“I am the least recognisable Bhutto”

For Fatima Bhutto, there is little that sets the political apart from the personal

Fatima Bhutto is excited about her India tour for her memoir Songs of Blood and Sword. “I’m going to wear a saree at every city launch. A Maharashtrian silk for Pune, a south silk for Bangalore , it’s a good cultural relations strategy, don’t you think?” she smiles, as we begin the interview in her hotel room in Delhi. The 28-year-old writer-journalist is the daughter of slain political leader Murtaza Bhutto and niece of Pinky Aunty, Benazir Bhutto. “You didn’t know she was called Pinky? I called her Wadi and we used to read books together,” says Fatima . This was before 1996, before her father was shot dead two days after his 42 nd birthday.

Songs of Blood and Sword (Penguin, Rs 695) was launched in Karachi on March 31 st before Fatima left for Delhi and she does not know if Benazir’s family has read the book. “I don’t think they’ll read it. We launched the book at the park where my father was killed. 700 people showed up and I am thankful for such a great show of solidarity in a time when the situation in Pakistan is so difficult,” says Fatima .

The decision to write the book had come a great deal earlier, in 2004. “I felt like a private detective going through boxes, letters, diaries that my father and other family members kept. A year later, I began e-mailing and speaking to people who knew him well and would talk to me about my father,” she says, adding, “There is a tendency in South Asia to either idolise or demonise our political leaders. My grandfather and father made mistakes and it was part of their journey. I didn’t want to write a hagiographic book.”

While the book offers a personal history of the first family of Pakistan, at the heart of the memoir is a story of a daughter’s love, loss and remembrance of a time when things were less complicated. There are intimate anecdotes too — of her father Murtaza suddenly picking her up and throwing her into a swimming pool. A furious nine-year old Fatima had angrily turned on him, asking her laughing father to refrain from such pranks till she turned 14. “But Fatushki (her pet name), what if I’m not alive then?” Murtaza had replied.

Interesting nuggets about the other family members too occupy a large chunk of the memoir. There are accounts of Benazir signing her younger brother Murtaza’s report card instead of their mother, of Murtaza and Shahnawaz marching to commemorate Che Guevara’s heroic career, Pinky and Sunny (Sanam Bhutto, the youngest child of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto) secretly smoking cigarettes in their room. “My brother Zulfikar is reading the book now and he’s just discovering things about his father. He was only six when Papa was killed, and we realise that some of the activities that we still engage in, such as driving to the dargah at Mango Pir and feeding the crocodiles there, are part of a Bhutto tradition,” she says.

But this Bhutto is adamant that she is not entering the political arena. “I don’t believe in dynastic politics. Besides, I am the least recognisable Bhutto. I always wanted to be a writer. For me, writing has always been about getting those unheard voices out,” says Fatima, who was a vocal critic of Musharraf’s reign through her newspaper columns in Pakistan . “After the new government took over, the editors at the paper asked me to take a trip to Malaysia , write fluffy travel pieces, and stop the column,” she shrugs. “Journalism in Pakistan is muted and often muffled, but I take comfort in the fact that there are more brave people than those who are afraid,” says Fatima, who still continues to write for international media houses such as The Daily Beast and The Guardian.

While her memoir is exhaustive, there is one character missing in it: Karachi . “I know, I didn’t write about the city so much because I am saving it for a book I am writing on Karachi. It’s a ridiculous, beautiful and dangerous city, much like Mumbai. As soon as the tour ends, I’ll return to complete that book.”

Source :http://www.indianexpress.com/news/iamtheleastrecognisablebhutto/599432/