Her feudal lord

I am totally dazzled by Tehmina Durrani's My feudal lord. What a brave woman she is! She suffered before writing the book and even more after it. Her honesty about the book can be doubted but how her own people turned a cold shoulder to her after its publication is a proof that most part of the book is truth. This book revolves around love and politics. I saw very different aspects of both these areas, both areas of my interest :) First Il describe love.

When Tehmina met Ghulam Mustafa Khar (the famous PPP leader, called the Lion of Punjab and notorious for seven marriages) for the first time she was married and had a daughter and so was Mustafa(with her fifth wife). They fell in love, divorced their previous spouses and got married. Ghulam Mustafa Khar belongs to a feudal family who have strict rules and traditions and who cannot break them. Parties, dinners, cigars, dogs, hunting were his particulars. Having a feudal mind, Mustafa's love for Tehmina was very intense. He was owerpowered by jealousy. He had strict rules for her, she couldnt go anywhere without his permission. He even used to beat her, sometimes so violently that she bled, that too on trivial matters. He wouldnt allow her to go to a male gynecologist. But every time he beat her he used to repent afterwards. He would know his tyranny instantly and would beg her to forgive him. He would even cry sometimes in her lap. Tehmina says that it was very strange to see the Lion of Punjab shattered to pieces like that. Love can reduce such a strong man to an intimidated mouse. She left him several times but he used to become pathetic after her. He used to beg her to return, admitting all his mistakes. But he would never give up his violence too. Once Mustafa kidnapped her children and sent them to Pakistan while they were in London, conditioning their retrun with her return only. She had to cave in. She suffered it for eleven years. Just to give an example of a feudal mind below is a picture of Fakhra Younas, wife of Mustafa's son from previous marriage. He threw acid on his wife's face. This just one of the women in our society who suffered the same fate. Poor women. Along with her is Tehmina.

It was due to continued efforts of Tehmina that Mustafa was released after spending three years of incarceration. The differences continued and she finally got a divorce after eleven years of marriage. The conclusion I drew, Mustafa wrote himself to Tehmina while in prison, 'All the great legends of love end in tragedy...their love was intenst, NOT PRACTICAL AND BALANCED. You cannot find balance in love, which is why you have to be prepared to carry its burden if you want love.' Well....thats right I guess. Intense love is not practical(at least in our social setup) but if is practical, conditioned to rules then I dont think its love. Its nothing more than a commitment ;) Here I remember a verse of Daagh Dehelvi

Lutf woh ishq main paaye hain ke ji janta hai

Ranj bhi aisay uthaye hain ke ji janta hai

I think that Tehmina must admit to this :) Its not that im supporting violence on women. I cannot even think of that. In our society women are victims. They suffer a lot of injustice. Tehmina did too. But she fought back for which she had to pay a heavy price. Her father disinherited her, she lost all her assets to Mustafa, she was charged for treason and adultery. Why did God have to make women weaker? Mustafa now has a seventh wife and Tehmina is married to Shehbaz Sharif (brother of Nawaz Sharif, the PML-N leader)

Now comes politics. A common man never comes to know what games are played by politicians for power. Many things would not have become public had Tehmina not written this book. In order to remove Zia from power, Mustafa and Bhutto's sons had decided to assassinate him. Mustafa met the Indian Prime Mininster who decided to help them achieve this purpose. Indian intelligence was involved thus. They helped transfer a lot of ammunition to Pakistan through Indian border. But on the day of operation the whole conspiracy was caught by Pakistani officials and the plan failed. The nation never knew that.