With Shahida talking on, my gaze settled upon a tall, dark, handsome man in a black suit. His starched white shirt was set off by a burgundy tie and a matching handkerchief. My mind classified him as a rake, a bit devilish in an appealing sort of way. He had attracted a group of women around him, who seemed to hang on his every word. But the buzz of gentle conversation, the tinkle of ice cubes and well-manicured laughter made it impossible for me to hear. I asked my new friend who he was.
“Him? You mean you don’t know who he is?” Shahida sounded surprised.
My face must have registered curiosity because she quickly explained, “That is Mustafa Khar”.
“Oh,” I replied.
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After he [Shakirullah Durrani – father of Tehmina Durrani] left the army, during Field Marshal Ayub’s presidency, he had initiated and developed the first Investment Corporation of Pakistan (ICP). Then in 1967, he was appointed Managing Director of PIA. Later, when General Yahya Khan declared martial law and became President, my father was appointed Governor of the State Bank of Pakistan.
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His [father of Tehmina Durrani] demeanor turned serious as he reported the details of his day to mother in clipped, crisp English, as if looking for approval. If he ventured a joke, her lips tightened. Father had to live by my mother’s rules. He interfered with nothing in the house; my mother took all the decisions regarding our home.
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Bhutto was now committed to fighting for the supremacy of West Pakistan. He asked my father surreptitiously to withdraw state assets from the east. Although my father was sympathetic, he refused to undertake such an unethical action, and Bhutto took the rebuff poorly. In December of that year, India finally invaded East Pakistan. General Yahya Khan accepted responsibility for the defeat and break-up of Pakistan and resigned; and Bhutto became the undisputed leader of all that remained of our country – what had formerly been West Pakistan.
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I still did not love Anees [husband of Tehmina Durrani]. If I had, perhaps I would have found Mustafa Khar less intriguing, and less troubling.
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Khar means ‘ass’ in Persian.
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Democracy took hold in India and the feudal system collapsed. But in Pakistan, although lip-service was paid to democratic principles, feudal lords remained in control. It was they who decided who would sit in National Assembly and who would reside in the Prime Minister’s house.
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Shikar [hunt] taught Mustafa courage, endurance, and patience. And through hunting he grasped the importance of strategy and tactical maneuvering. He learned how to lure, entice and entrap.
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Mustafa told me later he had married his illiterate cousin, Wazir, who was many years older than him. She immediately became pregnant. Mustafa ran away from his village and his fate, fleeting first to Multan and then to the great city of Lahore. Here he fascinated by such mysteries as the sight of a woman with a stylish hair-do sitting cool and poised behind the steering wheel of a shiny car. He lacked the social grace necessary to approach such and ice-maiden; at the moment, he could only lust from distance.
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At the hillside resort of Murree, Mustafa met women who purveyed their charms for a price, and he discovered that he was comfortable with professional sex.
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Back home, Wazir suffered in silence. Her humiliation was compounded when the elders dissolved her marriage to Mustafa and gave her to her much younger brother-in-law. She bore Mustafa’s first son, Abdur Rehman.
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Meanwhile, in Murree, Mustafa befriended a man who had an attractive and somewhat educated sweetheart Firdaus. When Firdaus discovered that she was pregnant, the man fled and Mustafa provided a comfortable crying shoulder. To Mustafa, the faller Firdaus was a victim of society. He married her on impulse, and in the course of time Firdaus gave birth to a son, bearing Mustafa’s surname. And within a year a second son, Billoo, was born. All this responsibility proved too much for Mustafa, who now decided that he had confused sympathy with love. Even as Firdaus was in the hospital recuperating from Billoo’s birth, Mustafa sent her divorce papers.
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Somewhat chastened, Mustafa returned to his village and – in a typical feudal fashion – was forgiven by his elders.
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Jatoi introduced Mustafa to the dynamic foreign minister, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, and the two men began a complex relationship that was to vacillate between the extremes of love and hate. Like many young men at that time, Mustafa fell under the magnetic spell of Bhutto.
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Bhutto, believing that President Ayub Khan had won the war on the battlefield but lost it across the negotiating table, resigned his post as foreign minister. As he prepared to board a train to return home to Karachi no-one came to bid him farewell – except for Mustafa Khar. And this was an indication of the anti-establishment course of Mustafa’s political career.
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During one of his numerous flights to attend parliament sessions in East Pakistan, Mustafa was smitten by an apparition in green, the flight attendant who served him his meal. Her name was Safia and she was from a lower middle-class background, working to help and support her family. A feudal lord rarely met such a ‘liberated’ woman elsewhere; Safia exuded an aura of adventure. They spend the next two days together and married.
Mustafa immediately reverted to the dictates of his feudal heritage. He plucked Safia from the sky and locked her in a cage. His formerly modern bride went behind the veil, banished to the oblivion of his home village of Kot Addu, where her mission was to live in anticipation of his infrequent visits.
Here Safia bore Mustafa a son, named Bilal, and a daughter who, owing to a lack of medical facilities, died of diarrhea.
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One of Bhutto’s heroes was the Indonesian President, Sukarno, who understood the Third World peoples are emotional and illiterate, and require simple oratorical slogans to keep them loyal to their politicians.
Citing Sukarno, Bhutto often said that exceptional men needed extraordinary wives who were understanding and able to cope with their husbands’ eccentricities. As an example, he referred to Adolf Hitler’s liaison with Eva Braun.
Bhutto did, indeed, have an extraordinary wife, the Iranian-born Nusrat. For years she was forced to live with open secret that her husband was carrying on an affair with the beautiful and vivacious divorcee, Husna Shaikh.
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Bhutto’s library was one of the best in Asia, and here his most prized possession was his collection of books on Napoleon Bonaparte.
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Mustafa came to see the irony in their political quest, for in order to bring true democracy and equality – and thus progress – to the country, they had to find some way to destroy the archaic feudal system. If they were to realize their political ambitions they had to annihilate their very own power base.
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In 1967, Mustafa became one of the founding members of the Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party, committed to fighting for the liberal cause.
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At one of these events, Mustafa met Naubahar, a professional dancing girl who used her face and her body to ensnare the young politician. Mustafa rented a house in Lahore and installed Naubahar there as his mistress. Then he married her, despite the fact that he had a wife waiting for him in Kot Addu. He made Naubahar promise to keep the marriage a secret.
… As the garish car would its way into the red light district, Mustafa was mobbed by fans.
Hearing of this, Bhutto summoned Mustafa and warned that he must not flaunt his positon with impunity. The governor of the Punjab could not have a common dancer as his wife. Mustafa was told to correct the situation immediately. He divorced Naubahar. Safia was rescued from the exile of Kot Addu and installed in the Governor’s House as the legitimate and respectable wife, but his illusion was shattered almost immediately. Mustafa’s brothers came to him: ‘Now you are governor, your honor is at stake. Your wife had had an illicit relationship with your younger brother, Ghulam Murtaza. We cannot hide this fact from you any longer.
… so he simply divorced Safia and banished his offending younger brother to Britain. (It was at this time that I married Anees.)
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By the end of 1971, West Pakistan was simply and humbly Pakistan. It would be a while before we recognized Bangladesh as a country. In the meantime a coalition of military men determined that it was time for new leadership to overcome this setback and installed Bhutto as president and chief administrator of martial law. Operating from his centre of power in Islamabad, he proved his acumen with a series of swift, effective stroked that settled tensions between Pakistan and Bangladesh, and won the release of 93,000 Pakistani POWs held by the Indians. Then, knowing that he owed his new-found power to the military and would continue to be subject to the demands of the generals who had installed him, he coerced them into resigning and replaced them with men more loyal to him.
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Bhutto placed an arm around Mustafa’s shoulder and proposed drunkenly; ‘I think we should both resign. We should give up this government. There is nothing but pain and betrayal in life. If you resign, I will resign too. I cannot work alone. I’ve suffered your pain too. Let’s just go away somewhere, dammit – away from all this.
But in the sober light of morning, Bhutto chastised Mustafa and told him not to be a stupid and give away emotions.
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Mustafa crushed opposition with the fierce hand of a feudal lord. When the students of Punjab University went on strike, closing down the institution and resorting to hooliganism, Mustafa was alleged to have had them stripped naked and marched in the street. Some political leaders and opponents were said have been sodomized in prison. Mustafa was compared to the Nawab of Kalabagh, the previous governor, favorably for his administration abilities and negatively for his cruel tactics. On the other hand, the gates of the Governor’s House and, later, the Chief Minister’s House, were opened to the people of his constituency every Friday. He gave priority to the people he presented and precedence to their problems.
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Indeed, there was a reason to worry. Bhutto had many enemies. People with vested interests regarded his theories of Islamic socialism as anathema. They realized if the Punjab could be extricated from Bhutto’s control he would fall, and they started to form a wedge between the two men [Bhutto and Mustafa].
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It was no longer after Mustafa became chief minster that he and Bhutto began to disagree. At a Cabinet meeting in Karachi the tension finally erupted. At Mustafa’s instruction, a Punjabi bureaucrat presented a paper that argued in favor of protecting the Punjab’s water resources. Bhutto interrupted and raged, ‘Nobody can tell me how to allocated resources between the provinces of the country. If I wish I can divert everything to Larkana. I have the mandate of the people.’
‘That Sir, is not correct,’ Mustafa responded. ‘You have a mandate to serve the people of this country as a whole. Not only your village of Larkana. As long as I am Chief Minister of the Punjab, I will protect the interests of the Punjab.’
Bhutto threw his papers on to the table and stormed out of the room, muttering, ‘Either I stay Prime Minister of Pakistan, or you become the Prime Minister.’
Mustafa’s colleagues gathered around him and warned that he had overstepped the bounds of his authority and urged him to apologize. Mustafa immediately sought the apology, but noted, ‘You’re getting out of hand. I won’t tolerate such insolence in public again. Talk to me privately next time.’
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In 1974, an Islamic summit was held in the Punjab, attended by King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi, the PLO’s Yasser Arafat, Idi Amin, and many other important Arab leaders. Mustafa presided over the summit at Bhutto’s side. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, now President of Bangladesh, was also there. It was at this summit that Pakistan at last accepted the independence of East Pakistan. Following the meeting, Mustafa tendered his resignation and moved from the Chief Minister’s residence into a rented house.
And soon after that, met him at the Punjab Club in Lahore.
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Mustafa was at his most passionate whenever the conversation turned into politics. He was a socialist who wanted to do away with the feudal system that impeded progress in Pakistan – even though he was part of it himself.
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His actions broadcast the message: I’m not a lecher; I’m merely misunderstood.
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The more I learned, the more I came to understand his inability to maintain a stable marriage. I rationalized that, had he found the right woman at the right time, he would have settled down as a good husband. Bit his reasons for marriage were always wrong, based on expediency rather than love. He seemed to marry women in transit. His political life exposed him to a high-powered world’ he was changing and evolving all the time and he tended to outgrow his women.
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I became curious about his relationship with Sherry: it seemed to be in a state of disequilibrium. Her position as his wife should have given her status, yet his condescending treatment made her servile. Mustafa was the boss, the brain, the soul. Sherry was in awe of him, and rarely made a remark that was not drenched in his thoughts. He dared not differ from his views. She looked to him for constant approval. The strength of his personality diminished her to the point where she existed only in her reflection of his light. Sherry had surrendered her will to Mustafa and I saw this as her failure.
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‘I’ve made another mistake,’ he would say. ‘I’ll have to marry again.’
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I found myself thinking more and more about this misunderstood man who had become entangled with all the wrong women.
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Both of us [Tehmina and Mustafa] were searching for someone who could understand the turmoil in our hearts and minds.
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What amazed me and what I admired most about him was his total disregard for public opinion.
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Common sense vanished along with caution, morality and decency: my emotions overwhelmed me.
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He proved this statement with his actions. Mustafa was an indiscreet lover – it was almost as if he wanted Sherry, Anees, indeed the world, to found out about us. He called one day and said he wanted to see me at once, and was coming over. ‘But how?’ I asked. ‘Anees is at home.’
‘Don’t worry,’ he assured me.
Two minutes later the phone rang again. Anees took the call and listened carefully. After he hung up, he smiled at me and announced, ‘I have to go to the Governor’s House. Mustafa wants to see me. The Governor needs to talk to me!’ He left immediately.
When Anees arrived at the Governor’s House, Mustafa met him with the news that he had to rush off on urgent business, and told him to swim in the pool and awaits his return. Mustafa’s friend Rauf Khan provided a pair of bathing trunks and stayed with Anees in the pool, guarding the unsuspecting prey.
Mustafa and I were still together, when Rauf Khan called from the Governor’s House and reported, ‘Sir, we can’t keep him in the water any longer. He’ll pass out with exhaustion. He looks cold and bothered.’
‘Let him out in five minutes,’ Mustafa said. ‘Tell him I’ve just called. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.’ Mustafa hung up the phone and we collapsed in mirth.
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In our society, marriage may be purgatory, but divorce is hell.
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Mustafa was using his wife to court his lover.
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During a Mustafa rally in Taj Pura, Bhutto’s henchmen released poisonous snakes in the midst of a crowd of 100,000 people. A stampede resulted and many people were trampled. Gunshots were reported.
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Mustafa and I traveled to his home village of Kot Addu. On 25 July 1976, in complete secrecy, we married by a trusted Mullah.
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When he had discovered Safia’s infidelity, he had, apparently, beaten her without mercy and broken several of her ribs. But, even worse, he had ordered one of the maids to insert red chili powder into the vagina of poor Dai Ayesha, the nanny, for not informing him of the affair.
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I watched the evidence build.
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‘Never – ever – disobey me! You have to do what I tell you to do.’
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It did not seem to matter to Mustafa that his children were not born into stable marriages. Mustafa had children in various pockets of the country and he felt no sense of responsibility for them. In his view, a child was a victim of his own fate.
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The opposition leaders smelled a popular victory, and perhaps found a strong ally. Bhutto’s independent foreign policy and his pursuit of a controversial nuclear program made the US nervous; American was afraid that the so-called ‘Islamic bomb’ would fund its way into the hands of countries like Libya and Syria – not to mention terrorist organizations. Rumor held opposition to Bhutto was fueled by US dollars. The opposition also knew that Pakistan’s military leaders were waiting in the wings: they feared that a nuclear capability would result in massive cuts in conventional forces, thus eroding their personal power. Events snowballed. The strikes and demonstrations became so severe that in three large cities Bhutto had to call out the army.
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His attitudes were contradictory: he expected response, yet disallowed it. If he was satisfied, there was a chance that he would be in better humor. It was at these times that I realized prostitution must be a most difficult profession.
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‘I know what you’re thinking, Tehmina, believe me. You daren’t think of anything that I have forbidden you to think about.’
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‘General Zia suddenly seems to have opinions of his own. The man was disagreeing with some of the plans we were putting forward. His attitude change means the he is being manipulated by bigger powers. I warned Mr. Bhutto. Something’s brewing.’ [Mustafa Khar said to Tehmina Durrani]
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To my shock, I found Mustafa and the others living in conditions that would be the envy of the common man. The prisoners decided the menu and the food was served by uniformed waiters. The politicians who, only weeks before, had shuffled the fate of our nation, now sat around all day shuffling cards. Only the sound of marching boots outside their quarters shattered the illusion of tranquility.
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Bhutto was furious with Zia and, even now, arrogant. He charged that the generals had violated the constitution; Article 6 outlawed military intervention and marital law. He openly abused the generals and accused them of treason. He swore that he would make them accountable. Mustafa and others gently warned him against such reckless statements, but Bhutto persisted.
Bhutto clung to legalisms, ignoring the fact that the generals had the guns.
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These conversations were most certainly taped and, as the generals listened to them, their determination to rid themselves of Bhutto must have grown.
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Bhutto decided to take his case to the people. He arrived in Lahore [after the only time he was out of prison under Zia’s dictatorship], driven from the airport by Mustafa, and was greeted by a vibrant crowd. In his waning days as Prime Minister, the people had grown tired of his promises of bread, clothing, and shelter, but now he was the underdog and they wished to forget his mistakes. Bhutto was elated.
The motorcade moved at a snail’s pace toward the house where Bhutto would stay. Once he was inside, the crowd, trying to get closer, surged out of control. The pressure of people broke down the gates of the house. Excited spectators shattered the windows, climbed the walls, crowded into the lawns, nested in the tree-tops and clung precariously to utility poles. Everyone wanted a glimpse of the man. Everyone wanted to hear the stifled voice rise again.
Bhutto stepped out into the balcony, remarking that he felt ‘as tall as Himalayas’, and delivered a rousing speech: ‘General Zia has committed treason. He was tampered with the Constitution. The people of Pakistan will not spare the traitor. The army does not have the right usurp power by ousting the people’s representatives and deposing an elected Prime Minister.’
The listeners responded with wild cheers. In their enthusiasm, they did not realize that they were signing Bhutto’s death warrant.
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He [Bhutto] forgot that tanks and guns were more palpable than the mood of the people.
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Mustafa informed Bhutto that the generals wished to have a meeting with him, and Bhutto agreed that Mustafa should attend, since this would give him an opportunity to assess the military’s thinking. During Mustafa’s discussion with Zia and two of his compatriots, the three military leaders heaped praise and proclaimed that they needed people like him. But they were hostile toward Bhutto, and declared the he could survive only if he tempered his arrogance. The generals said that they were not opposed to the idea of Bhutto going into exile, if he would guarantee that he was retiring from politics forever. This, Mustafa thought, was like asking a human being to live without oxygen.
When he reported back to Bhutto, Mustafa tried to convince his leader to flee the country, and asked permission to do so himself, to ‘live to fight another day’.
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As for himself, Bhutto proclaimed that he understood the gravity of the situation, but he had no choice other than to stay and fight.
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Soon after this meeting, in September, Bhutto was re-arrested, on a charge of attempted murder, and a witch-hunt rounded up his key supporters. Mustafa was called into secret sessions with several generals.
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We boarded a 6:30 am flight from Islamabad. As the aircraft waited for clearance at the end of the runaway, I saw beads of perspiration form on Mustafa’s brow. The veins in his temples pounded. There was fear on his face. We both knew that the generals were capricious.
Finally the aircraft moved slowly into its take-off roll. The pilots pushed the engines up to full throttle and the craft picked up speed. It rose into the air, and Mustafa’s face showed reliefs, he had sidestepped the gallows.
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He [Mustafa Khar] did not tell me the details of the bargain he had struck with the generals, but by picking up shred of information and overhearing telephone conversations, it was not difficult to discern. He had won his life by promising to return to Pakistan the following month, November, brining documents from London that would incriminate Bhutto. What documents they were supposed to be I never discovered, and it was most probably a hoax, though I did not know so at the time. I could not understand the Brutus-like betrayal. When his leader was fighting for his life against an unscrupulous regime, Mustafa conspired with the executioners. I expressed my qualms to him, but he replied in philosophical tone, ‘Time will tell’.
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The only void was the absence of Tanya [Tehmina’s daughter from her first marriage with Anees], a topic that I dared not discuss with Mustafa. I filled the emptiness by becoming obsessed with five-month old Naseeba. I fussed with her constantly and found myself lying awake at night, meticulously planning her breakfast.
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Mother and father were – or at least pretended to be – unaware that this charming person [Mustafa Khar] had, the night before, battered their daughter.
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In March 1978, Bhutto was sentenced to death. Mustafa intensified his political efforts, joining forces with two of the former Prime Minister’s son, Mir Murtaza Bhutto and Shah Nawaz Bhutto. Mir has been studying at Oxford, but Mustafa convinced him to scrap his education in order to campaign for his father’s release. We moved from Jam Sadiq’s house to a shabby, claustrophobic flat in Hampstead, and Mustafa crowded it by inviting the Bhutto boys to live with us.
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Mir was a novice, but he learned fast. Younger brother Shah Nawaz exhibited the idealistic, faraway gaze of the revolutionary. They established a sort of headquarters of disgruntled Pakistanis in our flat, and plotted Zia’s overthrow.
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They received campaign funds from Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi and from Shaikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, Sultan of Abu Dhabi. Asad of Syria promised to keep pressure on the Zia regime.
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He grabbed her [Naseeba – daughter of Khar and Tehmina] and pushed her head under the water. I ran to them and begged him to let go, but he shoved me aside and held her under, with an expression on his face that said he was determined to teach us a lesson. My baby was drowning… when Naseeba’s struggles finally diminished, he released his grip… she coughed and spluttered.
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A prisoner ultimately settles into a monotonous routine. Anger recedes; senses dull. The spirit is crushed.
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Mir’s confidence, and he very quickly challenged the power and authority of his teacher [Khar]. He was, after all, a Bhutto, and the surname worked magic. It became unnecessary to share anything with Mustafa. Husna fed this. She warned Mir that his father had never completely trusted Mustafa, and advised him to strike out on his own. Both brothers moved out of our flat and into a suite.
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One of Mir’s longstanding companions was the glamourous – and much older – wife of a Mediterranean politician. To me, the Bhutto boys seemed like mixtures of Che Guevara and characters that had stepped out of Harold Robbins novel.
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Bhutto’s nephew, Tariq Islam, visited his uncle in prison and related the event to us in England. He said that his uncle weighed only six and half stone. His hands and feet were swollen. His chronic gum ailments had been exacerbated by neglect. Stomach cramps left him in permanent state of agony.
Even so, Tariq said, his uncle was mentally alert and eager to discuss politics.
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Bhutto grew more confused and depressed. He could not understand why the people had not stormed the prison gates to free him. Where was the spontaneous uprising that would sweep away the dictator?
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Zia made sure that Bhutto died many times before he was finally hanged. During his time in prison, he was constantly humiliated and insulted. The proud former Prime Minister was forced to use a noxious, open toilet in the present of a guard. A brigadier was placed in the opposite cell expressly to provoke him to a frenzy. The brigadier knew the pressure points; he used the most foul language to debase Bhutto’s mother, mocking and taunting until the former Prime Minster would lose his composure.
On 3 April 1979, Benazir was taken to see her father and informed that it would be the last visit. She was dismayed to find herself separated from him by iron bars and a large table, but when he pleaded with the guards to allow her to embrace him, he admonished, ‘Don’t ever beg them for anything.’ She had brought him his favorite perfume, Shalimar, and some books. He accepted the perfume but returned the books with a wry smile, explaining, ‘I don’t think I’ll have time to finish these.’ She handed him a razor and he said, ‘Good. I’ll shave this beard off. I do not want to die like a bloody mullah.’
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Here, accounts merge fact and fiction. What actually happened may never be known. It is said that the brigadier, Bhutto’s tormentor, walked into the cell at about one o’clock in the morning following Benazir’s visit. He handed Bhutto sheets of paper and a pen, and demanded his confession. Bhutto stated to write. His mind must have been clogged with memories – the triumphs, the adulation of adoring crowds. Where had it all fled? Here he was, terrifyingly alone, with a black sheet of paper in front of him. He knew that the proper words of compromise might save him. But, on a sudden impulse, he tore up the paper and flung away his life.
The brigadier rose and kicked Bhutto in the stomach. Some say that Bhutto was beaten unconscious, but that he regained his senses as he was carried off to the gallows – that he staggered, fell, stood up and walked the final steps with dignity and defiance. Others say that he was already dead when the body was hanged.
Whatever the truth, the outcome was the same. The People’s Party, and Pakistan, had a martyr.
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He [Khar] had a repertoire of abuses so vile that they would make a whore blush.
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Adila [Tehmina’s younger sister] was on the line. I heard my sister ask my husband, ‘Do you love me? Tell me. Do you love me?’
I heard my husband respond to my sister, ‘More than you will ever know.’
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‘take off your clothes,’ he [Khar] shouted. ‘Every stitch. Take… them… off.’
I trembled, clutching at the cloth of my baggy shirt, and when he saw that I could not respond he grabbed one arm and twisted it behind my back until I shrieked in pain and screamed that I would obey.
He backed off and sat in an armchair. He watched as I slowly began to remove my shirt.
Again I was aware of the emptiness of the room, but this time it looked unsafe. There was no placed to hide, nothing to which I could cling. I slipped out of my trousers. Clad only in a bra and panties, I stared at him, pleading, begging, crying for him to allow me to stop. But there was no reprieve. I felt blood drying on my swollen lips and nose. With trembling fingers, I pulled off my underclothes.
He sat in the chair with his arms extended on either side, like a king on his throne. His eyes ran up and down my naked body, invading. His expression was grim, his lips tightly pursed. His eyes narrowed, searching, glinting, gloating.
Never before had I felt so totally humiliated, so utterly controlled. I could see on his face the awareness of the importance of this moment. This episode would cripple my spirit – perhaps beyond salvation. From this moment forward, it would be nearly impossible for me to function as an individual. There was not one iota of self-esteem left. The shame had burned it down to ashes. I was exposed as nothing.
‘Please, Mustafa,’ I cried, ‘for the sake of the Prophet, let me wear my cloths.’
‘Pick up the phone. Make the call first. Then we’ll see’.
‘How can I call without my clothes? Please, let me put them on first.’
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Adila had finally confessed to mother and now, in measured words, she admitted to me, ‘I’ve been sleeping with him [Khar] for three years. I’m telling you this not as a sister but as a friend. Mustafa hates you, Tehmina. Everyone hates you. Mother hates you, too. There must be something wrong with you. I’d leave him before he leaves you. Have some respect for yourself.’
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Adila was graphic in details, disclosing that Mustafa’s son and Dai Ayesha were both in on the long-term deception. ‘Bilal arranges meetings,’ she said. ‘He is our go-between. He books the room in West Lodge Park Hotel. Dai Ayesha had known all along. Ask her. He had sex with me at the apartment that day when he dropped me at school, remember? There was no Iranian boy; it was always Mustafa. I was with him that day at the Hilton – all day. When he called you, I was there.’
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What this fifteen-year-old sister of mine was telling me was that Mustafa had been having an affair with her since she was thirteen years old!
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I told her that my husband was not to blame if my sister was a slut.
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He [Khar] had met Indira Gandhi. He dismissed this act of treason as easily as he discounted the crank phone calls. To him, Indira was the traditional enemy of Zia’s Pakistan, not of the new nation that he was fashioning. During the hour-long secret discussion at the Prime Minister’s residence in New Delhi, she was articulate and approachable. They spoke of Bhutto’s execution and the prospects for restoring democracy in Pakistan. The Prime Minister of India and the exiled Lion of the Punjab tried to analyze the reasons for the continued hostility between their two nations, and both concluded that the Pakistani army had a vested interested in maintaining border tensions; it made them necessary.
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A large segment of our population shared Mustafa’s belief that the Pakistani army has been the root cause of our problems. Proponents of this theory argue that the military, jealously guarding their power and budget, are always suspicious of democracy. Indeed, historically the military have played a visible, interventionist role in Pakistan’s politics. Mustafa theorized that Bhutto’s great mistake was that he attempted to coexist with the military. And, in fact, it was the army who toppled him, and General Zia who ordered his execution.
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The Economist printed Mustafa’s four-page article discussing Pakistan’s relations with India, wherein he expounded his thesis that military rule prevented progress and that he would re-enter Pakistan on Indian tanks, if necessary. This was a surprise to those who knew Mustafa as the Lion of the anti-Indian Punjab, and created a great deal of controversy.
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The concept of crime and punishment drove me to spending the nights crying over the Holy Koran for forgiveness – but only after I had completed my duties as a sexual object. When Mustafa slept I bathed and performed my ablutions, then drew away from him to the only One who still received me; Allah.
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Both of his selves – the angry one and the contrite one – were very convincing. I was afraid of the former and felt pity for the latter. One moment he punished me like a disobedient child; the next, I was a mother-figure who was supposed to forgive his transgressions.
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‘The next time you raise your hand to me I will pick up a knife and kill you!’ There was power and conviction in my voice, although my heart was beating madly. I had declared war.
Mustafa backed off.
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I kicked him in the belly with both feet, sending him reeling from the bed. He attacked once more and I scratched and shoved him as hard as I could. I clawed at his face and pulled his hair. No woman had dared do this to Mustafa Khar, and I could tell that his mind was devising new blueprints of terror.
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On 2 March 1981, hijackers took control of a PIA aircraft in Karachi and ordered it to fly to Kabul. The hijacking was an ISI plan created by Zia to malign and isolate Mir and Shah [sons of Bhutto].
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[In exile] we also received considerable financial support from a Pakistani named Seth Abid.
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Mustafa’s initial contacts with junior officers of the Pakistani army were tentative. The first meeting took place at the home of a mutual friend in London. The participants were young men who were disgruntled with Zia and who believed that the military had no business interfering in the politics of the country… the ‘boys’ as we came to call them.
A plot was hatched. The ‘boys’ would plant a bomb, timed to go off when Zia convened a meeting the top brass. Simultaneously, groups of rebel officers would take over the television and radio stations. With Zia’s death, all the exiles would return, and the will of the people would prevent yet another general from seizing power. Although she knew nothing of the developing drama, the conspirators planned to install Bhutto’s daughter Benazir, the leader of the People’s Part, as Prime Minister, and Mustafa would be number two man in the new government. All those involved in Zia’s 1977 coup would be tried for treason. The slogan was whispered quietly: ‘Generals will hang from every pole.’
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It was Mustafa’s task to arrange for the purchase of arms and ammunition, as well as their delivery. Over yet another rubbery burger, the Indian agent Joshi consented to handle the purchasing details; delivery was trickier.
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Sindis are stereotyped as docile and timid and the army was caught by surprise. For days Pakistan’s lifeline, the National Highway, was clogged by wave after wave of volatile demonstrators. The death toll mounted. Gaols were overflowing.
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As far as the Punjabis were concerned, this was a great blunder. They withdrew from the struggle and the Sind was isolated.
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Mustafa was aware that the MRD movement could not survive without the wholehearted participation of his home province, and he decided that action was necessary to revitalize Punjabi support. He chose seven exiles who had been tried in absentia by military courts, and sent them to Pakistan from London on 5 September. But in his somewhat garbled official, nine valiant People’s Party workers were on their way home to court arrest as a contribution to the MRD movement. The fact that the actual number was seven, rather than nine, took on aspects of black comedy.
The seven spent most of their flight spouting slogans in favor of democracy and its figurehead, Mustafa Khar – much to the annoyance of other, disinterested passengers. When the aircraft landed in Karachi, it was ordered to taxi to a position a great distance from the terminal, where it was surrounded by commandos and armored cars. The seven returning exiles disembarked into the hands of the police, who immediately wanted to know where the other two were. Choudhary Hanif (a Member of Parliament and a follower from the early days when Mustafa took on Bhutto) and Sajid tried to convince the authorities that only seven men had arrived. But the head of the police party was under instructions to bring back nine people from the plane. He arrested the apolitical brother of one of the group, as well as an innocent boy who was returning from a visit to his aunt in London and was, in fact, a Zia supporter. All nine were trucked off to Ojhri camp. (The two innocent boys spent twenty-two months in gaol, a longer term than any of the others.)
Choudhry Hanif later described for us his cell at the Ojhri prison camp as ‘worse than any conception of hell we may have in our mind…’
Each of the seven felt betrayed by Mustafa and cursed him for his callousness. Each had a common prayer; they pleaded for death.
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The ‘boys’ had driven in jeeps to the house, where they found two rooms full of crates, containing the promised arms. As they loaded the materiel into the jeeps, one of them said, ‘It serves the damn generals right. We’ll put this country back on its rails.’
They prepared to drive away. Keys turned in the ignitions. The jeeps were jammed into gear but as they hurtled forward, the ‘boys’ suddenly found themselves surrounded. The ambushers opened fire. The ‘boys’ returned fire, but all were wounded and captured.
… Move of supreme irony compensation was arranged for Seth Abid’s act of ‘patriotism’.
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At the prison camp in Ojhri, the ‘boys’ underwent constant torture. They were made to strip naked and lie on their stomachs. Then a steel roller was crushed against their thighs until the skin broke open. They were hung upside down and beaten.
The seven Punjabis whom Mustafa had sent off to prison four months earlier also came under the crossfire, subjected to increased torture and intimidation.
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He [Khar] soon visited India again, for a private audience with Indira Gandhi, and he returned with renewed fire in his eyes. ‘She said I was a great patriot,’ he beamed. The failed plot had, of course, greatly increased tension between Zia’s Pakistan and the Indian government, and Mustafa had worried that India would back off. But he was pleased that Indira Gandhi had reaffirmed her belief in the necessity of destroying Pakistan’s army. Mustafa prophesized, ‘A war is necessary to crush the people’s enemy once and for all.’ He said that it would be the miracle that were praying for.
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On 31 October 1984, Indira Gandhi had been gunned down by her own guards.
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He [Khar] picked up a jug that happened to be within reach and flung it at me, hitting me on the shoulder. I ran from the bathroom, slammed the door and locked him inside.
Mustafa banged on the door and screamed, ‘I’ll kill you!’
I ignored him and went downstairs to answer the doorbell and greet our guests. When they asked where Mustafa was, I muttered a vague excuse, I could hardly tell that the Lion of the Punjab was locked inside the bathroom!
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A fine marriage for Adila. The boy was Rais Matloob, the son of a very respected landowner from Bahawalpur. His father, Rais Ghazi, had been hailed as the builder of the most beautiful and elaborate mosque in the area.
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Benazir planned for an eventual return to Pakistan, and Mustafa was shocked to learn that she was not considering him for the post of Party President in the Punjab.
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Along with his old political friend, Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, he decided to form a new party, with a manifesto that claimed a return to the pure first principles of the People’s Party.
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Through Joshi, Mustafa had arranged a clandestine meeting with the new Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi. Mustafa spent six days and was treated with all the protocol of a visiting chief of state.
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Two men met me at the New Delhi airport, whisked me through customs and immigration – I did not have a visa – and drove me to the Taj Hotel. [Tehmina used Mustafa’s contacts to visit shrine of the great saint of Ajmer in India]
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Tanya [Tehmina’s daughter from first marriage] came to see me at my parents’ house on 29 July 1986, which happened to be Naseeba’s ninth birthday. She clung to me and we both wept. I stepped back to get a good look at this young thirteen-year-old. I hadn’t seen her for nine years.
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Nusrat Jamil – better known as Nuscie – is a journalist, working for the English-language daily The Nation. She phoned, introduced herself and asked for an interview; she wanted to write a human interest story about the travails of a politician’s estranged wife. I agreed to talk to her. Nuscie changed my life.
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[Celebrating the 1984 World Cup Cricket Tournament] I was again excited and apprehensive at the prospect of partying without a husband. The children and I left for Lahore to stay with my grandmother. I was determined to enjoy myself. In Nuscie’s crowd I met confident young girls who twirled on the dance floor in tight jeans and miniskirts, openly cavorting with men who were not their husbands! It shocked me that they exposed their legs – this was Pakistan, not London – and it shocked me further that no-one else was shocked. This was the generation that had grown up in Zia’s time. Their idols were not Che, Mao or Sukarno, but Madonna, Iacocca and Trump. Poverty meant a flat without air-conditioning. The deprived drove Suzukis. The effects of the Afghan war and the drug explosion had filtered in. The poppy fields on the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan had become more productive, the traffic quite legalized, and refugees unlimited. It was as if many centuries had been traversed in an instant. Modern women had moved so far ahead that their sisters in their hinterlands had been reduced to fictional characters.
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At the height of cricket fever, I walked into Yousaf Salahuddin’s haveli and found a few men sprawled in the central courtyard. None of them rose to greet us. How strange, I thought. In my world, a gentleman always rose when a lady entered. Yousaf reclined on a marble divan and surveyed, with a hint of royal disdain, the host of miniskirted women who flitted about, displaying punk hairstyles. Outside, the walls were plastered with posters calling for the restoration of democracy. Inside, Yousaf was a replica of a Mogul dynast, the epicure personified.
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Faiz:
Do not ask me for the same intensity
With which I loved you once…
I turn, I turn again and again to the pain.
You are stull beautiful, so beautiful –
But – the pain.
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Faiz:
I bequeath my life to the lanes and alleys of my land,
Where the ritual of silence stalks.
Where no one holds his head up high.
And fear takes nightly walks.
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I had seen women in prison who had been raped by the staff. Some were later taken away by frightened gaolers who forced them to abort their pregnancies in order to eliminate proof of the crime. Others bore the bastardized offspring of ‘justice’.
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The superintendent takes protection money from all the prisoners. The amounts are paid out weekly. Any prisoner who will not or cannot pay this extortion tax is punished. They’re either beaten mercilessly or placed in fetters. Many prisoners are deprived of their meals because of their inability to pay. Entire families have had to pay the price and groaning under the burden of debt.
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Mustafa shot like a lightning bolt toward the deputy superintendent with fire in his eyes. He grabbed the prison official by his collar and slapped him sharply, several times. The deputy was stunned, but dared not react. Mustafa Khar may have been a prisoner, but he was not a man to be taken lightly. In a voice like thunder Mustafa roared, ‘If I ever hear a scream again, I will be you to a pulp!’ Then he released his collar-hold and pushed the man so that he fell back upon his buttocks with his legs in the air. Mustafa turned and strode back to his cell. If the other prisoners had dared, they would have applauded, but they confined themselves to signaling silent admiration with their eyes.
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He [Khar] re-convinced me of the need to cut the size of the military establishment. ‘We have to direct our scarce resources away from this monster,’ he preached. ‘Our people need food, shelter, clothing, medical facilities, potable water and education. The army has gobbled up our national wealth. It is a waste of manpower. If I come to power I will use the army for construction of roads and bridges. It is also a constant threat to constitutional rule.’
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Gun culture and the drug trade are natural spin-offs of this conflict. The generals are myopic. They have been dazzled by the dollar diplomacy of the Americans. The Americans are unreliable allies. They’ll use us only until they’ve accomplished their own design.’
In fact Zia had made drug-trafficking legitimate. While Afghanistan was the major grower, the poppies were processed in Pakistan. It was said that labs had been set up US Mafia connections – no border, free movement, no control, quick money. Allegedly, the ISI had a hand; even the war financed through the sale of opium and heroin. When aid dwindled, the Mujahedeen used drugs as a source of funds.
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‘Look at China, look at India,’ he [Khar] said. ‘They are developing their own indigenous technologies. They don’t go around with a begging bowl in their hands. They have great national pride. We have taken the easy way out. Everything is imported – even our idea.’
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Mustafa, who had once sought to overthrow the military regime with violence, now sought a secret alliance.
Early in 1988, I was granted an appointment with General Akhtar Abdur Rehman, Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff. He was Zia’s right-hand man and had been the ISI chief during our coup attempt; he was also in charge of the Afghan Mujahedeen war strategy which was run entirely by the ISI. Mustafa coached me carefully. No-one was to know of our attempt to negotiate with the military junta.
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In May 1988, the Ojhri ammunition dump in Islamabad, the semi-secret staging front for supplying clandestine weapons to the Afghan rebels, was blown up. Missiles flew off in all directions, leaving hundreds of innocent civilians dead and injured. The city was paralyzed with grief and horror.
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Fearing an inquiry into what qualified as a sabotage attack on the Ojhri ammunition dump, Zia dismissed his hand-picked Prime Minister, Mohammad Khan Junejo, as well as the lower of Parliament, and installed a caretaker government.
————————————-
A week later, on 17 August, a C-130 military transport plane mysteriously exploded in the air over Bahawalpur. General Zia, who had presided over the nation’s destiny for eleven years, was on board. My first reaction was extreme happiness. The dictator was dead!
————————————-
The Chairman of the Senate, and Zia’s close ally, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, was sworn in as President.
————————————-
I had made the acquaintance of a new breed of well-educated journalists who were committed to the cause of justice in Pakistan. Although in this modern world they used word processors, someone had coined an appropriate term for them: ‘typewriter guerillas’. I knew they would be on my side.
————————————-
Without notice, our old friend Mustafa Jatoi joined IJI – the alliance of parties that had been bred by Zia and currently held power – and presented Mustafa with the same option.
IJI was headed by Nawaz Sharif, a man whom Mustafa had long portrayed to the public as political pygmy.
He [Khar] decided to reject Jatoi’s pragmatic offer.
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They were unanimously happy with Mustafa’s decision, but we knew that it left him without the backing of any major political force.
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Benazir did not expect Mustafa to be released and that she did not want to support a man whom the army was opposed.
————————————-
I contacted ISI, seeking meeting with its chief, General Hameed Gul; but his second-in-command, Brigadier Imtiaz, said that he would see me instead.
The brigadier had a comprehensive dossier on Mustafa and his ill-fated Indian connection. In the face of this evidence, he viewed my husband as a traitor.
————————————-
No-one was to know – not even Mustafa. I was driven to Adyala Jail by the brigadier at midnight. In the Superintendent’s Office, I met General Gul. Then a very surprised Mustafa was brought in to meet us.
The following day, the courts decreed Mustafa’s release, after more than two years’ confinement.
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Father was in love with another woman! Mother was distraught. The other woman was Sabiha Hasan. She had worked with my father when he was governor of the State Bank.
Mother was ready for me to return to the family fold, to help her through this terrible time.
————————————-
In the past this tank, the symbol of military rule in Pakistan, had intimidated me. Today it seemed powerless. The power of the people had prevailed over the dictate of the gun.
————————————-
Not so long ago these people were abstraction to me, the topics of endless drawing-room discussions. Today they were real; they mattered. They did not depend on us; we depended on them.
————————————-
Despite Mustafa’s tremendous victory as an independent, most of the Punjab supported Muslim Leafe, assuring that the Chief Minister’s post in Lahore would continue to be held by Nawaz Sharif who had filled the vacuum during Mustafa’s absence, and whom the People’s Party candidate had failed to dislodge.
————————————-
The elections made Benazir Bhutto the most powerful person in Pakistan. For many, it was as if Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto had been resurrected.
————————————-
After the general election, Mustafa had to vacate one of the two National Assembly seats that he had won, and he decided to offer Mustafa Jatoi as the by-election candidate for his seat from Kot Addu. I was shocked, because Jatoi was an IJI candidate. [And] a Sindi.
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At dinner I was suddenly aware of Mustafa’s voice: ‘Tehmina, really, you look like a nun in those white clothes.’ Did his use of the word ‘nun’ have sexual connotations? Was he saying to Adila: As far as Tehmina is concerned, I’m celibate?
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The drums began to beat and cheering rang in the air. Jatoi had won the election by 60,000 votes.
————————————-
He [Khar] sent for Adila. When she arrived, he sat at my feet and begged for forgiveness. Turning to Adila he said, ‘I owe everything to Tehmina. Nothing can make me forget that.’
What was I to do? Which Mustafa should I believe?
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In the short span of time that Adila and Mustafa were alone, something had happened. Shahida’s entry was met with an abrupt silence.
————————————-
Adila arrived and as we drove to see the ‘other woman’, I thought: How ironic that I’m going in the company of the ‘other woman’ in my life to plead Mother’s case. Nobody – certainly not mother – had ever pleaded mine.
————————————-
Our family, full of intrigue and deception, backbiting and backstabbing, was a microcosm of Pakistani society. The rule was simple: Do whatever you want to do, just blanket it.
————————————-
Presidential elections were held. The two candidates were Ghulam Ishaq Khan and Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan. The former was the acting president and reactionary bureaucrat with long ties to the Zia forces. The latter was a genuine progressive who believed in democratic ideals and had been extremely supportive during Mustafa’s incarceration. When Mustafa returned from voting, he assured me that he had cast his ballot for the Nawabzada.
The phone rang. The caller was Ghulam Ishaq Khan, thanking Mustafa for his vote. Mustafa had lied to me, but more important point was that he had compromised principle once again.
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Adila had no sense of occasion. Even as our grandmother’s life ebbed away, Adila primped and preened, making sure that all her accessories matched. Her presence bothered me but, for a time, I could find no specific objection.
One day, Mustafa was scheduled to collect me from Uncle Asad’s house at 5 pm, but he called to say that he had been delayed by important political business. It was only then that I noticed Adila had left an hour before in grandmother’s car. Zarmina [Tehmina’s sister] and I questioned the driver, who had returned without her. He said that Adila asked him not to wait; she would return on her own. This was very odd. Even those of us who lived in the city of Lahore would never move around without transport. Zarmina’s eyes met mine.
I disappeared into the bathroom and gulped down two tablets of the tranquilizer Lexotinal. Adila returned at about 7:30 pm and Mustafa arrived shortly after that. I could not face them.
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Mustafa Khar simply could not live with an adult woman who was capable of taking charge of her own life. He would reduce me once again to a neurotic, frightened girl. Adila was the perfect young and attractive instrument who could make me retreat into my old position. I had to be undone.
————————————-
‘It’s true,’ Zarmina at last confirmed, clutching at her stomach. ‘It was her. They [Khar and Adila] were making plans to meet this very evening, even as our grandmother is dying.’ The Zarmina rushed into the bathroom to vomit.
But their plans were disrupted. Sensing that her time had come, grandmother summoned the family and, in the presence of everyone, declared, ‘Whoever causes Tehmina pain, it is my prayer to God that He punish them with ulcers that will grow in their hearts. They will suffer like they cannot even imagine.’ She glanced up at the ceiling – beyond the ceiling – and cried out, ‘I am leaving Tehmina with you oh Allah. Don’t let me down. She has nobody left to protect her. Even I have been called away and I come to You willingly, but my soul begs an assurance that Tehmina will be protected by You.’
————————————-
I reconciled. I can’t do that, I thought. I’m not sixteen. I’m a mother of five. I’m thirty-six years old. How can I have romantic notions with a man who’s having an affair with my own sister? How?
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One night Mustafa wanted to make love, and I knew from his attitude that he would not accept a refusal. I had to let it happen. I controlled my hatred by alienating myself from the moment. I started over his should and begged to God to punish him. This is incest, God. You have forbidden a man to have a relationship with two sisters at the same time. It is in Your Koran. If You have made this rule, then You will never allow this to happen to me again. Never allow this man to touch me again. Never let him have the audacity to disobey You. I cannot do anything, but You can stop it.
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I followed him upstairs and walked into what had been our bedroom. When, behind me, I heard him quickly turn and bolt the door, I knew I was trapped.
… Soon word of my ‘imprisonment’ reached my lawyer, Asma Jahangir.
… Mustafa opened the bathroom door. I was sullen, wary and scared, but pretended not to be. He picked up a bottle of Valium 10, extracted two tablets and offered them to. I tried to resist, but he utilized the same method he had employed with his dogs.
————————————-
With tears streaming down his [Khar] cheeks, he said very intensely, ‘I want you, my children, to bear witness that I don’t want your mother to leave. I want her to be my wife. I love her. But she wants to leave me.’
I thought with a smile on my face: What a great actor you are, Mustafa.
————————————-
The public announcement that Mustafa was rejoining his old party was received with jubilation… Mustafa was not second most powerful leader in the party, next to Benazir herself. He had successfully moved to a position from where he could reach towards the very top.
————————————-
It was a pattern: apologize, be forgiven, and begin again with a clean slate.
————————————-
Spurred on by his wife’s suspicious behavior, Matloob [Adila’s husband] tapped his own telephone line and taped hours of explicit and incriminating conversations between Mustafa and Adila. Matloob then drove around Karachi in tears, listening to the tapes on his car cassette-player.
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Matloob was a feudal lord himself… He took a progressive stand, filing the first-ever court case in Pakistan wherein one influential feudal lord formally accused another of adultery.
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At the height of his political life… Mustafa suddenly announced his seventh marriage, to a twenty-two year old divorcee whom he had known for only a month. Taking the public relations offensive, he had the audacity to compare his many marriages with those of the Prophet.
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‘Tehmina, you are nothing any more. Once you were Begum Tehmina Mustafa Khar. Now you are just Tehmina Durrani. When you ring up people you have to introduce yourself as my ex-wife. You have no identity of your own. Nobody knows you…’
————————————-
Ghalib:
Your taunts chip away at my identity.
No-one speaks of me with such audacity.
————————————-
I was determined not to waste thirteen years of my life.
I decided to cast a stone at hypocrisy.
I decided to write this book and break the traditional silence.
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Benazir Bhutto’s elected government was dissolved on 8 August 1990 by Zia’s protégé, President Ghulam Ishaq Khan. Mustafa Jatoi was sworn in as the caretaker Prime Minister of Pakistan.
————————————-
Mustafa Khar was sworn in as the Federal Minister for Water and Power. This time he had stabbed the People’s Party in the back and somersaulted back to Jatoi and IJI.
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‘There will be a great imbalance in our strengths if we fight, became I am prepared to die and you are desperate to live.’ [Tehmina to Khar]
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Following publication [of the book], two criminal charges were registered against me. One charged me with treason… the other charged me with adultery.
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‘Well, Mustafa, now the world will soon know you only as Tehmina Durrani’s ex-husband.’ [Tehmina to Khar on asking about the book]
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