When Fatima held everyone’s gaze

[Prometheus]

When Fatima held everyone’s gaze


Khushwant Singh, Hindustan Times

"I have been to dozens of book launches, but I have yet to see one on as grand a scale as this one,” said my daughter Mala Dayal as she came home from the launch of Fatima Bhutto’s Songs of Blood and Sword (Penguin Viking). She continued “There must have been nearly 1,000 guests; it was a packed house. On the stage sat William Dalrymple in white kurta-pyjama and the Bhutto girl. She is a stunner. She was very craftily dressed to please her Indian audience and also maintain her Pakistani identity. She was draped in a sari instead of salwar-kameez and wore a red bindi on her forehead. That warmed the hearts of her Indian audience. Her sari was green — the colour of Pakistan. She spoke in flawless English about her country.”
My daughter had not read her book. No one in the audience had till after the launch. But some of her history is known. She introduces herself on book jacket in a few lines printed in red:
Grand-daughter to Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto — executed 1979
Niece to Shah Nawaz Bhutto — murdered 1985
Daughter of Mir Murtaza Bhutto — assassinated 1996
Niece to Benazir Bhutto — assassinated 2007
On these four skeletons Fatima Bhutto fleshes out the saga of the Bhuttos.
Their forefather Sir Shahnawaz Bhutto, Diwan of Junagarh, migrated back to his ancestral town, Garhi Khuda Baksh in district Larkana. His son Zulfiqar Ali rose to power in Pakistan before being hanged. Zulfiqar’s daughter Benazir out-manoeuvred her brother to grab her father’s political legacy and acquired vast amounts of real estate in Europe and America, to which her husband Asif Ali Zardari added a lot more. He came to be known as ‘Mr 10 per cent’ because he is said to have charged this as commission for brokering deals between the government and investors.
The assassins of Benazir Bhutto remain unidentified. But Fatima has named Asif Ali Zardari for four murders and having himself acquitted by a subservient judiciary. She has invited trouble, as if she harbours a death wish. She is as gutsy as she is beautiful.
She did me the honour of calling on me before she took her flight to Karachi. I could not take my eyes off her. I kept gazing at the pin-head of a diamond sparkling on the left side of her nose and her long jet-black curly hair falling on her shoulders. I hope I see her at least once more before my time is up.
Fatima ends her book in memorable prose: “Amidst all this madness, all these ghosts and memories of times past, it feels like the world around me is crumbling slowly, flaking away. Sometimes when it is late at night, I feel my chest swell with a familiar anxiety. I think at these times, that I have no more place in my heart for Pakistan. I cannot love it any more. I have to get away from it for anything to make sense, nothing here ever does. But when the hours pass, and as I ready myself for sleep as the light filters through my windows, I hear the sound of those mynah birds. And I know I could never leave.”
Incidentally, I also added a new word to my vocabulary which fits both Pakistan and India. It is ‘saprophytic’, which means feeding on decaying organic matter.
Both nations rely on all that is rotten in their past.

 

[Awesome]

I've ordered the book, its taking longer than usual to hit the stands. She is more than just a pretty face, if in the future she ever changes her mind about entering politics, she can trump out the Zardaris out of politics.

She also unfortunately has the baggage of being the daughter of somebody who back in the day was synonymous with Zardari. But I will add, that other than showing daughterly grief for her father's murder which is human, she is seen as a smart educated Bhutto for a change.

Anyone who has met the Bhutto Zardari kids, will tell you they are more into partying than in running the country. It just so happens whenever they have to make a TV appearance, they transform from shorts-sporting to hijab-clad women and the son played a nice volleyball game with his father by handing him the PPP chairmanship.

There is no validity for the Zardaris to lead the PPP other than Benazir Bhutto's fake "Will" written in poor English on a blank piece of paper.

 

[Creder]

Bhuttos from benazir's line are pretty much trashed however Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto is emerging as a fast competitor and future PPP leader. There's a lot of hope from this new kid. And im not talking about the dead zulfiqar ali bhutto, this is a new guy named after Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto

Source: My uncle, former PPPP MPA

 

[ice_man]

ok another person doing POLITICS OF THE DEAD! zardari is playing the bhutto card! and now fatima bhutto is playing the dead card!

seriously beginning to hate the bhuttos not because of what they did when they were alive but what happened after they died!!!

 

[r3alist]

give her a break, she is just making a bit of money and she knows exactly how to go about it, she is just trying to make a slice from india.

 

[RobbieS]

She is attractive and educated and is using it to good effect to push the sales of her book. I have heard she has conveniently skipped out the 'Al-Zulfiqar' era of her father's political career in the book.

 

[TechLahore]

I've met her in person and I've read the book and no, she hasn't skipped out on the Al-Zulfiqar era. I have several thoughts on what she's written, but I'll save that for later when I have a bit more time.

 

[k_n]

Review by William Dalrymple on Songs of Blood and Sword .
Family Matters - 1 -  International News ? News ? MSN India

 

[Materialistic]

Presumably honest.. But even if she is not, she'll still be better than Zardai's black blood.

 

[Peregrine]

Hi
And that is why Pakistan is in the hands of elites, People continue to be impressed by those who are born with silver spoon in their mouths. I wish people in Pakistan were not too snobbish. It is either some narcissist General who holds power through a coup or thug politicians who comes in the name of so called democracy & are often acceded by their offspring's holding foreign degrees, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif gave Pakistan the worst years of Pakistani history. Still people didn't care and brought zardari in the name of bhutto and i wont be surprised if they will bring Bakhtawar or this girl Fatima

 

[VrSoLdIeRs]

somehow she seems more sensible then the 'bhutto-zardari' kin... but she has to step out of the usual bhutto theme of doing the politics over dead bodies!!!!

 

[gurjot]

ehe is awesome