There are only a few things in life more satisfying than watching someone reveal the truly pettiest parts of themselves. But I never thought that I would one day say this about watching Gohar Mumtaz (of Jal) saying Farhan Saeed (of Jal/not-Atif fame) wanted to be Atif Aslam (no explanation required).

Gohar’s recent interview — in its entirety — is a masterclass in grudges (and a headline generator for millennials who were once hooked to Aadat). In Gohar’s telling, Atif left Jal because he wanted to be Atif, and Gohar held a grudge against him (though in the interview he seems to have gotten over it, but those of us who came of age in the 2000s/message board trenches know better) and then got Atif-lite (Farhan) on board — who, by the way, he disparages so much that you might as well wonder how these two stuck it out for so many years — and Jal was never Jal after that, but now Gohar is begrudgingly saying that his Atif-lite wanted to be Atif. And while that has probably made the most headlines (and delighted millennials), please behold Gohar’s key revelation, and the pettiest grudge of them all — that he has, in retrospect, realised that there was no need for Farhan in the band! Frankly, this interview is the best thing Gohar has done since he got into a t-shirt with Atif.

While one of the great feuds of the early 2000s coming full circle might have made my heart sing, there is something truly fun about a petty little grudge. People (fully evolved adults, not me) are always telling you not to hold a grudge, ke dil bara karlo. But is it really so wrong to hold a grudge, to gripe over the person who has wronged you in the smallest of ways, to delight in a low-stakes fight? The answer is no. There is something delightful about holding tiny, beautiful, harmless little grudges - against family members, old friends, people we’ve ghosted, the plumber. In the words of my favourite writer and sage Fran Lebowitz: “Holding grudges is, I think, just another word for having standards.”

Frankly, one can only expand their hearts so much. I have already forgiven far too many people, and anyone who willingly watches the Pakistani cricket team play has already expanded their heart beyond capacity far too many times (my list of grudges very much includes the 24.99 Euros I paid to stream the T20 World Cup two years ago.) In fact, I would argue that my heart is certainly big enough; it is big enough to contain all the grudges and petty little hostilities that only I care about.

Oh, to count all the people whom my heart is permanently closed to: the writer who asked me for a million ideas and then never said thanks, the plumber who left the bathroom in a worse state than when he arrived, leaving the apartment a minefield of potential tetanus infections and a woman in near-mental breakdown i.e. me. There was the bakery next to my apartment building that spent so long renovating its premises that every hole they drilled in the adjoining walls felt like it was being directly administered to my brain. To boot, the bakery was 1) not good, and 2) promptly shut down, with its chief legacy only being memories of the migraines caused by the Taj Mahal-level construction. I am still annoyed at the person who threw trash down into the building vent, which landed just outside my window, even though I had it cleaned almost immediately, and I no longer live in that apartment, or in Karachi for that matter. Instead of asking us to expand our hearts and forgive, why not ask the people we hold grudges against to do better?

A grudge is like a small little grumble, less on the scale of annoyances, somewhere between full-fledged enmity and whatever, it’s fine! Grudges are harmless, because they only annoy you, and no one else. It’s the kind of thing you remember when you see someone after a while and suddenly remember what exactly they did to irk you. It can be hard to let go of because the thing they did is often so outlandishly inane, but it has an outsized effect on the way you perceive them. It is not life-changing, but it is mood-altering, a slight jab in your ribs every time you remember it. It’s the kind of thing that gives you pause when someone asks if you know of a person, but you're not angry enough to launch into a full-fledged rant. In fact, it’s likely that some of you will forget many grudges. (Not me, see above for evidence not-fully-evolved person.) There are some people whose behavior is so startlingly awful that you cannot help but start a low-stakes grudge match.

But I am assured I am not alone; in fact, I am delighted when someone has a grudge just as petty as any of mine, a grudge only they can understand and seethe over. I solicited some grudges from friends and acquaintances online. One person is still holding on to a grudge — her love interest rather mercilessly mocked her for being a 30-something who owned fairy lights — a perfectly fine decorative item, at any age! — and now she can never use them. But the most egregious, truly deserving of a grudge incident, comes from someone, who, many years ago, bought a rather expensive box of baklava from Istanbul back to Pakistan. Before you say anything, please bear in mind that the conversion rate from Euros to rupees for someone on a salary is enough to induce a panic attack. One day, an aunt and uncle visited Sana’s house, and she offered the baklava to them to sample. A perfectly nice thing to do, of course, or so you would think. Unfortunately, during said visit, she went to the bathroom and came back to discover that one of the guests had finished the entire box.

You might think grudges make you lonely, but my barometer for when an acquaintance becomes a friend is that magical moment when they hesitatingly say: ‘don’t judge me, but I have to say something about ….’ Grudges are better than all-out enmities. They make us a little more human by stripping us of social obligations and absolving us of forced niceties to some of the worst people we’ve ever had to encounter. So, may we all live in our grudges forever, forever holding it against the aunt who made a jab about your Eid outfit, the courier company that didn’t deliver your parcel on time, the person who ruined a restaurant/film/actor/book for you, the person who told you, with a full face of makeup, that you look tired.

Sana has not gotten over the baklava thief, and never will. I, for one, 100% agree. I’m still holding a grudge against my husband for eating an entire pack of McVities chocolate-covered digestive biscuits eight years ago without letting me know. I have eaten many biscuits since, but I won’t get over this, I can’t, I shan’t. In the immortal words of Gohar/Jal/Atif/Farhan/and all the 2000s-boys who tried to impress girls with poorly performed acoustic songs: ab to aadat si hai mujhko aise jeene main.