Fatima Bhutto was caught unawares. The petite author had just wrapped up an interview and gave a tiny jump when she found me standing right behind her. “Sorry, I didn’t notice you,” she said, apologetically. She was cheerful-maybe because her book Songs of Blood and Sword has been receiving an overwhelming response across India.
On her last stop in the country, Fatima was gearing up for the launch of her book in Mumbai in the evening when I met her on Tuesday. Since she wanted a decaf, we moved to The Taj President’s Trattoria. Undisturbed by the racket of a children’s party at the cafe, Fatima started talking about the book, which she calls “a daughter’s memoir”.
The book had kept her occupied for the last six years. “It’s just the beginning. The book was first released in Karachi. After touring India, I will be travelling to England, Canada and other countries to promote the book,” says the 28-year-old journalist-turned-author. At the age of 14, she lost her father, Mir Murtaza Bhutto, who was killed along with six of his aides. The book starts with this bloody incident. And the casual statement by Asif Zardari—husband of her aunt Benezir Bhutto and the present President of Pakistan—informing Fatima about his death seems to have set the book’s tone. In fact, Fatima repeats his words—“Oh, don’t you know? Your father’s been shot”— many times in the memoir.
Songs of Blood and Sword has been called “partisan”. And Fatima doesn’t mind the term. “The book doesn’t pretend to be otherwise,” she says. In fact, right below her name on the book’s cover, there is a list of her relatives who have been killed in the last three decades. “Asians tend not to talk about the violent incidents that have affected the region. These stories need to be told before they are lost in the world of reality TV,” Fatima says.
About the interest her book has created in India, she says, “People of India and Pakistan have always been curious to know about each other.” However, it’s not just her book that’s being appreciated in India.
Fatima’s sari-clad appearances at the book releases too have become a talking point. “Both my grandmother (Nusrat) and mother (Ghinwa) love saris. And for the events in India, I decided to wear only saris,” she says.
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