Technically, it’s not one word.

The first time I heard this word was on a promotion show of Pakistani movie Parchi. It was a looooong time ago, you might have guessed. Hareem and Ali Rahman were promoting, and Hareem had casually borrowed the coffee as she answered a question about someone being a Parchi or not.

“Oh, yes, Parchi AF… Give me your coffee.”

Something like that.

The second thing I noticed was that she shared a very comfortable relationship with Ali, enough to borrow his coffee without hesitation, even though Ali’s expressions were like he’s a bit taken aback. The first thing I noticed was that I don’t know what AF means.

I googled, of course, and even though I’m not a huge fan of cuss words, this one got into “acceptable” terms.

Some Urdu words have no equivalent English translation. Similarly, some English terms/phrases can never be satisfactorily said in Urdu. AF is one such thing.

Shabana Mukhtar