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Interview With In the Shadows of Love Author Awais Khan

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  1. When did you first want to become a writer?

Funnily enough, it didn’t happen until I was in my late teens. I have always been a lifelong reader, but it wasn’t until I was in college in Canada that I finally realized that publishing was actually an industry (we don’t have a publishing industry in Pakistan). I started to look – really look – at how the industry worked and that started inspiring me to write my own book. I started seeing myself as a published author. 

  1. You live in Lahore. How does that inspire your writing?

Lahore is in every aspect of my writing. I think, feel and breathe Lahore. There’s a popular saying in my part of the world ‘One who has not seen Lahore has not been born’, so you can quite imagine the kind of impact this city has on my writing. Lahore features heavily in all my books, and it wasn’t until I started writing Someone Like Her, which is partly set in London, that I realized how easy it was for me to write about Lahore, because I really struggled to bring London to life in my novel. Having said that, I have a very complicated relationship with my city. Just like in any relationship, there are good days and bad days, but I would be lying if I said that the city didn’t inspire my writing. Lahore is the very essence of me. Lahore is like for me as Paris was like for Ernest Hemingway – a moveable feast.

  1. You have written four novels now. Do you feel like a veteran now?

Hardly. If anything, I feel like things are getting more and more difficult. People tell me that I’ve made it, but they don’t know just how terrified I really am most of the time about failing. With each book, reader expectations rise, and after a point, the pressure sort of gets to you. However, while the insecurity never really goes away – it shouldn’t really, as it keeps us grounded – I have to say that I am getting slightly more confident about my writing. I may be having doubts, but somewhere at the back of my mind, there’s a small voice that says, ‘You’ve written something good. All it needs now is that one big push, that one final edit.’

  1. How did your first success come as a writer?

Success depends on one’s definition of success. Success can be selling a million copies of your book, but success can also be critical acclaim or positively impacting the life of even one reader. I first started writing In the Company of Strangers back in 2012, but it wasn’t until 2019 that it was published. During that time, I amassed a significant social media following, and since I naturally love to support my fellow authors, by the time my debut came out, it was an instant success with everyone I knew clamouring to buy a copy to support me in turn. The book went into reprint before it was officially out and also ended up becoming a national bestseller in Pakistan. However, it wasn’t until No Honour was published that I understood what it was like to be reviewed in major UK publications, and perhaps it was the topic, but No Honour ended up doing phenomenally well everywhere. In many ways, it was bigger than In the Company of Strangers. 

  1. What’s your writing routine?

My writing routine is all over the place. I suffer from writer’s block a lot when I’m in Lahore, and have frequently flown to London in the past just to finish writing my book. Being a writer in Lahore is not easy. Since there isn’t a publishing industry here as such, the environment here isn’t conducive for writing. A lot of people here disregard your efforts as a writer, thinking that whatever you’re doing has no value. All of it affects your self-esteem and motivation. Despite all of that, I try to be regimental about my writing, spending a few hours in my favourite café in Gulberg five days a week. It does bring some structure to my day and allows me to complete writing tasks that would just get delayed or put off otherwise. When in London, I like to write early in the morning and then in the afternoon too, preferably in a favourite café of mine. 

  1. Do you have a favourite of your books?

I feel that just like kids (not that I have any), one cannot have a favourite book. I’ve spent a lot of time with each of my books and they’ve all uniquely contributed towards my journey as a writer. However, if forced to choose, I would probably say No Honour, because I spent over three years researching and writing that book and it remains very close to my heart. 

  1. Tell us about The Writing Institute. 

I set it up back in 2016 when I realized that there were absolutely no creative writing courses available in Pakistan. Initially, a lot of people laughed at me, saying that nobody would be interested in something like this, that writers didn’t even exist in Pakistan. Yes, my courses did struggle at first, but as word got around, more people started joining them and since then, over 10,000 people have taken courses with The Writing Institute. Today, the institute prides itself on providing the best online and in-person creative writing courses in Pakistan at the most affordable prices imaginable. 

  1. What is your top creative writing tip?

My top tip for any aspiring writer is to never give up. This is a very subjective industry, and what works for one would probably not work for another. Never stop believing in yourself. Deep down, we know just how good our work really is. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. If someone is giving you proper critical feedback that can be used, then listen to them, but if someone is disparaging your work just for the sake of it, don’t listen to them. Similarly, be very wary of people who praise your work to high heavens. Just believe in yourself, in your talent, and don’t let the rejections get you down. Have the skin of an alligator’s. 

  1. Tell us about your new book.

I am very excited about my next book called In the Shadows of Love. It is the sequel to my debut In the Company of Strangers. The story moves twelve years into the future and Mona is now in her early fifties. She and Bilal have weathered the storm of infidelity, with Bilal embracing the son Mona had from her affair. Although on the outside, it seems that Mona has everything, and that every single day of hers is the same, with glittering parties and society events, things are not how they seem. Her perfect world is forever changed when the first message arrives. Will the secrets of Mona’s past threaten her future, her marriage and even her life?

In the Shadows of Love will be published by Hera Books in October, 2024. 

  1. What’s next for you?

I have recently finished writing my first thriller, tentatively titled Her Sister’s Secret. We don’t get to see a lot of thrillers coming out of Pakistan and I really wanted to write one that explored themes of sibling rivalry, guilty secrets and toxic marriages. The story centres around Maria and Sohaib who seem to have everything they could ask for, but behind the perfect façade, their marriage is toxic and when Maria’s sister, Fareena, comes to visit, everything goes awry. 

Pregnant Farzana Parveen Stoned To Death By Own Family In Pakistan

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A pregnant woman, Farzana Parveen, has been stoned to death by more than 20 members of her own family in front of the high court of Lahore. She was only 25 and three-months pregnant.

The group included her father and brothers. They attacked her and her husband with batons and bricks. The attack happened in broad daylight.

Hundreds of women are killed every year in honor killings but public stoning is rare.

Police investigator Rana Mujahid said the woman’s father has been arrested for murder and that police were working to apprehend all those who participated in the “heinous crime.”

Another police officer, Naseem Butt, said she was killed because she married Mohammad Iqbal against her family’s wishes.

Her father, Mohammad Azeem, had filed an abduction case against Iqbal.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, a private organisation, said in a report last month that some 869 women were murdered in honour killings in 2013.

Zia Awan, a prominent lawyer and human rights activist, said: “I have not heard of any such case in which a woman was stoned to death, and the most shameful and worrying thing is that this woman was killed in front of a court.”

He said Pakistanis who commit violence against women are often acquitted or handed light sentences because of poor police work and faulty prosecutions.

“Either the family does not pursue such cases or police don’t properly investigate. As a result, the courts either award light sentences to the attackers, or they are acquitted,”

Her husband survived the attack. Iqbal, 45, said he started seeing Parveen after the death of his first wife, with whom he had five children.

“We were in love,” he told The Associated Press. He alleged that the woman’s family wanted to fleece money from him before marrying her off. “I simply took her to court and registered a marriage,”

Parveen’s father called the murder an “honor killing” and surrendered after.

“I killed my daughter as she had insulted all of our family by marrying a man without our consent, and I have no regret over it,” Mujahid, the police investigator, quoted the father as saying.

Pakistan’s Flood. When the Indus became the Yellow River of sorrow By Frank Huzur in Islamabad, Pakistan

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Pakistan’s battle fatal Floodwaters

When the Indus became the Yellow River of sorrow

By Frank Huzur in Islamabad, Pakistan

Ahead of preparing to visit Lahore for the seventh time in three years, my mind was occupied with frightening wave of terror attacks experienced during the previous tour in October-November 2009. Quite a good number of tempestuous terror attacks had continued to bedevilled the life on streets of Pakistan in the intervening months. However, I had not anticipated the sudden death to suicide bombing by the rising currents of the Indus and Chenab. That Indus river will become the ‘Yellow river of sorrow’ and wreak havoc and destruction unbearable than that of suicide bombings was inconceivable until floodwaters raged in terminal fury and wrath in the wee hours of 29 July 2010.

In the holy month of Ramadan fasting, millions of Pakistanis running helter skelter for food, water and shelter evokes the ghostly memories of the bloody month of Ramadan 63 years ago in 1947 when largest migration of Hindus and Muslims bloodied the waters of the Indus river.

In New Delhi, I didn’t have the faintest idea of the tempest I would be up, close and personal shortly after landing in Lahore. News trickling in Indian media about the devastating deluge destroying village after village in all the four Pakistan’s provinces didn’t probably have shocking punch of the enormity of the tragedy. The gargantuan scale of the water-borne human tragedy hit me hard soon when my eyes stared into relief camps, which had sprung up nearly at every traffic corner and market square. Whenever my host’s car came to a screeching halt at the red light intersection, young boys and girls began to knock at the windowpanes with a square paper box soliciting for the suffering millions.

I could sniff screaming silence in the air of Lahore. The city was crying in the month of Ramadan. In a swift departure from suicide blasts days, drivers of vehicles were not reluctant to welcome an advancing band of fund-raisers on streets of Lahore for the idea of a terrorist inching closer in the garb of a mendicant or a hawker was blown away in the surge of floodwaters.

In a fortnight of surging floodwaters, stories of displacement and death began to unravel in cruel mathematics of humanitarian disaster of monumental proportion. Civilisation has thrived on banks of the Indus for over 5,000 years. The deluge of August threatens to devour the sanctum sanctorum of the Indus valley civilisation, Mohan Jadero in Sindh. While 30 million people are languishing in agonising despair loss of home and hearth, daughters and brothers, their lamentation has few takers.

Their President was gambolling in the summery breeze of Paris and London, admiring the frescoes of his castle, fobbing off hurled shoes from expatriates and defending his jaunt by claiming his visit in hours of catastrophe brought more publicity and triggered healthy largesse from the international community. People on streets scoff at President’s appeal and call him ‘Nero of Rome.’

There are many tales of pillage and plight floating like the rickety boat on Indus and Chenab. It was chilling to learn of the dilemma of about 50,000 Hindus in Jacobad, Thund, Sultanpur and Khanpur areas of upper Sindh. A band of university boys from Karachi ventured on the rickety boat to discover the pinch hole. Larkana of Bhutto is however safe and sound, and people of Larkana are sheltering displaced Hindus population.

Majority of Hindus live in upper Sindh area and are affluent traders. However, imperiling their affluent existence is the reported increase in kidnapping of young Hindu girls in age group of 10-16 who are compelled to convert to Islam. Some elders of the community grumble their complaint is not registered at the local police station. Similar is the fate of young Christian girls in Punjab.

The mysterious disappearance of young girls and boys are actual cause for concern in the middle of humanitarian disaster. There are precedents of such atrocious missing and skeptics of minority as well as majority community are feeling the pins and needles of restlessness.

The Sikhs of North West Frontier Province are also living in disquietude and despair. The newly christened province of Khyber has won reprieve from booming sounds of suicide and car bombings but the angst of living through bomb blasts has given way to drag of saving their houses, livestock and their women and men. Not less than10,000 Sikhs are bearing the brunt of the catastrophe. Temples and Gurudwaras in Larkana and Peshawar are transformed into rehabilitation camp and community kitchen.

Christians in Punjab are in equal misery. The scale of tragedy has, for once, blurred the religious divide in Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Communities are reaching out to each other in distressing moments.
Nevertheless, millions of those who found themselves homeless and other millions who are still marooned are candid in confessing that they have lost faith in the democratic dispensation of President Zardari. The entire democratic machinery, the elected representatives across the party spectrum, have gone missing. Maulana Fazlur Rahman, popular as Maulana Diesel, who heads the right wing Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JuI) is performing Umrah in Jeddah. His detractors frown he is scared of making an appearance in his constituency.

The Taliban of Afghanistan is the creation of madrassas run by Rahman across all provinces in Pakistan. His capacity to raise battalion of fighters is his claim to political importance irrespective of ruling party in Islamabad. He is son of Maulana Mufti Mahmood, former chief minister of Khyber Pakthunwa who had defeated Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in the Dera Ismail Khan constituency in the 1970 general elections.

Dir and Swat are the worst-hit in the tribal areas. Swat continues to be cut off from the mainland Pakistan. Landmines and anti-aircraft missiles of terrorists are also flowing in floodwaters downstream from South Waziristan.

The system has crashed. Vivacity in the leadership has gone for a walk and the confidence in the leadership to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of unfortunate population is at its rock bottom. Parliamentarians and provincial legislators of both Pakistan People’s Party and Nawaz Sharif league are afraid of fetching the pump with dirty water. They fear lynching in public should they gather courage to console devastated flood victims.

Umar Khayyam, a Lahore-based advocate and political analyst, sums up the misery of his people. “As the tip of the iceberg continues to swell, the State’s capacity to meet the challenge continues to shrink. To reach out to the people, in a time of crisis, to express solidarity with them while pulling out all the stops in ameliorating their distressed lot is the hallmark of a functional, effective Government. On all these counts the incumbents have failed miserably. While strategic foresight, administrative finesse and political acumen have never been the strengths of the Zardari-led cabal of novices; but never have their failings been exposed as brutally before, as during this dire crisis. Pakistanis are being crunched in the pincer of monstrous calamity coupled with ineffectual and criminally negligent Governmental response. Only a historic and unprecedented aid programme can save millions of imperilled lives, or else Pakistan is all set to plunge into the deepest crisis of its national life.”

It’s anybody guess what the deepest crisis of Pakistan’s national life Umar is pointing at. With the vacuum in leadership right from the onset of the water tragedy, foot-soldiers of extremist organisations have rushed in where angels of Zardari and Sharif are reluctant to tread.

The unprecedented calamity hands Jamaat-ud-Dawa’s dipping stock a much-needed lifeline and an opportunity to redeem itself in the eyes of international community. Hafeez Sayeed receives a major boost, get his cadre swing into action much ahead of the state machinery. The alleged mastermind of Bombay terror attacks, sought by Indian government, floated a new charity organisation, Falah-e-Insaniat to storm the flooded areas.

In a telephonic chat with a popular Pakistani TV channel, when buck-beard Hafeez Sayeed was grilled over the source of funding for his organisation, he raised his voice to boast his funding sources are transparent and regularly audited by professional chartered accountants from Lahore who visit Muridke (headquarters of Jamaat-ud-Dawa on the western outskirts of Lahore) every month. The most wanted terrorist by the New Delhi government also boasted that Jamaat-ul-Dawa’s huge infrastructure and network has beaten all other charities and agencies in bringing relief to the suffering millions.

Hafeez Sayeed is working in tandem with Kidhmat-e-Khalq of Jamaat-e-Islami(JI) in the affected areas.

The New York Times headlined an August 6 article, Hard-Line Islam Fills Void in Flooded Pakistan. The newspaper pondered over the tangibles before sounding the bugle. Hafiz Sayeed is a free man in Pakistan, and he and his boys are saviours for hundreds of thousands of uprooted rural families, from backwaters of Sindh to Balochistan. Even the college students of Punjab University who have volunteered to run relief camps are swearing by the meticulously planned relief efforts of Hafeez’s organisation.

Musha Ghaznavi, 20 years old collegian of Lahore, told me, “Jamaat-ud-Dawa is running community kitchen, medical camp and tarpaulin shelters in over 100 centres across southern Punjab, Sind, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Villagers hail him as protector and benefactor in backwaters of southern Punjab but they also fear his wrath. Mothers lull their crying babies to sleep by chanting in their ears, ‘son, you close your eyes and sleep lest Hafeez Sayeed will appear.”

Leadership vacuum is palpable like the floating rags of poor swept by the bullish rage of Indus. Just as Indus waters began to breach barrage after barrage, it was American military aircraft which flew out of their Dubai airbase, and later Shahbaz airbase in Punjab, airlifting hundreds of thousands to safe banks. Pakistan military swiftly followed. Until now, it has outclassed the democratic government machinery in rescuing record number of marooned civilians. About 60,000 Pakistani military personnel are deployed in the floodwaters-battered areas, providing impetus to the relief and rescue operations.

The growing appreciation of Pakistan army’s role only reinforces the perception outside and within Pakistan that brass tacks still pull the string of power. Growing disenchantment with the democratic government gluts street rife with all shades of speculation over the durability of Zardari government. Observers and some media analyst told me on condition of anonymity that the next 90 days would trigger desperate attempt to dethrone the incumbents. A power storm is brewing in air of the Blue Area of Islamabad, the seat of power.

Will the Indus’s flood fury sink Zardari? This is the open question in Pakistan on streets. Yet, nobody has the million dollar answer as to who would bell the cat?

Still later, nobody is predicting the military coup or affirming hope in the audacity of General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani to boot out Asif Ali Zardari. Instead, observers are hoping for a third alternative, the surprise emergence of a dark horse backed by GHQ, Rawalpindi, minus Zardari and Nawaz Sharif, to clean the pungent odour.

This is a dark omen, and international community has reasons to worry about amidst rising evidence of complete collapse of both provincial and federal machinery. Credibility quotient of President Zardari (Jemima Khan wondered in her column for The Sunday Times, 15 August 2010, how formerly Mr 10 per cent has upgraded himself since his Presidency to 110 per cent) having dipped to alarming level in recent months, the country is struggling to convince donors that $5 billion needed to build homes and hearths of 30 million victims will not fall in the hand of rogue, extremist and terrorist organisations who have pitched in ahead of the state. Turbulence swarms around.

The lukewarm response to the tragedy is further rattling well-reasoned Pakistanis. I was talking to my Liverpool-based activist friend, Shirley Rohan, who was skeptical of her donation reaching the poorest of poor victims in backwaters of Pakistan. She told me, “I fear my money will end up in hands of Taliban. Instead of bringing smiles to faces of innocent country folks, it might fund a suicide vest of a potential suicide bomber. Who should I trust to for my money?”

Unlike Shirley, Nic Careem is clear who he will trust to bring smiles to hapless millions in Pakistan. My London-based friend Nic has booked the West End’s Lyrical Theatre for special performance for his mass hit play, And Then They Came For Me, which features step sister of Anne Frank, Eva Schloss in the cast, in order to raise fund for the Pakistan’s flood victims. Nic told me, “I am inviting Jemima Khan and Imran Khan to the fund-raiser on 17th October, and will contribute the money raised to his newly set up Imran Khan Flood Relief Fund.”

Clearly, the misuse of funds during the previous natural disasters and contingency funds released during displacement of millions of people in tribal areas during Pakistan army’s offensive against Pakistan Tehreek-e-Taliban in tribal areas has been a stuff of local nightmare and international disenchantment.

Ahmed Quraishi, a veteran journalist of Geo TV, blames the democratic dispensation of President Zardari for increasing failure to offer any contingency planning. He said, “Our rains and floods could never have turned into a tragedy worse than Haiti and Kashmir earthquake and the Indian ocean Tsunami combined if not for the manmade factors: an entire government and administrative structure that failed to offer any contingency planning before the tragedy or rapid response after. Village after village, Pakistanis saw how cardboard local administrations raised white flags and handed power over to the Pakistan military (army, navy, and air force) at the slightest hint of challenge.”

Ahmed talks about the video footage of Sindh chief minister who having been alerted by the Punjab government about floods, headed his way, stood before a camera to laugh along with his aides at how Punjab opened the waterways now that there is a flood, a thinly-disguised reference to the water disputes among provinces. The tragedy has virtually pitched people of Balcohistan against powerful landowning families of Sindh and Punjab.
Anarchy is reigning supreme in certain areas where displaced people have begun to blame some powerful families of deliberately breaching the embankment for flooding their farmlands in order to save theirs. Not less than former Prime Minister Mir Jafarullah Jamali took umbrage against some feudal lords of Sindh for flooding a vast chunk of Balochistan. Already Balochs are disenchanted with Islamabad, the fresh wave of realisation fills them with acute sense of alienation.

To top that, food riots are rampant in several areas. Convoy of trucks carrying food materials and clothes were attacked by burqa-clad women in Dera Ismail Khan.

The presidency rubbishes the rumour and conspiracy theories of deliberate flooding of certain areas. Senator Farhatullah Babar told me PPP government doesn’t believe in such theories and is committed to organise speedy relief to victims and efficient use of foreign and local aids.

But even local traders and business magnates are fighting shy of trusting the Zardari government-controlled flood relief agencies. A foreign journalist shocked President Zardari by asking him tongue-in-cheek, “Mr President, your government is riled on streets for massive fraud and corruption. People don’t want to donate because of the malaise. Are you the problem?”

Image deficit and distrust virus is spreading the blanket of gloom in Islamabad. When President Zardari convened a meeting of top industrialists and business magnates in Islamabad, majority of those invited feigned unavailability citing one reason or the other. The talk of introducing Flood Tax further soiled the environment.

Whereas President Zardari is assuming offensive posture in combating all-round attack on his credibility and efficiency, his Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani is brutally frank in admission of the ‘Image deficit.’ He was candid in his confession aboard his military aircraft while taking aerial view of the flood-hit areas when he told a television anchor, “My government credibility is lower than that of your channel. You can raise more funds.”

Little wonder, the Prime Minister Relief Fund (PMRF) set up with much pomp and fanfare at the cost of over Rs 10 million worth advertising blitz in national media attracted not more than four million in the kitty. Compare this sum with that of a residential fund-raising centre of Model Town, set up by a local wing of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), they have raised similar amount of money without spending a single rupee on advertising. This speaks volume for the public distrust in Zardari-led Pakistan People’s Party. Similar is the fate of Nawaz Sharif-led party. Nawaz is as much reviled along with his Punjab chief minister brother Shahbaz Sharif for failing to uplift the sordid plight of millions of victims in Punjab.

Shohaib Sherwani, a bubbly young worker of the PTI in Model Town, Lahore, showed me around the relief camps of different political parties. Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) had set up the camp just alongside PTI. I saw people carrying relief materials, from clothes to food grains and cache of water bottles, giving precedence to Imran Khan’s party camp than that of Nawaz Sharif’s party.

“Three million displaced people are like Atom bombs for Pakistani society. They would find it tough to return to their village, the farmland is wasteland for next couple of years, seed of their harvest washed away. Politicians are occupied with target killings of their opponents in Karachi and Sialkot. These hapless, homeless people are leaderless, and have no faith in the ruling coalition. The leadership vacuum is being filled by religious fanatics and other fringe groups because their foot-soldiers are risking the surging floodwaters, sailing in rickety boats to provide food and tent to the victims,” said Oriyan Maqbool Jaan, a leading intellectual from Lahore who heads heritage conservation centre.

Pakistan needs not less than Rs 150 billion from the world community to plug in rescue, rehabilitation and reconstruction works. It is a challenge considering the whipping publicity about the ‘Image and trust deficit’ Islamabad is drawing not only outside its frontiers but also within.

It is reliably learnt that the government growth forecast of 4.5 per cent will be missed by miles. Agriculture support 60 per cent of $167 billion economy. With nearly half of the country farmland under the ‘scorpion grip’ of Indus deluge, food security is all set to go into the tailspin. Inflation will only accelerate further eventually throwing fiscal discipline in complete disarray.

Questions doing rounds in concerned quarters on the Blue Area of Islamabad are whether International Monetary Fund (IMF) will allow Central Bank of Pakistan to print money to finance the deficit. The IMF had set conditions in exchange for an $11.3 billion bailout in last two years. Islamabad received $7.6 billion loan from the premier credit doling body in 2008 to avoid defaulting on its overseas debt and the credit agreement was increased to $11.3 billion in 2009.

Mashhood Elahi Khan, a Lahore and Atlanta-based political analyst, laments, “Distrust is the deterrence. Tales of corruption abound in the government corridor as one goes back to another monumental catastrophe in October 2005 when over 80,000 people perished in monster temblor of Kashmir. Pakistan’s foreign debt today stands at $53 billion and it coughs up $3 billion in repayment of its loan every year.”

The long-running and all-weather friend of Islamabad, the United States administration earlier pledged to donate $35 million dollar but it has become the largest donor with $250 million. Senator John Kerry announced $200 million in aid upon his arrival in Islamabad. Saudi Arabia is also chipping albeit cautiously with $44 million. Nevertheless, Pakistanis are fuming over the meagre amount released from their most emotional ally. The United Kingdom offered $16 million whereas China has already pledged $9 million. The monetary aid is like a cipher in comparison to $6 billion the world community stepped forward to deliver shortly after the Kashmir earthquake.
When New Delhi, the arch rival, offered $5 million in assistance, the offer was greeted with usual cynicism. A day later, the government sources suggested the Manmohan Singh government offer should be routed through the United Nations. Street harangues mocked the Indian offer as ‘usual suspect’s olive branch’ whereas some folks on streets of Lahore and Islamabad gesticulated that the ‘India Shining’ establishment should cough up more in hours of Pakistan’s Greek tragedy.

Opinions, however, were divided on the streets whether Pakistan should accept the offer. At end of the day, Pakistan accepted the New Delhi offer.

Farrukh Sohail Goindi, a leading intellectual and an editor, told me, “This is embankment floods. They are sudden, destructive and programmed. Barrage after barrage have been breached. Some public intellectuals are arguing over the Kalabagh dam, the completion of which could have prevented catastrophe of this order. But there is no consensus between provinces over the dam. The country coffer has drained down by Rs 50 billion. Seven million acres of land is under water and we don’t harbour any hopes of re-planting for the coming crop season. More distressing is the ravage of one million acre of cotton growing area in Punjab and Sindh. I don’t see solution in the exit of Zardari government. Nature has put us in hellish dilemma to rise above petty politics.”

Muzaffargarh is one of the oldest districts of Punjab in Pakistan. Home to overwhelmingly Seraiki speaking population, this southern district town forms a strip between the river Chenab on its east and Indus on its West. Of the two million inhabitants of the district, only ten per cent of those living in the district town are surviving with their brick and mortar houses intact, the remaining ninety per cent population of the district has been displaced, with their houses washed away in the surging waters of Indus and Chenab.

Alongwith Muzaffargarh, Rajanpur and Dera Ghazi Khan districts are monstrously-hit and account for over 10 million people who are in throes of massive displacement and health emergency. Cholera and other water-borne diseases are now slowly choking their little ones to death.

In the village of Abbas Wala near Daira Deenpanah, Aleena, 16 years of age, was dreaming of a fairytale wedding. The water washed away her dreams and put tears into her dreamy eyes. Her eyes are swollen in flood of tears. Her grief-stricken countenance mirrors the tragedy of a benighted district.

The Indus floodwaters dealt her multiple blows. It blew away her mud house, killed her 57 years old father, Abur Rehman, and if these were not enough to punish the innocent, beautiful girl, her privation compelled her fiancee to call off the wedding scheduled a few week later. The floodwaters demolished the castle of her dreams.
Aleena’s family was preparing for her wedding to Aslam from the neighbouring hamlet. When Aslam learnt that his would-be-bride has been reduced to an orphan without home, he declined out rightly to enter into matrimony with the ill-fated Aleena. Aslam himself in throes of displacement claimed he needed dowry to rebuild his own house.
Amidst the total collapse of the government, the crisis has thrown up a score of middle-class entrepreneurs and young professionals who are battling odds in the surging stream of Indus waters. Confidence powers their resolve to reach the survivors against all oddities. Most of them are aligning either with Imran Khan-led Paksitan Tehreek-e-Insaf or going solo.

Nadeem Muhammad has left his cloistered business in Dubai to return to his native city of Sialkot. He is running quite a few community kitchens under the umbrella of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf in worst hit areas of Muzaffargarh. He told me, “The government is full of fraudsters, fake degree holders and proclaimed cheats. Not a single representative of either provincial or federal government is anywhere to be seen. Just alongside my kitchen, workers of two ruling parties, Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) and Muttahida Qaumi Movement(MQM) set up a medical camp. When Shahbaz Sharif, Punjab chief minister arrived with a retinue of media persons from Lahore in a chopper, all he could do was take a lazy view of the submerged area, pose for a photo and leave hastily. Farooq Sattar, MQM leader and federal minister also appeared to be in a tearing hurry to board a flight to Nine Zero, Karachi. Shortly after the leader left, the medical camp turned silent, with a handful of doctors making no attempt to attend any victims.”

Only to counter the bad publicity over ‘Image and trust deficit’, Pakistan’s largest media conglomerate, Jang Group of Publications which also owns the Geo TV roped in Imran Khan to launch flood relief fund. Imran is undoubtedly the man with sterling philanthropic credentials who has raised over $1 billion for the Cancer hospital he set up in memoriam of his mother, Shaukat Khanum.

Islamabad is famous for more trees on its boulevards than houses. Haroon Rashid, celebrated Urdu journalist told me there are 1.1 million trees in the city whereas there are only 1 million households. Rains are lashing the clean streets of Pakistan Capital where power elites are looking clueless over the titanic tragedy.
I was jostling among the milling crowds of admirers and battery of press persons at Islamabad Press Club on 19 August. There was optimism in the air and the harbinger of optimism was Imran who had returned from a successful fund-raising tour of America.

Imran appeared at the press club in Islamabad in starch white Shalwar Kameez to announce that he was going alone to raise funds through his Imran Khan Flood Relief Fund in collaboration with Mir Khalilur Rahman Foundation (MKR)-Pukaar of Jang Group, because the Pakistan government has failed yet again. He told me, “There is no disaster that can’t become a blessing, and no blessing that can’t become a disaster. I have no faith in the much touted talk of Flood Relief Commission which Nawaz Sharif is trying to push. This national disaster needs a national mobilisation. We should not expect ‘dollar rain’ every time calamity strikes us. There are 30 million Khandan (household) in Pakistan and I am confident these 30 million household can look after 30 million people displaced in the flood fury. I accept total responsibility for the total accountability of every single rupee donated to my account no: 06027900799703, Habib Bank Limited (Toll free number: 0800-00048).”

When I asked Imran whether he would fall back on his celebrity friends in Indian tinsel town of Mumbai for raising funds, he broke into faint smiles. “I haven’t thought of bothering my friends outside as of now. People of Pakistan shall join hands together and god willing, overcome the crisis.” However, Imran agreed to back any initiative of organising India-Pakistan charity cricket match if some proposals is floated by the respective cricket boards.
Imran Aslam, chairman of Mir Khalilur Rahman Foundation said, “Only to counter the bad publicity over ‘Image and trust deficit’ we are collaborating with Imran Khan. We are taking pledge to build every single homes.”
Imran Khan Flood Relief Fund is the brainchild of stocky-looking Nadeem Iqbal, the group director of Geo TV. The bespectacled creative genius Iqbal conceived the MKR Foundation during turbulence of Tsunami and marvelled in rehabilitation of over a million IDPs (Internally Displaced Peoples) during Pakistan military offensive (Rah-e-Nizat) against Pakistan Tehreek-e-Taliban in Waziristan and Kashmir earthquake.

As Umar Khayyam in Lahore noted, these, indeed, are calamitous times for Pakistan; the most humongous deluge in recorded national history has unleashed its ferocity across vast swathes of its land, engulfing huge masses of humanity; swallowing up thousands, displacing millions while devastating over 15 million livelihoods. Natural monstrosities have come visiting this land before too, but this is the mother of all disasters. It has wiped out school after school, electrical transformer, roads and bridges and house after homes. The sheer magnitude of the destruction, the mere scale of wreckage strewn across Pakistan leaves one benumbed. Such is the volume of devastation that despite several days of its unleashing, the monster is refusing to abate to preclude any pertinent damage ascertainment.

Imran’s thought at end of the meet left me with something to ponder about the siege of Pakistan today. “Both optimist and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute.” Indeed, Imran is a complex being in his battered country and he does have the reputation of making desert bloom and lakes dies. Once again, Pakistanis are looking up to his philanthropic brilliance to build their homes, children’s school and fire their hearths.

(Frank Huzur is a biographer of Pakistan legendary cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan. His upcoming book, Imran Versus Imran: The Untold Story is expected soon. He can be reached at frankhuzur@falcon-falcon.co.uk. Website link: www.falcon-falcon.co.uk)

Frank Huzur on Imran Khan, Jemima, the Taleban and writing.

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I was delighted to interview writer Frank Huzur recently. Frank specializes in Indo-Pak political affairs and is incredibly knowledgeable on India, the Afghanistan war and the Taleban. He has a book coming out soon, Imran versus Imran: The UNTOLD STORY, the biography of Imran Khan.

Frank had this to say about the book and then the interview follows:

It has not been a smooth journey across the border. For an Indian national, irrespective of profession-media is more notorious in India-Pakistan for stoking the fire of jingoism and sowing the seed of hatred—it is always a thorny affair to travel to each country. I somehow have been fortunate to visit Pakistan seven times in three years. Writing the biography of Imran Khan was, indeed, a powerful motivation. Nevertheless, travelling through different areas, Lahore, Mianwali (ancestral place of Imran Khan and his political constituency) and Islamabad–was always a tough ask, considering the combustible political situation on streets. Terror attacks, hundreds of them–quite big in size and casualty, have hit high profile targets, some of them during my visit.

Irrespective of everything, I maintained my focus on the goal, and returned each time armed with a vast range of anecdotes and impressions of Imran Khan and Pakistan politics. People of Pakistan have been very beholden to my literary endeavour and have never discouraged me from probing further into their lives and times.

Imran and his family and friends were very warm and friendly during numerous round of interviews for the biography. His brother-in-law and sisters in Lahore were candid in sharing their side of the story.

Jemima Khan in London was equally considerate and beholden to my requests. She was very forthright in sharing her impressions of Imran. I am indebted to her for taking the interview at her Studio One apartment, Fulham Broadway in April, 2008.

1) How did you get into writing?

FH: I discovered as early as in 8th grade at school that writing was my natural instinct. The urge to write began with composition of poems in English. Reading of Wordsworth’s poems, I wandered lonely as a Cloud, The Solitary Reaper, Strange Fits of Passion have I known romanticised my imagination. By the time I was a school graduate at the age of 15, I tasted blood with the publication of some of my poems on the New Delhi-based English dailies, including The Asian Age. I was in love with the romantic age in English literature, and doted on the Lyrical Ballads, a joint publication of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Before taking a maiden shot at playwriting, I had composed over 100 poems under the title of Remembering Her. When I joined Hindu college, Delhi University in 1995, poetic sentiments found expression in prose and play. In summer of 1998, I published my maiden play, Hitler in Love with Madonna. The title of the play was dubbed weird by friends, and critics were attracted like moth to the lamp during rehearsal itself. However, it brought me a fair share of public acclaim in the national press, for its political undercurrents.

Poetry and play further fired my imagination to comment on the burning issues of society and politics. In the spring of 1997, I had the temerity to launch a monthly newsmagazine, Utopia, with heavy dose of political reportage from around the world. The inaugural issue of Utopia in March 1997 coincided with the political debut of Imran Khan across the border in Pakistan. Since then, political churning in the subcontinent and elsewhere continues to fire my imagination to dabble in chiefly three genre of literature, poetry, drama (fiction) and non-fiction. I am still a few years away from writing a novel.

2) You have written a lot about Imran Khan and have a book coming out soon about him. What can you tell us about him and why is he so fascinating to you?

FH: The fascination with Imran, to speak the truth, bordered on paranoia during school days. I was growing up in Patna, capital of a benighted state like Bihar in India, where cricket was staple diet. Throughout ‘80s Imran was a household name for apparent reasons. However, I found myself increasingly obsessed with the other side of his charismatic persona, such as his philanthropic passion, which was on display during the 1987 World cup semi-final in Lahore. Imran lost the battle against Aussies, announced his retirement and despite winning the car in the ‘Man of the Series’ award, he gifted it to Abdul Qadeer. He had already started a fierce campaign to build the cancer hospital in memoriam of his mother, Shaukat Khanum. I was a 10 years old cricket wannabe at the time. Still, I could experience the magic moments of Imran’s other side, a cricketer who was a crusader for a public cause and an opinionated sportsman who could talk for hours on issues of public interest. Gathering such impression of Imran in the face of prevailing media stereotype at the time like he was a playboy, junkie and Lothario was quite a unique experience. Doting on a superstar from across the border, supposedly an enemy country for an average Indian youth, was another surprise.

Nevertheless, Imran Khan was a ticket to hate-free zone vis-a-vis Indo-Pak barbed wire rivalry goes. He has never been an anti-India rhetorician.

The childhood obsession with Imran became a passionate act of observing his political innings in the prime of my youth as a writer and journalist. Visiting Pakistan for over half-a-dozen occasion in the past three years of troubled past opened my eyes to a vast sheaf of reality bites. Not only about the man who has been deep into maelstrom of his political struggle and movement for justice, but also about the bedevilled country, mired into morass of bad political morals.

My biography of Imran Khan, Imran Versus Imran: The Untold Story (expected last week of July, 2010, Falcon & Falcon Books Ltd. London) is an unambiguous enquiry into his political innings. This is not about a cricketing legend. Imran versus Imran brings out the so far unknown sides of a legendary crusader who has sacrificed on several fronts, including his marriage to Jemima, children living in London while he braves the heat and dust on Pakistani streets, luxury of cloistered life in the West and a lucrative career in cricket administration or commentary box. Like a Sufi who lives by his passion and instinct for a cause, Imran has been an Avant-garde voice against the status-quo in Pakistan.

3) What do you think is next for Imran?

FH: Imran will not fade out in the present avatar. Those who know the former captain of Pakistan cricket team will testify to his childlike lust for grabbing his toy. Capturing power is not his agenda. Power doesn’t please him, which is why he has been quick in rejecting several offer of alliances with nearly all the political formations. He could have won a good number of seats in February 2008 Parliamentary elections. Yet he listened to the voice of his conscience and boycotted the polls as a tribute to lawyers’ struggle for restoration of Independent judiciary.

Like Jemima told me, even if Imran doesn’t succeed in electoral terms, he will remain a yardstick by which honesty of a politician in mud pond of Pakistan politics will be measured. However, Imran will not give up. The youth of the country are solidly behind him, and he is promising them a ‘bloodless revolution.’ Imran will go down even in his political innings a successful crusader. Even though he is still not a maverick and a great organiser of political programmes, he does stand his chance. He is gearing up to go for jugular sometime in near future.

Having said that, Imran Khan is a unique politician who is rabidly against the American policies and on-going drone attacks in the tribal areas, not to mention a series of suicide bombings targeting civilian population in Lahore and elsewhere. Imran will not soften his anti-America stand in order to capture power. He wants to create history like Ayatollahs in Pakistan, and he doesn’t give damn to those who accuse him of being a ‘devil advocate’ of Taleban.

4) What do you think of the current political and economical situation of the world today?

FH: The world politics is on the brink of tectonic shift in its scope and character. Forces of privatization and globalisation are under intense scrutiny in nearly all the countries, be it the USA, Europe, Latin America or Indian Sub-continent. The economic crisis, in the past couple of years, has robbed the crystal ball gazing off its sheen.

Europe is experiencing a paradigm shift vis-a-vis confrontation with corporate state. The upsurge in stocks of Liberal Democrat in the British Parliamentary elections is a testimony to the ‘wind of change blowing in the air.’ In Germany, there is a surge of support for Die Linke (The Left) led by Oskar Lafontaine. In Nederland, the Socialist party is looking set to replace the Labour Party as the principal opposition party. Greece’s economic woes have triggered a massive surge in mass support for the rapid rise of the Coalition of the Radical Left. Spain and Norway, Socialists are already entrenched in power corridor. Least said the better about the Latin American countries like Bolivia, Venezuela, Brasil and others where socialist sentiments have acquired a zing even among youth.

In Indian subcontinent, love affairs with corporations continues and it will have its moment of reckoning in near future. Though the ruling party, Indian National Congress is a centrist party, its policies of late have been hammered on public streets for extreme pro-corporation bias. The principal opposition party led by Hindu nationalist Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) is not perceived much different from the ruling coalition of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA). However, a vast crowd of poor Indians, especially in northern provinces of Hindi heartland where majority of Indians live on their small agricultural holdings, are veering towards the third alternative, socialist party of India. Samajwadi Party, (Socialist Party of India) is the third largest political bloc on the floor of Indian Parliament. Over the past couple of years, the party is registering massive inroads into hearts and minds of common Indians under the vibrant leadership of its young leader, Akhilesh Yadav, who is a suave, English-educated master in Environment from University of Sydney. Akhilesh is the principal rival to Rahul Gandhi’s juggernaut in the most populous province of Uttar Pradesh, and probably a counterfoil to Rahul Gandhi’s premier ambition to rule the highly-cherished state.

The politics across the border in Pakistan is a worrying sign for us all in the sub-continent. However, the transfer of power from President Zardari to Prime Minister Gilani and recent surge in judicial activism augurs well for fledgling civil institutions in the beleaguered nation, which has been an important ally of the USA-led coalition against war on terror. Imran Khan’s role can’t be discounted, as he has fired the imagination of Pakistani people over pros and cons of democracy and dictatorship.

In all, President Obama is yet to demonstrate his famous ‘audacity of hope’ calibre, and as of now, he is looking like an Ostrich over Afghanistan. General Stanley McChrytal’s unceremonious exit is a serious setback to the American strategy in Kabul.

5) Do you think the war in Afghanistan is winnable?

FH: There are no winners in war, whether in Afghanistan or Vietnam. For centuries, the Great Game theory has been pounded of its barest bone and flesh in the opium fields of Kandhar. The Soviets were sucked into interminable conflict and by the time realisation dawned upon them, they had become paupers in every conceivable way. The USA and Britain didn’t learn a lesson from the condemned past before committing chaotic blunder after blunder.

The Taleban should have been taken out of their hideouts. Nine years later, the army of rugged Pathans are now lurking at gates of Kabul. Nine years of bloated and arrogant war machinery has created only mausoleum of thousands of innocent Afghan men, women and children, over 1,000 American soldiers and over 100 British soldiers, not to mention tragic loss of NATO soldiers and a great number of promising journalists, including Daniel Pearl. Had the war on terror in Afghanistan been on the course of achieving even ten percent of its laid-out objectives, Taleban would not have mushroomed in the tribal areas of Pakistan and bombing its innocent civilians and military General Headquarters.

Adding further insult to injuries, the cost of Afghan war has overtaken that of Iraq for the first time this summer. President Obama is committing $65 billion more, with total cost of fighting the Taleban and Al-Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan all set to zoom past $100 billion in 2010 alone.

The Afghan war is a catastrophic blunder on all fronts. Just as the Soviet’s humiliating withdrawal destabilised the neighbouring regions, the prevailing situation on the border of Pakistan bodes ill for even eastern neighbourhood of India.

6) What is your writing schedule?

FH: Writing is a spontaneous process for me. I never plan my writing schedule. However, I am a night animal, and prefer to borrow more from arterial stretches of imagination late into the night. The midnight hours are more simulating as the din of daytime robs me off creative cultivation of thoughts.

7) Do you think it is possible to defeat the Taliban?

FH: Taleban is a stateless phenomenon. Which is why it is difficult to root these faceless warriors out for once and all. Taleban is an idea, and a vampire-like creation out of the monstrous cocktail of Jihadi ideology and distorted interpretation of Islam. If the Western powers commit to fight the idea of Taleban, only then its elimination is possible. Liberal and democratic forces should be encouraged to penetrate into the deep pockets of extremist heartland where young, impressionable minds are being indoctrinated to slaughter innocents of the civilised society.

8 ) India is known as a place where people go to find themselves. What makes India so magical?

FH: India is not just a place populated with people of diverse faiths and caste-ridden Hindu population. India’s secret weapon is her tenacity, ability to smile in face of fierce tragedy. There are islands of poverty in every single metropolis, not to mention hundreds of small towns and millions of villages, yet beauty of India cuts through rivers of sorrow as millions of Indians rise and fall in their perennial search for salvation. Every Hindu caste Indian has his own deities, his own temple where he believes his deity will rain milk and honey if he surpass other fellows in his offerings. Spiritual fascism of high priests apart, there are many portals of liberating one’s soul. The vastness of the country offers its own aesthetic beauty where a person from northern temple town of Benares will find himself alien in the southern temple city of Tirupati in lingua and look, yet a northerner and southerner will be united in their common pursuits of salvation at the feet of stone-deity.

India is home to more Muslims than Pakistan, and its secular, democratic polity has endured powerful assaults over the fabric of its communal accord. However, the land of mystic seers and shrines is in the grip of difficult challenges, of late as terrorism of all shades rears its ugly head.

9) What is next for you?

FH: I am about to write a couple of more biographies, preferably a biography of India’s socialist titan, Mulayam Singh Yadav, who has ruled India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh three times and has also been ex-defense minister. I am also working on the biography of Britain’s top Muslim, Dr Khurshid Ahmed, who is winner of CBE from the Queen, for his pivotal role in improving the image of West in Muslim countries. In addition, I am also working on my debut novel, albeit a tad slow.

Thank you Frank.

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