finally she googled it and found out it meant the Supreme Court.

Confused and mentally exhausted, she decided to take a break from all this reading and make a list of all the designer clothing and accessories she owned.