Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Hajra Khan P.
Foreword
“Give me liberty or give me death,” was Voltaire’s slogan against
the tyrannical rule of the French despots in the start of eighteenth
century. So powerful was the outburst that led to the French
Revolution in the fall of the century. Hajra’s call for emancipation
of the women, amelioration of the poor and liberating of the youth
from idolization of their political elite will resonate in the rotten
society of Pakistan for a long time the way the French
philosopher’s did, albeit in a low tone.
In a society where everyone is suffering from the crisis of identity,
she has brilliantly tried to carve out one, not only for herself but
for every Pakistani woman, though at the cost of her own career
and repute. Her account is a tale of failing of the voiceless, not at
the micro level of her own self but at the macro level of the entire
nation.
In the pursuit of her ideals, she came across Pakistan’s great
cricketer turned celebrity turned politician, who raised, as per her
understanding, the slogan of real independence and change. She
was the victim of the gross contradictions of Pakistan’s society and
at once embraced Imran’s ideals as her own and supported them
vigorously. It was this idealization of his dreams by her that got
her close to him and it was here that she entered into an altogether
different world of sex, drugs, and exploitation. She couldn’t
believe all this and that had an iconoclastic effect on her psyche. It
was her second accident after she had experienced one in the
showbiz industry before this.
Going through the book reminds one, very vividly, that she feels
pain for the children at streets who are at the mercy of
psychopaths, for the women who are prone to predators and the
youth who are susceptible to drugs and deviation from their
political idealism. Her heart also pains for the men with less
fortune and with huge responsibilities in the society. And this
feeling on her part is quite natural. After all she belongs to the
Pathan heartland and has the warm and empathetic heart of a
Pathan in her chest. The Pathan who keeps, over and above
everything, the protection and safety of her loved ones
i
It is time for us to ponder in a responsible manner as how can we
allow Imran Khan to deliver religious sermons and give calls for
jehad and revolution against the corrupt system of our country to
our youngsters when he himself is keeping his three children in a
Zionist household of Goldsmith family in London. He runs from
taking the responsibility of raising his own children and he
promises, in his idiosyncratic manner, a bright future for our youth.
If we still do not take cognizance of this alarming situation and not
take concrete steps to shield our kids, our brothers, our sisters and
our elders, from this menacing cult, it would mean we have
blinded ourselves to his satanic narcissism. History may find it
hard to forgive us.
Lofty ideals Imran’s followers had pinned to him and the tragic
sentiments she came across was the manifestation that cognitive
dissonance was in its full swing. She was and still is bewildered as
to where were the money and resources coming from that
supported Imran’s lavish and filthy lifestyle and who all operated
a huge, and remarkably efficient, social media machine, of which
she herself was once victim.
While reading her memoir, I was impressed by her bold acceptance
of the truth, not caring about the damage this truth would do to her,
and it was because of this characteristic that she was able to unveil
the line between hope and disillusionment.
One can rightly hope this book may be the beginning of the
unfolding process that may liberate the mesmerized intelligentsia,
caged academia and blinded youth from the cult of the person who
has not only played havoc to the value system of this country but
continues to contaminating the minds of our posterity as well.
Dr Jalal Mohmand
Islamabad
15 November, 2023
ii
Prologue
Bob Dylan
iii
Libra, loved gardening, flowers, trees, especially the walnut tree but
why were they chopped off?
As I was half comatose by a nostalgia, I did not know where to go
after my book did not get published and the agency backed out, year
and a half later from writing it in London to self-publishing it in
Washington. I was out of money, ideas, and career. Hope was the
only asset.
I took a deep breath in that fresh chilled air, a voice creeped gently
near me,
“Zeesho?”
I looked at an old woman in torn and warn out clothes, a face so
sun-burnt you would think she was a version of someone else. Her
facial wrinkles complained of days of no care.
As I tried to find a ghost of my childhood, in the place of my
bloodline I had not visited over a decade, I saw the shadow of a
sultry tall Afghan refugee who used to make bread for us, bring her
vessels to fill water from the tube well, her walk used to mesmerize
us all, voluptuous body, wearing no bra, just covered by a torn long
linen dupatta. An Afghan refugee family settled just around the
corner of our village. As I found her hiding in her glare, “Bibi?” I
muttered.
She smiled and shook her head.
“I haven’t seen you since you were a kid
playing here.” I smiled and nodded.
Thinking neither have I.
She continued with such curiosity, searching, and almost reading
me or trying to. She added,
“I kept asking about you from your aunt since we haven’t seen you
in years.” I kept nodding and blinking my eyes, it was hard to see
her life’s hardships written on her once beautiful face.
“Your aunt says you’ve travelled the world, and you live on your
own ….do what you like?” She laughed.
“She said oh Zeesho lives like man….do what she likes …just
travels all around.” She laughed in disbelief. We both kept looking
at each other until she stopped giggling in her tired voice.
“So, is it true?”
“Hmm what?” I asked her.
“That you travel and live like man…. You do what you want.”
iv
Epiphany. Like mentally I took a deep drag of an opiated menthol
slim from my aunt’s childhood hidden box, placed in a locked room
and in secret.
I looked at her, nodded and replied,
“Yes, indeed I do…. I do.”
I knew from that moment I just had to keep travelling on. It is all I
needed to do.
She looked at me like she did not want to ask anything more and
continued walking the same way. Her once youthful day would
sweep in, now struggled to carry the weight of those shoulders,
slowly disappeared into the gateway. All I could hear was the sound
of the water thrusting from the tube well and nothing else. Silence.
But why did he chop the cherry blossom?
v
Dedication
To my father and all voiceless women, children, and minorities of
Pakistan, especially my hometown, Quetta.
The actual version of this book never got published until now. I
refer to this book as the 2nd edition. Many names have been changed
to protect identities of the individuals.
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
S. NO CONTENT PAGE NO
1 Foreword i
2 Prologue iii
3 Dedication vi
4 Table of Contents vii
5 Wild Flowers 1
6 Waking Up 7
7 Music to my Ears 13
8 First Collision 17
9 No Mercy 21
10 The World out side My Window 25
11 Emerging from the Shadows 29
12 Behind the Mask 35
13 Heat Rising 43
14 Smoke and Mirrors 51
15 Lend me an Ear 59
16 Pretty Fools 65
17 Caught in the Middle 69
18 True Value 75
19 Behind the Scenes 81
20 The Mask Slips 87
21 Collateral Damage 103
22 Epilogue 107
23 2023 113
24 Acknowledgments 119
vii
“If you cannot bear these stories then the society is unbearable.
Who am I to remove the clothes of this society, which itself is
naked. I do not even try to cover it, because it is not my job, that's
the job of dressmakers.”
viii
Chapter One
Wild Flower
The dry dust caught the back of my throat as we walked across the
vegetable fields on a dry afternoon. As my knees brushed the soft
petals of reddish pink poppies, I lowered my hand to reach them.
“They’re so beautiful,” I murmured as their heavy heads lolled and
danced on their vulnerable stems almost breakable. Then my
mother caught the sight and grabbed my fingers, holding them
tightly with her dry hands. “No, Hajra!
Do not touch,” she said. “Poppies are dangerous.” I looked
confused.
“But why, mother? They do not look scary…. they are so pink …so
red.” “Heroin comes from poppies,” she said.
“What’s heroin?”
“A bad thing….it make the best in the world around here.”
“We do…a bad best thing? I just like the flowers. I do not want to
make a bad thing?” I chuckled.
“Not ‘we’,” snapped my mother. “But our land does. Now come
along. There are many other pretty flowers.”
I trailed behind her, trying to keep up, my head spinning from the
heat and our increased walking pace.
This was one of my first lessons in life. Things are never quite what
they seem in Pakistan.
Soon afterwards, I started noticing the smell of opium more than
ever. It took me years to understand where the pungent sweet scent
came from. Men smoked it everywhere, from in the fields to where
they sat in the street, a haze following them as they walked. Only
gradually did I realize it was the drug opium, harvested in the fields,
often in Afghanistan desperate to make some money just to survive,
I always assume. What a sad ending to the journey of a beautiful
flower? Or a dangerous new beginning, for how long could a flower
be just pretty and wild.
I was born and bought up in Quetta, the largest city of the
Balochistan province, near the borders of Afghanistan and Iran, to
a Pakistani Pashtun family. Just two years before my birth, the
1
Where the Opium Grows
1
General Muhammad Zia ul Haq’s martial law lasted from 1977 to 1985 while
he ruled Pakistan till his death in August 1988.
2
Wild Flower
woman, which did cause her to be mocked for most of her life,
Jenny.
Eager for us to enjoy a Western education like his own, baba sent
us to an American school, run by an American lady who had
married a Pakistani. I loved school, even if we did not fit in at all
and I hardly made friends. We were two Pakistani girls from Quetta,
falling short in the business of fitting into our expat neighbourhood,
but my parents tried, and we wore nice dresses and embraced what
we could to fit in.
Learning was a good experience for me, however, and I devoured
books whenever I could from an early age, especially British and
Irish literature. My baba ignored concerns from his relatives about
what would happen if we girls were given such a modern education.
He believed it was our only hope for the future and he was proved
right. A few years later, my father could legitimately celebrate the
birth of his child as our brother, Yasir, was born. My parents were
thrilled to have a son at last, and once again a cow was sacrificed
but this time with much higher approval ratings.
As much as I loved school, I enjoyed my time outside it even more.
When we would visit Quetta in the summers, these were the trees
and open fields I loved. With my cousins we spent hours in the
garden and roaming the fields of Quetta. In summer, happiness
meant being free from the constraints of class to disappear for hours
climbing trees, or running wild and dangerously, as mother would
put it anxiously. She felt she had no control over me, the kind her
very rigid and abusive father had over her and our other relatives
did not approve. “A girl’s place is in the home,” the men would say
to girls once they came of age. Hearing this made me want to run
more and more freely in the fields, fearing this play would be taken
away someday as my childhood will ripe into womanhood, “See?
This is what happens when you try and provide a modern education
to the girls, they stop listening to you.” I heard them, but I never
listened.
3
Where the Opium Grows
2
The prayers mat.
4
Wild Flower
5
Where the Opium Grows
when the cook looked at me. Suddenly my father no longer felt like
my baba. He was a man and men now meant danger to me, even if
my father were someone who’d never hurt his child in such a way.
Unlike most Asian, specifically Pashtun fathers, he was gentle,
kind, and non-violent or strict. I turned away and ran out of the
room, rudely ignoring him.
“What’s the matter with Zeesho?” baba asked mother. “Why won’t
she come and say hello to me?”
Mother shrugged. “She is a wilful child, handful” she sighed. “I
don’t know what to do with her.”
I went to my room and cried, feeling confused and shameful, but
knowing I could not tell anyone.
Over the next few months, I tried to avoid the cook when I visited
Annie, but it happened twice again. Then on the final occasion
something snapped inside me.
As he beckoned me into his room, I just gritted my teeth at him and
stuck out my chin. “Idiot!” I screamed in his face as he tried to
touch me. That was actually his name, idiot, the household probably
gave it to him. They trusted him with the house, why would they
leave it to him when away.
“Let go of me! Go away!” As I jumped up and down, growing red
in the face, he showed his yellow stained teeth and told me to keep
quiet. “No!” I yelled. He let go of me and, finally free, I ran outside.
Excited, I had managed to escape him. From then on, whenever I
saw him, I taunted him aggressively, realizing this tactic worked.
“Idiot, idiot,” I would scream and spit at him when playing with
Annie and the kids. They would all laugh and cheer on.
I also noticed something else. Annie also started taunting him, and
even coined the nickname ‘Idiot’ for him herself. Despite my tender
age, I realized she had probably had a similar experience with him.
We would both been abused by the same man but never dared speak
about it, not even to each other, let alone anyone else. But when we
would taunt him and scream and laugh, we both knew we found our
little protest.
6
Chapter Two
Waking Up
When I was nine, we left Karachi to move back to Quetta. After
living a relatively liberal life, this was a huge wake-up call. Now I
was old enough to understand the differences between the two cities
and what a difference it was. Previously lauded as a city of beauty
under British rule and before Zia’s war, all that was left in Quetta
was decaying colonial architecture and a mish mash of shanty
towns, not unlike the slums of Brazil. Deprived of proper
government funding for years, the only infrastructure left working
was that left behind by the British, the safety and leisurely life just
a decade ago, leaving many people hankering after the bygone era.
From the poorest to the richest, the mantra would often be:
‘Things were better when the British were here. At least they built
things that worked …even up to just a few years ago, we would go
to the cinema, there were fairs and foreign dancers and a time of
peace and calm….’ And it was true. The neglect and corruption of
the Pakistani government and the feudal mindset had crippled
growth and deprived the population of basic necessities, not to
mention the mullaism3 that the post-Zia period was spreading its rot
in the poor Pashtun belt.
The city was suffering from a never-ending colonial hangover. The
days were long gone of hippies on the trail of opium and adventure,
some of whom had stayed with my family before the Afghan war.
Those joyful travellers had left such a legacy of uplifting tales of
peace, tolerance, and freedom that many villagers would still smile
and remember them with warmth. There were cinemas for men and
women to go to, too, and a tradition of Pathan hospitality being
lavished on tourists and visitors, in warm demonstrations of
tolerance. But since then,
Where the Opium Grows
3
Self-righteousness of the traditional religious teachers
4
1979-1989
7
Where the Opium Grows
8
Waking Up
Although school was not so bad, I was very aware of the extremist
oppression, decaying poverty, and its stance against women in our
society. My mother had six sisters and we saw more of them since
now we were back in their home city. One of my aunts was a
gynaecologist and I overheard her conversations with my mother
about her experiences trying to help women in hospitals. As I
approached my teens, I became aware of the shocking tales of
brutality suffered by women in Quetta. The poverty and the
suffocating lack of feeling safe and fed were not misplaced.
Children were not in schools, women were not well, men had less
or no work at all. It was like a dark cloud always lingering.
9
Where the Opium Grows
“She was in a terrible state. Her insides broken from rape, she had
infections, she was malnourished and overworked. The saddest part
was she desperately wanted to live, even though we
could not save her. Even I wondered why such an abused person
wanted to live, and for what?”
But the most horrific case of all was when a poor villager came to
the civil hospital with his wife and a child of 18 months, and that
child was brutally raped by two ward boys working in the hospital.
The child died and the poor man and his wife could not do much. It
was local news and international ‘youngest victim’ reported at the
time, but there have been more records broken since. The two
culprits were arrested for a brief period and confessed to have raped
many children working on the streets. Soon freed, they were at large
once again to rape and murder. At a young age these horrific
incidents were etched in my mind, and I became very aware of the
monsters among us.
Slowly I built up a vivid picture of what marriage meant for
Pakistani, especially Pashtun women and even my own female
relatives. One evening, my dry auntie, who worked as a
gynaecologist in the civil hospital, came over with bruises on her
face. Nobody asked her where they were from, and they did not
need to. It was obvious.
I thought, “You are trying to look after and save other women, but
you cannot even save yourself.”
Yet she had still come tired, full of pain and trying for hope
describing the state she’s seen girls and women come. Her own eye
blue and purple, shed tears for another, and show up again the next
day. Empathy is a strange thing, you never run out if you have some.
Domestic violence had been normalized to the extent that even an
educated and progressive woman like her was a victim.
At one point some distant female relatives came over with their
husbands, and they spoke of having breast cancer. Cancer in
10
Waking Up
Pakistan was no less than a death sentence and for women even
more so, as they had to rely on men to help them. One husband
of a relative took her to hospital to have her breast removed and
that was all the treatment she could expect. She died shortly
afterwards and within a month he got remarried – further proof
to me of how a woman’s life in Pakistan was expendable. I
noticed too how my mother never had her own name on her
suitcase label when we travelled anywhere. She always wrote my
baba’s name on her luggage.
“But it’s your bag,” I argued. “Write your own name.” She
shrugged and said it was fine. Her attitude made me more
determined than ever to keep my own name.
Hajra Panezai.
I vowed then and there to keep my full name and never change
it. My bag my name.
By now I started to question everything about our system,
particularly the way religion was misused in oppressing people,
especially women and the poor. It is us who have to opiate the
poor with promises and delusions to get through what we, the
privilege, deprive them of life.
“Why do we pray when so much suffering is still happening.
When we cause suffering then we pray to God to make it better?”
I asked my mother. “I do not believe in ‘this’ at all. Like no one
wants to make things better but wants God to.”
She told me to shut up. “You have to believe in being good and
what you’re told,” she said.
But the fact was I did not. If anything, life in Quetta was teaching
me on a day-to-day basis that there were no prayers answered.
How could there be in a place of such brutality, of suffering? Or
at least if God exists, where was He, among all these people
around me who prayed so fervently five times a day? But I
11
Where the Opium Grows
12
Chapter Three
Music to my Ears
Thanks to my baba’s gentle and open ideals, many would
consider colonial liberal, we got international cable TV in our
house. I was enthralled when I discovered MTV, and this opened
up a whole world of insights into the West for me. It was the
biggest fun world in little old Quetta. I was out of my cartoon
age now.
When I heard Nirvana’s ‘Come as You Are,’ I buzzed with
excitement as the lyrics spoke of true freedom to me. I had
discovered rock n roll, and I was saved. I became passionate
about music and loved to listen to U2, the Rolling Stones and
many more. For hours I would sit riveted to the TV set, singing
along, swept away in the bliss of the words and the exciting
guitar chords. The words and music made me feel completely
free for the first time and I developed a huge crush on Joe Elliott
of Def Leppard. I also fell in love with the wit and wisdom of
the likes of Oscar Wilde. Music at home and books in school
became a platform I started manifesting my dreams on. It had
become a welcome escape from my surroundings when they
suffocated me. After school, there was nowhere for us kids to
hang out, so I would bury myself in a book or put my headphones
on and be transported to another place.
As I saw what a happier existence life in the West could mean, I
became obsessed with the idea of moving abroad one day. It was
actually my father who planted that dream. No father I knew had
given to his daughter around me, wings and to fly away. Despite
his laissez-faire attitude towards his children, not being too
actively involved or around, it was nice to have him around, it
kept my mother in check as she would be less physically abusive
or mean. As cagey as I got being around any man, the fear of
being touched “wrongly” was a constant fear. Education was
something our father encouraged us about, having our own
identity, dreams, and privacy. “Will you help pay for me to go
abroad one day baba?” I would ask him over the years. Knowing
13
Where the Opium Grows
he did not have money and was not reliable and made many
promises, I’d keep asking him probably the only thing just to
reassure myself. He was very childish part of him and never
seemed to grow up like other fathers we saw.
“Yes,” he’d promise. “You will get to go abroad.”
If anything, baba gave me the impression going to the West was
the only answer rather than anything Pakistan could offer, even
though he struggled financially.
“There is nothing for you here in Quetta,” he would say, shaking
his head. By now he had built us a half-baked construction
resembling of what could be a swimming pool in our farmhouse
for recreation because in our immediate area there was nothing
whatsoever in the area for the teenagers. Women were not
allowed out on the street as freely, something even the police did
not have to enforce as nobody would dare to do it. I would get
taunted and vilified if I even set foot outside our house. There
was only a high street with one single bookshop, a few bakeries
and fruit and vegetable vendors. My mother never left home
except to see our aunties or to the clothes market. She was a
prisoner within her own family. Ziarat and Hanna were nice to
visit once in a while and field and tress of our farmhouse
provided a play and open escape. For everything else there was
MTV. And rock n roll saved me.
I often visited my aunties, too. Some of them were still young
and single and I noticed they all had posters of Imran Khan stuck
on their walls at home. One of my aunts even had a huge poster
of him in a black polo-neck and glasses above her bed.
‘Isn’t he so handsome?’ she sighed when she spotted me gazing
at it. I shrugged. He just looked like an ordinary man to me, much
like any other, albeit a bit more polished in the way of a movie
star. I was far too young to be interested and laughed when she
told me he was her biggest crush.
14
Music to my Ears
15
Where the Opium Grows
16
Chapter Four
First Collision
Brimming with excitement and nerves, my cousin and I went
along to the big event. Room was half full of some of the few
remains of old money and influence. Women were dressed up in
local and men and their children were anxiously parading in the
hall. We sat waiting at a table when the players walked in, Imran
Khan was one of them and looked almost regal in his traditional
clothes, something has taken on as a brand by now, as people
cheered and threw flowers at him. I could see it written on all the
players’ faces that they were appalled at being in our not ‘so cool’
small city. It was one of the worst and last areas they’d visited
on the tour. Their long-bored faces screamed “please let’s get this
over with.”
“What is this?” was the speech bubble I imagined emerging
cartoon like from their heads. Though most players came from
obscurity and small towns, Imran was the only Oxford graduate
amongst them. It was Imran everyone there were all in awe of
most. He was a class apart, no question about it. We listened as
the locals made these long overly theatrical ‘we beat the English’
speeches. My cousin was nervous, and she was called on to
receive the signed bat from Imran on the small stage. Once the
ceremony of the washed-up sucking speeches was over and
people started socializing with the very aloof team moors, Imran
khan was making way through the adults. Feeling brave, I wound
my way around the tables to reach Imran’s seat. Imran was next
to the chief minister, quiet and almost expressionless, hand under
his chin. All eyes were on him. People tried to push each other
for his attention, and he knew. I wondered how the other players
felt always being so over shadowed by this one man.
After the speech and ceremony, the pride in defeating the English
team and winning the World Cup, I wanted too to have a picture
with not just the man of the moment, but the captain of the team.
17
Where the Opium Grows
18
First Collision
19
Where the Opium Grows
20
Chapter Five
No Mercy
My impression of Quetta worsened the older I grew and the more I
saw the poverty and cruelty of everyday life. Whenever I ventured
anywhere outside our home, I seemed to be privy to new horrors.
At first, we enjoyed going to visit our relatives who taught at the
local primary school in Bostan, a mix of refugee and local Pashtun
poor kids attended it. It was a basic building made of mud, in the
outside space between our farmhouse and our vegetation. I liked to
think family members were doing good by helping the kids there.
But one day I watched in horror as teachers beat the village kids at
random with sticks.
“Why are you doing this?” I cried as the kids, no older than eight,
cowered on the floor clutching their bruised bodies.
“Because they know nothing and are wild animals,” one said. Wild
animals? The irony that the one to educate, soothe and mentor the
poverty-stricken children stuck in a village with little hope of a
future were being managed like criminals was lost on me. That
would have been my first realization of the awful hypocrisy and
justification at power violation, even at such an unassuming level.
A place to teach young vulnerable kindness and make life easier
knowing adulthood will be like a harsh cold winter with little
money. But sadly, even their childhood was not exempt from the
harsh unkind hardened humans guised as their ‘teachers.’
“They may not grow up to be engineers or doctors,” I retorted. “But
they deserve better treatment than this and kindness!”
“Ah, go back to your American school, and those shameless frocks
your father bought you,” they taunted. I also discovered some of
the kids were even taken to ‘work’ unpaid in the homes of some of
the teaching staff. They were little more than slaves. The attitude
towards them was appalling, and barbaric treatment in general of
vulnerable refugees was worsening in my city. I often gave sweets
to the kids as they hid from everyone, I never had enough but every
time I visited Bostan, I went to give them some.
One evening, coming back from Bostan to Quetta at early dusk, I
saw the dead body of a pregnant refugee woman lying in the street,
21
Where the Opium Grows
22
No Mercy
Quetta. It said men and women should be treated more equally and
God said a communion between a man and wife was something to
be enjoyed. It mosaiced on masculinity in kindness and strong as
fair providers as one who lowered his gaze, practiced self-control,
and watched his words, harm no one. Even simple things like the
killing of animals were something different. I had often heard the
saying, “If you see a swine shoot it.” But the Holy Quran simply
said do not eat pork. None of it made sense to me and I saw how
the interpretations had been twisted for rotten ends in our society.
Living in a post Zia Pakistan was different as my father put it, a
decay had crept on, and no one was washing it off.
After a few months, I felt more compassion than ever towards Islam
as a religion, but more despair towards the fundamentalist who
politicized it to their uneducated convenience and the casual
misogynist views of our society. As a result of my frustrations, I
found myself wanting to wind up my teachers for the sake of it. One
afternoon we had to do a presentation on something we had
researched ourselves and I stunned everyone when I revealed my
chosen topic.
“I want to talk about sex in religion and what it means, since
everyone was so obsessed with it” I said, as a collective gasp went
up. My teacher’s face wobbled.
“What do you mean?” she said, with tight lips.
“What it means for a man and woman to have sex and the teachings
about it being a source of passion and consent within marriage.”
I had all my quotes ready and, ignoring my teacher’s flushed
cheeks, I read them. The hypocrisy about sex ran deep within our
society and was everywhere I turned. All the men loved watching
Baywatch on a Saturday night, even if their wives cowered at home
all day and covered up in public. On the other more serious end of
the spectrum, sexual repression did nothing but encourage a dark
criminal underworld to sodomizing young boys.
As soon as I was old enough to understand this, it made me so angry.
Of course, it was the vulnerable street children with no families
who were most at risk of attack. Where segregated women were
kept in, men were out and about and these were young boys who
23
Where the Opium Grows
24
Chapter Six
25
Where the Opium Grows
26
The World outside my Window
27
Where the Opium Grows
28
Chapter Seven
29
Where the Opium Grows
4
Religious seminaries
30
Emerging from the Shadows
attitudes from the West and, more than ever, they didn’t fit in with
the East.
One day my mother and me discussed life in Dublin, the pubs were
a huge part of Irish life. She was furious and suspicious. I hardly
drank, as I knew no one let alone drink with, and I was no freer than
I had been in Dublin.
“Whores drink, bad people drink.”
“I said men drink and women drink…men smoke and women
smoke. It is not good for one and bad for another, it’s good or bad
for both the people.’ She told me, “Nobody will marry a woman
who drinks.” I nodded only to keep peace.
By now I felt truly caught between cultures. I had made friendships
in Dublin, family like people I knew and bonded and met people
from different walks of life, full of free will and wonderful coffees
around Frankie’s guest house. In his kitchen looking over his
beautiful flowers in all seasons, all the banters and walks on stony
pavements of the city. I missed it, it was hard settling in facing the
same toxic traits of my mother I once left behind. But I was older
now, stronger.
I did not fit into either life completely. And mostly I did not ‘fit in’
the business as most Karachiites or Lahoris. I had zero social or
business contacts in Karachi, let alone the industry. With nothing to
lose, I got together a model’s portfolio, with money borrowed from
one of my ex-Pakistani friends in Dublin, and decided to take the
plunge because I genuinely believed Pakistan might be progressing
now. I was nervous at first and for a good reason. Becoming a
model was not a career for the fainthearted. I quickly learned what
a cruel business it was. My nose, teeth and skin were all criticized
by agents and publicists. Not only that, but I was told to lose weight,
too. Constant improvement meant investing in myself, affording a
dermatologist, dentist and even stylists. Getting into the business
meant looking good all the time or pretending you have already
made it before you actually have. My attitude was more laid back,
however, as my first job was a Marilyn Monroe tribute. I was happy
and nervous to do, sure, I froze while ‘performing.’ It was a bit of
disaster.
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Where the Opium Grows
32
Emerging from the Shadows
him a very tough time, and he lost his mother at a very young age.
He regularly got beaten up by his brothers for not acting straight,
but even so somehow, he managed to shrug off the pain and
rejection he faced, drank, and laughed about. Being a rebellious, he
was at times, he wired me up, and I worried for him.
“You’d be amazed how many trans men are there in Pakistan,” he
confided in me. “Many are married and closeted so they even
admire me for being out!” Osman had the wisdom of a madam and
the wit of an Irish man. We became fast friends. Such good friends,
in fact, that his father started to ring me, too. “Hajra, I need your
help,” he once said. “I want Osman to pray five times a day, work
in a bank, marry a girl . . .and not drink.”
I felt a stab of pity for him and for Osman. Father and son were
poles apart and his father understood nothing about homosexuality.
“It’s never going to happen,” I sighed.
My mother did not understand it either until I explained it to her.
Such things were kept hidden from everyday life but once I
explained what it meant, she actually accepted the idea. It was then
it dawned on me that educating people about real modern life was
key, rather than criticizing them for not being open minded. I
realized how successful trans rights activism had been in Dublin
and how in many ways it was also a success for human rights with
trans now being accepted and treated equally more than ever. I
learned a lot from my nonmacho friend’s fight for equality and
pride. It immensely inspired me.
In Pakistan, the transgender community were not acknowledged
and were denied even a national identity card and a passport until
2011.
Homosexuality was not even spoken of, although was very
common, like now. With such a pitiful chance of work, many trans
genders resorted to prostitution and begging.
As I struggled with my burgeoning new life as a model, knowing
no one and nothing, it was Osman who always encouraged me. He
told me I was beautiful and could be a success if I wanted. Slowly,
I started to get more jobs, still refusing to slim to size zero, despite
what some people demanded. Making positive efforts with jobs, I
did get. I found I was unusual in the fact I had had a good Western
33
Where the Opium Grows
34
Chapter Eight
35
Where the Opium Grows
change the way things were seen. Seeing the girl in McDonalds
flashed again before my eyes, if she can work in a food chain
why cannot I do what I want
and make money and be creative. I wanted to be creative. So, I
went to meet Ahmer in his office, and he was very convincing
when he said how perfect I would be for his new soap.
At first, I was still confused, as they seemed happy to give me a
lead role with no audition, but with gentle persuasion I agreed
and signed a contract. The idea was that this soap, called ‘buri
aurat’ (The Bad Woman) would show women in a new light with
controversial storylines. My character was going to leave her
husband and baby for a life with her lover – a theme so shocking
to Pakistani culture that they hoped it would push up audience
ratings. The director was a mature and eccentric person and
rumoured to be gay. He had dedicated his entire life passionately
to making successful films with a strong work ethic. Indeed, he
was one of the most successful directors, albeit with a brutal
attitude, and I got on very well with him. So, despite my
misgivings about being watched on TV back home and not
knowing much about money, I signed up for a modest amount,
and later realized how bad a deal it was, I was ripped off. Filming
began in January 2009.
I was very nervous and was taken under the wing of a former
actress called Seher Haq, who I’d met while filming a show. She
was a wise woman and expert networker who had survived in the
industry for a long time. She took me to all the parties and
introduced me to this new society, explaining who everyone was
and how it worked. I soon realized she was one of the few
educated women who acted. Many film actresses were
courtesans or dancing girls, with no surnames, and others were
from single parent families with no fathers and the sole
breadwinners. I detected an undercurrent of ruthlessness about
the industry and very quickly saw another factor fuelling the
energy. I enjoyed going to work though, it was a lot of fun. My
director was a film veteran and known for his temper. He scolded
36
Behind the Mask
me like a child when I did not deliver properly, but acting came
very naturally to me. I loved performing and learning and
became part of this new journey, camera angles, lights,
dialogues, makeup, and hair costumes. I was much less fussy
about those things compared to my co-workers.
Just a few months into filming I went to a party where I was
tapped on the shoulder by a guest. Turning around, I was faced
with a man holding a silver platter with a huge pile of pure white
powder balanced on it next to lines neatly put together with a
rolled-up note balanced next to it.
“Can I offer you something?” he asked, nodding at the lines of
cocaine.
I almost leapt out of my skin. “No! No, thank you,” I spluttered.
I turned my head as the actress’s face next to me lit up and
someone snatched the makeshift inhaler.
I felt sick. Seher got half-laughed when she saw my reaction.
“It’s nothing Hajra,” she whispered. “It is just normal. Most
people here do it. You come from the West; this should be OK to
you.”
The truth was the thought of drugs frightened me. I was
susceptible to panic attacks and anxiety on occasion, so the last
thing I wanted was for my heart to be racing because of coke.
Despite feeling like an outsider, for the first time in my life I was
having a lot of fun. The soap was quintessentially Asian TV,
melodramatic and bubble gum, with gripping story lines and
loud acting. It got mixed reviews when it went on air in June
2009, some condemning it as being against conservative values,
others lauding it for being feminist and empowering to women.
But for the main, I was validated for my acting skills and screen
presence. Although they never said it in so many words, I could
tell my parents were proud of me. For once the black sheep had
done something good.
My director was an admirable figure to work for, too. He was
very professional and would not take any excuses. If anyone so
much as dropped a script on the floor, he would ask for more
37
Where the Opium Grows
38
Behind the Mask
39
Where the Opium Grows
40
Behind the Mask
“Actually, the quote is: There is only one thing in life worse than
being talked about, and that is not being talked about,” I
corrected.
For the first time that evening I saw Imran smile in a genuine and
warm manner, his slanty brown eyes wrinkling at the edges.
We continued chatting, and I told him I wished he’d not
boycotted the last elections as someone like him could encourage
more people to vote. I for one wanted to vote for him. I also
mentioned the lack of animal welfare in this country.
I told him, Gandhi said, “The greatness of a nation and its moral
progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
Imran looked disdainfully at the mention of Gandhi.
“Ah, I know you are patriotic, and Gandhi is Indian,” I said, “but
a good leader is a good leader. And he was a good leader too for
his country.”
Imran smiled again but was led away by his group, nodding a
quick goodbye. And I moved away from the brief encounter.
At the end of the evening, Asim approached me anxiously,
looking dishevelled with a glass and cigar in his hand.
“Hajra, send Imran a text,” he mumbled.
“What?” I gasped. There was no way I could consider doing this.
I was convinced he had just seen me as any girl at a social event.
Why would I text someone I do not know, and he doesn’t know
me? It sounded ridiculous and embarrassing.
“I have his number,” he pressed.
I shook my head. “Please don’t embarrass me,” I whispered. “I
am not one of those actresses who throw themselves at famous
men. Why would he even be remotely interested and want me
to?”
Asim insisted Imran wanted to hear from me, and as he could not
text me himself, I had to do it. I did not give him much thought,
just thought it was weird, I went away with Imran’s number, very
flattered. In the ride on the way home, I sent a short text but
realized I had missed a digit off, so re-sent one. I turned to Seher.
41
Where the Opium Grows
42
Chapter Nine
Heat Rising
I never expected to hear from Imran again, neither did I have any
reason to contact him. but the next morning another text came
through. Waking up late I checked my phone after I struggled to get
up. At 10 am I had received a message. He was staying in Karachi,
and he said: ‘It is hot in your city.’ ‘Yes, it’s April and gets very hot
at this time,’ I replied, excited the most esteemed Pakistani was
making very polite conversation, Imran then asked how I was
feeling. “You were quite vulnerable and seemed intoxicated last
night,” he said.
I cringed with shame, thinking how awful I must have looked. I had
not meant to get too silly but hoped I had been able to manage
myself well. “You should be careful around predators like me,” he
said. “At my age we become very naughty.”
Had no idea what that word meant so I googled it. Turned out its a
slang for naughty.
Quite the icebreaker, this guy does not miss a beat evidently, does
he? I was not used to be indulging in instant innuendos and I
certainly wasn’t going to start with him. It was a bit overwhelming
and intimidating to be spoken to like that by a public figure I had
briefly interacted with the night before.
His choice of words seemed strange. ‘Predator’ and ‘vulnerable’
made me feel uncomfortable and I wondered about his sense of
humour. He was joking surely. A gentleman, well-educated, well-
travelled and mature man would be far from a predator.
He asked about my job, and when I said I was an actress, he told
me I didn’t seem like one. I would have wondered what he meant
had he said that few months ago. I would probably have thought
well what do actors look in real life? actors? But I was beginning
to understand what that meant but not really, in fact far from it.
Then he asked if I would like to go to his annual gala in Lahore to
raise money for his cancer hospital, the only one of its kind in
Pakistan. I could not believe it and accepted immediately, my
stomach fluttering with nerves. “What is the dress code?” I asked,
feeling a bit naive.
43
Where the Opium Grows
44
Heat Rising
45
Where the Opium Grows
He told me his ex-wife, Jemima, had helped him a lot with it and
that I reminded him of her when they had met. I told him how much
I admired her, too, and he thanked me on her behalf for the
compliment.
“She was only 20 when you met,’ I pointed out. “I’m in my mid-
twenties.” He looked surprised and smiled while I just concentrated
on breathing in a roomful of strange men. He assured me there will
be few women coming but no one in sight for hours to come.
We had driven to the outskirts of Lahore, to a rundown bungalow
where other guests were expected. One of Imran’s friends, Sunny
Malik, was apologizing for not being able to use his farmhouse: the
generator was broken, he explained.
The bungalow was clearly set up for parties, filled with gaudy
furniture and with a few resident caretakers to serve people who
visited. They let us inside to a living room where cricket was
showing on a huge old TV. They all called Imran ‘sir’ and ‘king,’
would bow down at times, touch his chest and smile, and laughed
at his jokes or comments, even when he wasn’t being funny.
It did not surprise me, the sycophancy. Before he introduced me to
Sunny, he explained to me, “He is the only person I trust in Lahore
and the only person I socialize with if and when I can. He is a self-
made man. I respect self-made people.” Then he introduced me.
“This is Hajra, she is an actress and is here to attend the
fundraising,” he said, as if he did not need to explain anything else.
Everyone nodded ‘Hello’ and continued talking amongst
themselves. I decided for the time being it was best to just observe
quietly, absorb the scene and see what happens.
Imran seemed very relaxed, the opposite of how he had been at the
party. He asked about my industry, and I was honest, telling him I
was very new but that it seemed to me that it was like the rest of
Pakistan – i.e., falling by the wayside. I knew the soap was losing
money and was badly run now. Imran sighed. “The government has
a lot to answer for. Can you believe they put me in jail for a week?”
“That must have been awful,” I began, sympathetically. But he
shrugged. “Oh, it’s just life,” he replied, in a dismissive way. Still
full of nerves and not wanting to lose control, I declined Sunny’s
offer of anything to drink but he poured me an orange juice anyway.
46
Heat Rising
47
Where the Opium Grows
48
Heat Rising
49
Where the Opium Grows
The spoke of his obsession about being a politician and how he had
struggled to keep his marriage and family in order to pursue it. He
looked sad at once.
“Have you ever been in love, Hajra?” he asked me. I shook my
head. “Not strongly enough for me to remember it,” I admitted.
“And you?” He nodded. “You are young. I have only been in love
in phases. I have met lot of women, too many. Women and cricket
are all I knew. I was never into cars or designer clothing or
business.”
I asked him if he’d always been aware of his effect on women
(growing up to see the crush the women in my own household had
on him) and he shook his head, telling me his sister had told him he
was ugly when he was 19 and somehow that had stuck with him.
He said: “Hajra, people are attracted to power and money and if you
have a lot of that you attract much attention.” I asked him about
being cautious, but he said athletes get assessed every couple of
months.
“If I ever got knocked up by someone I’d go and scream about it,
no way anyone should have to face such a situation alone,” I said,
making a bad joke as I referred to Sita White, the mother of his love
child. As soon as the words left my mouth, I wanted to kick myself
for being so rude and crude. My nerves had just got the better of
me. But thankfully Imran laughed and told me I was smart and silly,
and he liked that.
After talking for hours, I was exhausted and wanted to sleep. Imran,
however, had to leave. “Stay here and a caretaker will take you
home in the morning,” he said. “But will I be safe?” I asked,
worried about staying in the isolated place alone. He assured me I
would be, and he had to dash, as he needed to be up by 9 am.
Leaving me with a very warm goodbye he quietly slipped out of the
door back to his political life. Despite my excitement, I fell asleep,
swept away into a dream almost not knowing what was real and
what was my sleeping state. I had just spent a pleasant evening with
Imran Khan and could hardly believe it had just happened and gone
so well, I was safe and witnessed aside to Lahore, actually I was
not well acquainted with.
50
Chapter 10
51
Where the Opium Grows
52
Smoke and Mirrors
53
Where the Opium Grows
54
Smoke and Mirrors
Imran was listening intently. For perhaps the first time in my life, I
felt properly heard by a man who behaved like he cared about
things. He came across as fatherly, offering me unsolicited advice.
It was like clockworks with him, a sermon, and giving his opinion
on subjects and taking his lines with gaps and offering them to me
insisting I try it. I was already very overwhelmed and did not want
to be rude and just nod that I’m OK, please go ahead. He got more
and more carefree and talkative as he consumed.
55
Where the Opium Grows
digs were quiet and the wind touching the white sheer curtains into
his room. And it was almost like it was a private little stage. He was
in some zone or trance.
For the first time I realized what a complex man he was. He talked
about the brown sahibs, the men of colour who felt belittled but also
in awe of the Western men and I wondered how much this stance
was actually related to him. Projecting was a second language, first
was mansplaining. He was a man who married a white British
woman himself but claimed he never gave up his Pakistani passport
or settled in the West, (he has infinite stay on his passport to the
United Kingdom, does not need to give it up) he said he was ‘freer’
here. But he and I came from a society suffering a hangover from
colonialism with a serious identity and cultural crisis and with too
many people easily impressed by anyone with just a half-decent
grasp of English. We were the brown saabs. Weren’t we?
As an actor born in Quetta, I wondered if I was actually more
comfortable with who I was and where I was from. With him from
Mianwali, Punjab, born and raised in Lahore, neither spoke Punjabi
nor Pashto and he branded himself as Pathan. Honestly, I did not
get that. The answer was yes. I was, for the most part, but where
was I going, that the ‘where’ in my life I was still finding out.
Looking at him standing there in the middle of his room looking
out, he seemed to be very sure of his place, but his eyes looking out,
high, his noticeable transplant patches and grey hairline underneath
were still longing for a bigger dream in Islamabad. He was looking
over it quietly in the still of the night, stark.
Despite these revelations, and I did not realize this at the time, the
power balance in our relationship was changing now. Very quickly
he had become a father figure to me, someone who I started to feel
safe with, could confide in, as he was so detached from my world
and reality, aloof and lost in his thoughts many a moment. I even
appreciated him always replying to my texts swiftly. Small things
but bit by bit they mattered hugely to me.
And so, our friendship had begun. We developed a routine of
meeting every other month or so, often staying in Lahore,
sometimes meeting at the farmhouse. They did coke regularly, I
never saw Imran buy or bring anything, or pay for anything,
56
Smoke and Mirrors
everything was just served to him. Sunny, Imran, and a few punters,
sometimes with other women you never saw anyone impressive
around, anyone of any intellectual or esteem or savory. I did not
understand why he chose to be around these people, one would
think for someone who desires to be in government would be
around ambitious strategist or dreamer economics or
businesspeople. Not Imran, he was surrounded by shady coke
heads. Well, we all have different sides we exercise accordingly,
maybe that is his way of unwinding from the dry world of politics,
I guessed.
Often Sunny and other friends of his would be there, along with
some tacky women or sometimes even prostitutes, very young
prostitutes with Sunny once. I had just woken up and Sunny was
still on his coke binge 11 am in the morning with two girls. Very
young, I’m guessing 19 or 20. I was waiting for the driver. I
knocked on his door to ask for him, he asked me to sit down and
take a few lines. I excused myself politely, sat there waiting to just
get out of there. I noticed he was very rude to the girls, could not
remember their names, telling them to sniff the powder off the
table. I noticed one of the girls was overdoing it,
“Be careful with that stuff if you don’t want to get sick.” She just
laughed. It was worrisome that whole scene and those poor young
girls. God knows what brings a person to such calamities for some
money.
“Can’t find nice girls?” He snarled rolling the note between his
middle aged stumpy short fingers, “have to make with these.” I
grabbed my bags and rushed out.
Irony was lost on me. I was criticized for having modern beliefs but
apparently, in their world, it was OK to pay young girls to overuse
cocaine, to binge drink and use them and throw them out. That was
traditional or non-modern or may be cool, to me it was none of that,
just filth. I did not like it, and I told Imran about it that it was very
uncomfortable, and Sunny was making very sleazy remarks.
“Oh well, ignore him.”
Imran brushed it off when I told him later.
I felt sick when Sunny hinted to Imran that perhaps I could find a
girl ‘like me’ for him, the night before. Embarrassingly, Imran
57
Where the Opium Grows
would reply, “No, she cannot as she is not from here and nor is she
like ‘them.’ She does not know anyone.” Then he laughed. “You
know what she asked me if I could do when I come into power, to
also protect the welfare of animals.” And they laughed.
And Sunny laughed too and shook his head. “Khan, here people are
treated like maggots, and she is worried about animals! Well, most
women I meet only ask for money, cars, or jewellery. She is silly.
No wonder. May be later I can,” and he stopped.
“It is people who treat animals and other people like they do not
matter in case you haven’t noticed what the problem is? People.”
Imran watched me playing with a dog Sunny had just rescued on
his farmhouse. “Hajra is probably in the wrong profession; acting
is so stupid.
Look after her and make sure she gets dropped home on,” he said,
almost as if I was not there.
After dinner and hanging out, Imran would then leave early to drive
three hours back to Islamabad. He could not take me back to his
own house in Lahore as his sister also lived there with her husband
– a very conservative man, Imran said. So, someone who would not
approve of us being seen together.
Meeting Imran in the mornings was a different story. He was cranky
and tense, but after waking he would say his prayers, do his yoga,
take a bath, and then have a healthy organic breakfast of yoghurt,
fruit, and honey, all from his farm. This was a routine apparently.
Sometimes he would tell me of vivid dreams he had.
Years earlier he had become close to a spiritual guide, his guru,
who’d confirmed his belief that he was destined to be the leader of
Pakistan. He often spoke about this, his eyes lighting up with
enthusiasm as he confessed his certainty that it was his fate. That
he will one day rule the country and be the PM. His confidence
seemed intriguing to me.
58
Chapter 11
Lend me an Ear
One evening I arrived late at Imran’s after a long day filming so
grabbed fried chicken and chips enroute to eat at his house. At this
stage I was used to his infamous non hospitality and lack of
courteous hosting. Once he saw me eating the dinner I bought, he
told me off for eating badly.
“This stuff is so bad for you and your body,” he said. “Please don’t
eat it and you shouldn’t even give it to them,” he said pointing to
his beloved dogs, a pair of sheepdogs. I shared some of my chicken
with them which they seemed to enjoy.
He went on to say his physician had told him he had the body of a
30-year-old and was in great health. I could believe that as well by
the look of him. But he did worry about getting older, and how much
younger I was. As always, he went to bed and woke early. I had
given up trying to make him smile in the mornings as he seemed to
be in such a black mood all the time. He even made me wonder
whether he wanted me there sometimes as he studied the papers.
But mostly my time with Imran taught me a thing or two about
intimacy. He had cancelled dinners and nights out to spend time
with me when I visited. He made sure his phone was switched off
and, as we chatted, he would look at me as if I were the only person
on earth. I was left in no doubt at all how much he cared as he shut
out the world and made quality time. Often our discussions would
turn to the country.
I told him that in my view Pakistan had become an extremist
society for the large part, on a downward spiral. But this was
something Imran vehemently rejected. “It is like any country,” he
insisted. “But how can we treat minorities, women and children
the way we do in this country if it is not extremist?” I would argue.
The Taliban was another sore subject, for me especially, a girl who
witnessed firsthand the brutal violence on Afghans and its rotting
decay in Pathan culture. He had very spot for them and defended
their actions even. He insisted he was not friends with them but also
disagreed with Americans coming over. That was a part we both
agreed with the role of the US in destroying Afghanistan. When we
59
Where the Opium Grows
5
Sexually Transmitted Diseases
60
Lend me an Ear
the residence of my in-laws. I was used to him never using the word
ex whiling making a mention of Jemima or her parents.
So impressed with the rich British ways.
The walk was over, and I was just keeping up, mind you he walks
very fast. He was talking about his trees and peacocks and chickens
and a few other animals I barely recall.
When we parted the next morning, he said goodbye and added, “See
you again soon.”
Meanwhile, I started picking up more acting work in Lahore and
random few serials in Karachi, things were not going well with the
soap opera, and it was coming to an end. Too much money had been
spent but ratings were falling. Worse than that, my relationships
with people on set had become strained. As soon as some of them
realized Imran and I were friends, my actor friend Seher Haq
distanced herself and others followed the suit.
Few people would ask me about Imran, and I would say nothing.
Still an outsider, I did not want to gossip or tell tales. It was
nobody’s business, but this reaction did not make me popular. I was
accused of being a snob, of thinking I was better than anyone else.
Asim told me not to get serious as I was ‘going to get hurt’ while
others just isolated me and stopped inviting me to parties and I
stopped wanting to go to them. And he encouraged me to come to
his parties, his female friends did not grow nay fonder of me nor I
of them. But coming to his parties and meeting ‘people’ was
something he insisted.
Imran was fuelling the flames I felt against my career too, as he
constantly told me how other things are better than acting. Like it
was a bad thing, he didn’t seem to have any problem spending time
with actresses, he named dropped every white famous actress he
dated, Jerry Hall, Elizabeth Hurley, and his once-a-year special
session with “very smart as he called her ‘Goldie Hawn’.” All white
and most blondes. It seemed like he had a type in his youth. He
would hint to me many times to give it up, although never suggested
what else I should do, let alone the contradiction in his pursuits or
his judgement. I doubt he ever told Goldie Hawn or Elizabeth Hurly
61
Where the Opium Grows
how bad acting was. Or was it something reserved for us, women
here in Pakistan. I never bothered asking, what did he mean? There
was nothing wrong with acting, only thing wrong with actors is
the people around them. “Better things, you’re smart, most aren’t
that we met here,” he would say, his words staying with me until
the next time we met.
“You are more than what most actors are or become after a
while. Trust me. I have met a lot from all over the world.”
In a sense I began to feel lending my ear in my association with
Imran, getting to know him. Some people learned not to try it on
with me. Other people avoided me and did not give me the sort
of hassle that many of the other poor girls were forced to tolerate.
During our discussions, I noticed Imran was perhaps a little
impressed by my ideas, too. His words were repetitive and so
were his answers to questions. He had a slogan which stated, “I
will end corruption within 30 days,” and people argued this was
impossible. So, I, being my usual unaffected self, simply replied,
“Maybe you should tell them next time, ‘I can end corruption in
10 days’, because if you’re not going to steal then you’ve won
half the battle, because that’s corruption too.”
The next time I saw him on TV those words emerged from his
mouth during his speech. I listened, my heart filling with pride
for him. I was so happy to hear him say that. Imran did think I
was smart, I guess, and we agreed on many things as well while
we debated some with respect for each other’s views.
For the first time in my life, I saw beginning to trust a manly
figure, too. I knew exactly where and when I would meet Imran.
He always responded to my texts almost immediately. When we
were together, he wanted to know about my life, though honestly
there was not much to tell. Even when I told him about being
sexually molested at the age of six, he listened with such
compassion. “I don’t think I have ever recovered from what that
cook did to me,” I said, allowing tears to run down my face.
“Children naturally blame themselves and that is what I did, too.
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And there are worst cases out there. He took my innocence and
made me fear men everywhere.”
Imran’s brown eyes never wavered from mine as I spoke, and as
he absorbed my words, he also somehow absorbed my pain. For
the first time in my life, it was unburdening to at least talk about
it, he was a father figure at 59 years of age, and I was just out of
college.
But as much as Imran repeated, I should not put a price on
myself, I started to see very clearly how he was accused of
putting one on himself, from his cricketing days I had seen an
interview of him being called a ‘meter’ by Javed Miandad. His
wife was raising their kids, providing for them, while he enjoyed
the house, he received from her and lived off his friends. It was
becoming clearer and clearer. I started to question if he was
honestly so un self-aware or just dual. Women were always
approaching him, texting him and telling him they wanted him.
He kept mentioning it, did not surprise me, everyone knew the
female fan following he has. And he would go on for hours
encouraging me to try drugs and let him teach me about ‘sex and
pleasures.’ He offered like it was such a huge lottery I had won
learning from him, in addition to his wild stories of sexual
escapades with women in his youth, with European and
American women mostly. And now in Pakistan with women
mostly over 35, which he said he was more compatible with as
they’re much more evolved and ready to try ‘things’. I found it a
bit they are, and we were totally different people, and I didn’t see
him less than a rock star’s life, in total contradiction to his
growing religious veneers. It was day and night, like Jackal and
Hyde.
“Imran you know you are objectified tremendously,” I said
gently one evening. “This is not your fault as you have been told
so many times you are a sexual being, but you now believe it.
You are a good human being, there is more to Imran Khan than a
sex symbol, and there is more to life than sex and drugs?”
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Chapter 12
Pretty Fools
Back in the real world, as time went on, I found myself having
to try and defend Imran more if the topic emerged. His politics,
his philanthropy and his beliefs were all open to question,
according to many I worked with and knew. I really believed in
what Imran was trying to achieve, yet so many around me voiced
doubts and, no doubt, wanted to say so as many knew I was close
to him. But the Imran I had got to know was full of hope and
compassion in many ways and had integrity – something that
most Pakistani men I came across lacked. He was the only
Pakistani man I had known who posed no materialistic ambition.
Yet he had a very lavish villa gifted by his ex-wife. House, help
and car and all his needs covered, for someone who did not work
and had no land or businesses as per his loud claims. How was
this even possible, I did wonder but would brush it off. Cognitive
dissonance is very real where it is told and shown who heroes
are in public eye and it is easy to avoid any obvious spots, but
for how long? In a country where corruption came so easily,
money did not seem to move him. But he had it too and where
did it come from was anyone’s guess? However, what really did
move him was POWER. He was indeed a breed apart, an odd
one out, more complex to figure out. One evening he explained
how he had first had the idea to build a cancer hospital.
It was the routine coke, a plate, a rolled note, and he would start
talking and prancing around like a pony.
“I was visiting my mother in hospital when she had cancer and
spotted an older guy trying to buy drugs for his brother in the
pharmacy,” he went on, filled with emotion, “The man was
crying as he had been working hard all week but still, he couldn’t
afford them. I will never forget his helpless and tired face.”
He claimed it broke his heart and he thought there and then he
had to do something. This led to his decision to raise money and
build Pakistan’s only cancer hospital.
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“I knew things had to change and I knew I could help. It was too
late for my mother but not for others,” he said.
However, he rarely talked about his sisters or family. There was
a very cool vibe he had detached and void of any emotion. He
hated his father. Once he sat on his chair in shorts, sniffing coke
from the plate, completely wasted, bragging about how many
ugly women had slept with him. He being so generous!
“My father was a womanizer and a drunk…. bad.”
And no response was the only response to this irony. The apple
does not fall far, does it clearly? I thought. And sighed.
He rarely talked about his mother, but his ex-wife sometimes.
That she (Jemima) was a lost and confused woman, trying to
replace him by dating more drug addicts and mentally unstable
men, had a grade particularly against Hugh Grant whom she
dated during their separation.
And he added that he knew Elizabeth Hurley and she would often
mention how different he and Hugh were. So basically, they all
swapped each other technically at some point, not at once or
simultaneously.
Imran’s conversations became darker confessions of his
fantasies past and projections, I would always listen out of
curiosity, not interest per se. Sometimes I wondered I saw him
out of curiosity or fondness that he was a human who was
promising Pakistan a better future in spite of his flaws.
His snide remarks on her serial dating, drug addicts and monkey
wining were expressed with him being irreplaceable. He said
marriage was the hardest thing he has ever done, more than
struggling in cricket, the hospital and now politics, but he did not
want it anymore and returned to the life that he was more
fulfilled in.
He also claimed he was faithful to her during their marriage, and
slowly and gradually once the honeymoon period was over, it
became so suffocating for her. More so, she would spend more
time in London in last few years, and less in Pakistan with the
kids. He was growing sexually frustrated and had stared
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about the effects that might have on his or her children, but
clearly that was not the case here. It was only about his ego, and
gentile. And if she still missed him, he was more than generous
to serve occasionally.
And that was the entertainment for yet another greying evening
in Bani Gala.
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Caught in the Middle
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Caught in the Middle
But can you catch it?” Realizing I was playing with him, he
lowered his glasses.
I threw it hard, and he effortlessly lifted his arm and caught it.
Looking at me, he pushed his glasses up his nose.
“Well done, skip.” I winked, applauding him.
He smiled, shook his head, and went back to reading his paper.
While my relationship with Imran was still going strong,
relations with my colleagues worsened. Immense power
struggles were beginning to show. The producer who helped
launch my career saw me as his trophy but now he was going
bankrupt. He accused me of ditching him after I had met Imran
and, although this wasn’t true, it marked the end of our working
relationship. “You’re not grateful,” he said to me. “You’ve
forgotten about people, work and who you need to suck it up
thinking he can be something to you.” “No, I just have not
entertained anyone in the way they might ‘expect’ me to.”
Significant difference. I vehemently defended myself.
This was not true either. I continued to be professional, but I did
not push my career in quite the style I should have done. But
professionalism and ethics were not words in the dictionary of
that industry and place. Mutual exploitation was.
Around this time too, Imran told me he preferred women to be
curvier, and not look skinny, implying that I should too perhaps
gain some weight. He debated the idea of magazines putting
pressure on women to look so thin.
Now truly under his sermons spell, I did not hesitate to try and
be womanlier. I started eating more sweet foods and pounds piled
on. I never thought beyond pleasing him, but others quickly
noticed. I did not look good on camera and more criticism was
heaped on me. I tried to ignore it, as I was happy in my personal
life and just wanted to get my job done during the day. The way
I saw it was, if people did not like the way I looked, it was their
problem. One time I confessed to Imran this was not the first
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time we had met, and I recalled our meeting when I was 10 at the
World Cup party. His face fell as he looked at me in his bed.
“Oh…I had no idea,” he said.
Then he got up and began pacing the room like a caged lion. I
could tell it made him feel uncomfortable. Perhaps our age gap
did bother him after all or was it his coldness towards me back
then? I could not tell.
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Chapter 14
True Value
I may still have had the interest of one of the world’s most desirable
men. But deep down my self-esteem was getting low. I was not
happy, particularly with my work, and the conflict was getting
stronger between my workplace, my private life, and my beliefs and
what he wanted? I could not figure it out! It all seemed so fake and
meaningless. Days went by and nights followed. It was just one job
after another, I was not improving myself but was losing my
passion and ambition. When I was with Imran away from the world,
he would tell me off about show business, and when I was at work
people would tell me off about him indirectly, displaying a different
philosophy towards relationships. For an outsider who was already
struggling to balance my worlds, it was becoming increasingly
difficult to make sense of things. Nothing was what it seemed – or
did I know too much, or nothing at all? They were totally different
worlds. Imran’s calibre, integrity and sensitivity against the crude
sleaze and corrupt ways were too conflicting to bear. One colleague
picked up on the obvious, “You think you are big now because
you’re seeing him. But when a woman dates a powerful man, it is
herself who loses, especially if she is as naïve as you are.”
I tried to laugh this off, but deep inside my conscience. his words
gnawed away at me. As actors we were constantly having advances
made on us, this was part of our jobs. Through a misguided sense
of loyalty to Imran, I blatantly and at times rudely turned
conversations down, defended his politics and ended up falling out
with what could have been good friends over the disagreement.
Happy that being Imran’s friend gave me a proper excuse.
“Forget it,” I would snap if any of the men collaborating with me
sidled up or asked me what I was doing later. “I am not interested
in the likes of you.” This earned me the reputation of thinking I
was better than the most, coupled with my Western education and
my beliefs and awkwardness, but the reality was, I struggled,
from my inside, to cope with my anxiety which was crippling, so
I started therapy.
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During one session, I finally admitted to the therapist who the man
was that I was seeing, and his eyes widened. This revelation was
due to the bound of patient-doctor confidentiality.
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True Value
“If anyone was in love with you it would be nothing but a disaster,”
I smiled to him. “Wouldn’t it?”
He nodded gently in agreement. His words that he has never been
in love with anyone for long were echoing in my head.
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True Value
“God has blessed you with beauty,” said one. ‘I wish I had your
looks. I would have ruled the world.” I smiled back. Inquisitive
and perhaps aware of my liaison, they continued.
“My dear you need to make sure the man in your life knows your
worth, youth and beauty,” said one. “Get what you can because
as your looks fade, so will men’s interest.”
“Yes,” agreed another. “Enjoy it while it lasts. Just like that,” she
snapped her fingers, “You will be over 40 and nobody will want
you. Women have a sell by date.”
I shook my head, refusing to hear what they were saying. Just as
Imran had told me many times, I did not want a price on my head.
I told them this and one looked at me with concern and then at
each other. She laughed. “Is that what he tells you?” They
laughed grimly.
She said, “A man whose entire career was a profit on his looks
and freeloading. It is what they say because they want to take
everything without earning it and to gaslight anyone who they
can use up and, it is a tactic girl! So, you can work, face the world
then give it up for some maniac with a good complex. Tell him
you are donating ‘money’ to him and watch how fast he grabs
that check.” She choked the remaining drink in her glass.
It was not alcohol, it was sherbet 6. She was not drunk just
hungover from the pieces of her youth she was putting together
now.
She went on, “If a man does not help make you great, while
clearly unwilling to give his name either, it means he doesn’t
plan to invest in you. Never trust them. Use them like they use
you. Financial security is the least a man can give a girl in this
cruel world and may be the only thing real that they have to offer
us. Things are not what they seem, child. Focus on yourself,
everything will follow, make the most of your work, make
6
Local beverage
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Where the Opium Grows
money and save. Do not let anything distract you. They use you
in ways you will not even know…. you will not even know.”
“If this is what you believe, I am not sure how things will end
for you. This is Pakistan where a woman has a price, be it
dowry as a household commodity, courtship, or blood money.
Everything has a price in the end.
And most of the time we are called whores while men are men.”
I could see it was all such a sorry state and a vicious circle. There
were these silent rules everyone played by. The show we had
worked on was supposed to have a feminist slant, but the fact
remained it was run by men who saw women as trophies or
bodies for their own entertainment. Once again, I so desperately
wanted to leave this world behind.
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Behind the Scenes
“Stop listening to other people. Look at you, you are young. Stop
occupying your mind-space with bullshit,” he said. “There is no
contest.” He smiled, adding, “Jealousy is the weirdest of all
emotions.” As painful as it was, I knew nothing I could say
would stop him if anything should happen. I was not jealous. I
just did not understand why he lied? if he lied.
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that new laws which allowed some women to sue against sexual
harassment or to fight paternity cases were in many cases wrongly
used, manipulated, and exploited, and he deemed divorce laws
draconian, especially in cases of powerful men.
He always talked about his in-laws and said his ex-father-in-law did
not approve of him. When his wedding was announced, he shook
Imran’s hand and sneered, “Imran would make a good first husband
for his daughter.” Knowing very well he was accepted but not
welcomed.
I was shocked at some of his views on these issues and sensed
they were from a personal perspective and his stature as a
celebrity. Also, one could not but give him the benefit of
generational gap and men that partied in the 70s and 80’s had
different mind sets. After all, Imran had been chased in courts
over a paternity claim and been divorced from a high-profile
woman and was accused of being a gold digger. But being the
brother of six educated workingwomen, he insisted he was a
supporter of women’s rights.
It dawned on me that although Imran was critical of many
Western practices, he had enjoyed a celebrity lifestyle as a
Westerner and married a Western woman. I had seen him as a
complex individual. Was this man a hypocrite as most people
were accusing him of being? Or was he simply misunderstood
and a bit conflicted, just human like the rest of us?
My acting work was drying up so was my ambition and passion,
I had the show though. The scripts were capitalizing on women’s
misery in the middleclass Pakistan and were badly written and
executed in ever-worsening working conditions. Then a new
opportunity arose within the industry.
I dreamed of having my own show one day and was offered the
chance of a talk show entitled ‘In Conversation.’ It paid peanuts
but it gave me creative control, where I would be interviewing
famous people including politicians. It gave me creative
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Chapter 16
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Where the Opium Grows
with someone and in hopes they come crying after Imran moved
on and these vultures would then prey on then.
And Asim hosts him, Faria provides new upcoming starlets, for her
plays ‘Women Centric’ which are financed by the likes of Asim and
Co, and the girls are invited by a ‘woman ‘so it doesn’t give away
the racket.’
Hmmm now I am beginning to see how this works.
He stared at me, so unhinged my response was as he tried to make
it sound so normal and a s matter of fact business as usual.
“Young woman like you should have fun. Find nice guys to look
after you, spoil you,” he smirked. “With Khan you won’t get
much emotionally,” he added.
“Yes, I’m already well aware…he himself seems stopped and is
looking at others to provide for him, and we’re friends, I have no
such expectations from him, he has got much older……But if,
God forbid, I get cancer I’m sure he will be kind enough to help
me in his hospital,” I shot back, cutting him off with a brutal joke
to stop him from pulling further fast ones.
He looked shocked and uncomfortable.
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Do not turn them into stone . . . and also please don’t tell Khan what
I said.” “Don’t turn me into a monster and they won’t turn to stone,”
I called back. “By the way, there is nothing worth telling anyone
anything, my friend. Good luck.” I continued walking away and
didn’t look back.
It was indeed a sad state of affairs. I was getting more and more
disillusioned by the appearances that are put up busy in intrigues
and exploitations. Worst of all, I knew there was no point in
confronting anyone. Imran and I had already drifted further and
further apart. I rarely texted him and we had not met up in months.
Now that I was in doubt and very torn over these worlds, I was
trying to balance and fight, I felt even less inclined.
A month later my mother rang to say my younger and only brother
was coming to Karachi for a medical check up. She was very tight
lipped and my mother, being an over actress, always gave away
when she was hiding something. After his behaviour had become
increasingly erratic, I knew my brother took drugs and was not
surprised. He had dropped out of college after baba had let him
down money-wise and he struggled with life. Baba looked after him
and took care of his land for him. But this time it was serious. He
had become a crystal meth addict.
“The family do not know what to do,” My mother cried. “He needs
to go to rehab, but the shame. Allah will help him.”
They hid this from me, now I would question them for enabling and
covering it all up, while not realizing he’s putting everyone around
at risk. He was a danger. He had entered a full blown third phase of
meth hallucination audio and visual and had murdered my mother’s
cat. It was only until that point my family, typical of most Asians,
covered it but were bullied by his tantrums and were clueless to do
anything to curb this menace.
I wanted to help but was not sure how. By now I was living in
Karachi, sharing an apartment with my sister, who worked as a
doctor, and I was still trying to get by working as an actress and
host. I was paying for everything, of course, but not once did I feel
appreciated.
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The Mask Slips
Once again only Osman was by my side and was able to make me
smile in the clinic.
“Well at least he didn’t cut your face,” he grinned. “After all the
money you spent on laser treatments.” I laughed as tears of pain
rolled down my cheeks.
I stayed with Osman for days. Irony was I had stitches on my hand,
and I had to shoot for the super hit comedy series as ‘Malka Rani.’
I fail to find words how broken I was, but I showed up. I put my
makeup on, and I tried to do my job. I pretended I could laugh.
When people mention ‘Annie ki Baraat’ series, I only recall the hell
I went through filming that, and it’s the biggest comedy series of
all time. My parents went back to my flat, took my brother off to
the rehab where eventually he got control of his drug problems.
The more I looked into it, the more I discovered that many young
men in my family and Quetta were now addicted to crystal meth.
An epidemic had emerged that was replacing the once passive
opium-induced tribe. Apparently, because most training camps
finding foot in Baluchistan through Afghanistan were using crystal
meth for its psychotic violent properties to help persuade young
men into violent attacks and suicide bombing. It was seeing its way
into mainstream as a recreational drug for many young people.
Without a doubt, things were on a dangerous downward slide in
Quetta, even more than they’d ever been.
My heart ached as I imagined how the suffering of helpless women
and young boys must have escalated to a new barbaric high,
perhaps beyond repair. I resented it more than ever for I too was
now a victim of all things I once longed to escape and fight. “I don’t
know how long I will be around,” said my father, who had seen my
cousin as another son. “I can’t protect you as father from wolves
outside or even at home anymore. Perhaps you should seek a new
life in the West. Go back. Just go and don’t look back ever again.
Coming back was a mistake. I will try to give you some money, sell
some land. Whatever I can manage.” As he spoke, I could see my
father for the first time as a broken man. “You’ve lost enough
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money already with this drug epidemic that plagued all those you
relied on working for you,” I replied. “Thanks baba, but I will work
for the next few months and leave with whatever money I have.”
There was no reason to stay in that place. I simply didn’t belong to
this. All the reasons for staying were just fading a way.
I needed time off work after the attack. Although I had stitches, one
producer asked me to come in and see him. There was serial in the
works, and I needed the money more than ever to enable me to
move but, as ever, I was reluctant to be alone in meetings. I knew
the way things often went with sleazy requests or innuendos. And I
was right to be suspicious of his motives. As soon as I walked in,
he cocked his eyebrow and beckoned me to sit near him. Then he
stood up and wandered around to the front of his desk and sat down
heavily.
“Hajra,” he said smoothly. “Do you want anything? Need anything?
Like money?”
He looked at my face with curiosity. I had been crying earlier just
through sheer stress. He knew I was under pressure from something
at home and now he was about to pounce.
“What do you need?” he purred again.
I felt my hackles rise. This man knew I was at an extremely low
point, and I sensed he enjoyed it.
“Nothing,” I replied. “Thank you.”
His face fell as it dawned that I didn’t want to ask anything from
him. He had no control.
“You think you’re something special,” he snapped. “Just because
you’re seeing Imran.” One advice I give to every actor to focus on
work, your life will be up and down and so would be the
relationships, but work grows, works stays, work protects you.”
I shrugged. “There is nothing you can give me. I am going to leave
now.” Later that evening, still tearful after such terrible turns of
events in my family, I reached out to Imran, told him what
happened. Crying, I explained about the attack.
“It was horrific,” I sobbed. “I cannot seem to pull myself together.”
He fell silent as he listened, then he cleared his throat. I didn’t
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to me. I replied, “How many other faithful men do you know, and
he’s not my boyfriend. Loyalty is more important in friendships.”
He had no response to that, obviously, but still proceeded with other
criticisms. I listened quietly. I had no desire to defend myself or
anyone else, knowing this guy was a ruthless man, who had an
enormous power complex as he came from an unprivileged family.
“Is Imran there for you?” he snapped. “Does he ever ask what
you’re doing?
No, he’s too busy with other women and his ego. You have let your
career slip away when really that’s all you had. An actress’s shelf
life is short.” I felt tears in my eyes and was desperate to end the
conversation. He asked if I would go to his office at 7 pm.
“Every actress gets stuck. You are stuck now. You know the rules,
give, and take quietly. Whatever you want to be in, movies, TV,
shows, I can save you,” he smiled.
I knew what he was implying, he wanted me to sleep with him. I
thought of Imran and the many times he told me I was different,
that I was smart and kind, had integrity, but I wondered what the
point of it all was. I’d never earned a huge amount of money when
I could have done and now my whole life was on the slide. How
could I claw it back? For the first time I felt genuinely scared and
worried about what to do. The producer was a total sleaze ball, but
I felt in no position to argue. I wondered if I could play along for as
long as I could.
The wise words of the man who had been my mentor all those years
earlier – Tariq Ahmer, one of Pakistan’s legendary directors –
echoed through my head. Poor Ahmer had been found dead all
alone in a tiny apartment some time ago. It was a sad end for him
after giving so many of his years to his craft and he died making
ends meet for a mediocre project for TV. It was devastating for me
to lose the one person I truly admired.
His words came back to me now, warning me that being an actress
would be my best friend and my worst enemy.
After turning the options over in my head, a few evenings later I
decided to bite the bullet. I could at least meet up with the producer
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and see what was being offered. So, I went to his office on the
premise I would try and get some work so I could earn enough to
get out, though I was not even sure what I would do if at all I did.
He started with the usual sell, my career, how he could revive it,
and plenty of the usual Imran-bashing. I listened with numbness.
For a moment I tried to convince myself just to give in and swallow
the pain of this transaction that was expected of me. As he took his
drink, he stared at me. There was no dodging the bullet anymore;
these predators are way ahead of us. But when he stood up and put
his hands on me, for a moment I closed my eyes and almost decided
to put a price on myself to leave with a one-way ticket, but that
familiar old greasy smell struck me and so did his heavy breathing.
I was taken right back to when I was six years old and molested.
As he reached out and touched the bandages, I was still wearing
following the attack, I shrieked, “Stop! Please don’t do that! I didn’t
become an actress so the likes of you could touch me. I’m not
looking for a bloody godfather!”
He glared at me and asked if I wanted a normal relationship. I could
see, in his twisted mind, that he thought he was competing with
Imran.
“A normal relationship? With you? You’re married, and nothing
but a casting couch!” I gasped. “I don’t want anything anymore.”
“Nothing?”
“No,” I yelled. “I’m done . . . I’m just so tired. Don’t u guys ever
get over yourselves, must be exhausting being you…don’t you get
tired? Aren’t you people tired of what you do?”
“You know your career is over,” he said.
“Good, because I can't do this anymore,” I snapped back, before
storming out. I fled home in tears, knowing in my heart things were
falling to pieces. Imran and I had drifted apart, and I’d stopped
turning to him for support, especially after my brother had attacked
me. I couldn’t tell if he just humoured me about that incident rather
than showing genuine concern and compassion. Doubt was all I had
in everything around me, and I needed to believe in myself. Now
my life was in tatters.
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their eyes shone with a sparkle of hope and love, and this was the
only thing real that I could see. Their trust in my kindness and
hope gave me strength to get up and believe in something. I also
thought of an old man who always begged on the corner, who I
helped from time to time. Once he cried out to me, “What you
do only God sees. He will look after you the way you look after
these helpless creatures, where no one cares about anyone or
anything. Specially these speechless strays, who face nothing but
cruelty all day. Never fear anything, child.” Then he looked at
the dark sky and raised his hands in a gesture of prayer.
As my thoughts turned to the old man and the animals, I heard
strains of ‘Gimme Shelter’ by the Rolling Stones on the radio
with the vocals of Mary Clayton and its haunting riff. It was rock
n roll that had once given me wings to fly and I knew it was
possible again. I wiped away my tears and fell asleep, holding
myself, feeling safe for the first time in months, with a simple
thought I needed to get out of this hell.
As I lay myself down in my bed, I couldn’t help but think of the
last meeting I had with Imran in Bani Gala few weeks ago.
It was a regular chilly night as November approached. As usual
I chilled by the sofa and chilly Imran had his plate of coke and
rolled note. He seemed a little more unhinged that evening, as he
spoke of his growing tiredness and the idiots, he dealt with all
day…. I could see him particularly unhinged and restless, a little
frustrated even with his struggle.
As our conversations escalated, I expressed my disappointment
at work and with people around. Money was something we both
didn’t talk about. I knew better to listen and ask less questions.
Mansplaining was his native language.
I noticed he was doing more coke that night like he really wanted
to get away from everything. Offered me as always and I turned
it down. He looked at me sneering, I was too stuck up and needed
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to lessen up and have some fun and learn somethings from him.
And he snorted a line.
“Maybe you’ll get better when you are 40, best age for women
to enjoy sex and explore things best …but there’s a lot of time
till then.”
As he walked around and talked passionately about himself, his
tone phased out, the bedroom door too was slowing his speech
that was looking out opening into his front garden fading into the
night. At that time Bani Gala was rather isolated. Few big villas
like his on the hill overlooked the mountain. He had barbed wires
around the well spread estate on the hill. Security at the gate.
I asked him why he didn’t employ guard around his room. he
said he found guards very invasive, it’s his privacy that mattered
to him, understandable, he had women coming and his drugs. He
looked at his dogs and said, “Well I have the dogs, they’re the
best guards.” The dogs would come in and go out, run about
freely. And had been getting entertained by one visitor or
another, and tonight was my turn.
As he found his thoughts and I had to call his name to faze him
back.
“Imran?”
“You OK?”
“Haan …yeah, I’m fine … you know you need to try stuff with
me…you’ll enjoy them.”
As usual I’d try and take myself out of it with a little giggle and
not offending him. I tried to lighten the mood and teased him,
“How many lady fans threw themselves at you today? Any more
rich aunties offering you chanda7 for your hospital?”
7
Donation
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The Mask Slips
He smiled. His pupils were started to dilate, and he took his shirt
off, and stretched back.
“Oh yeah.”
He reached for his plate and sliced more lines. Aggressively
trying to focus but uttered slowly. Raised his head, rubbed nose,
one could almost see him feel the hit and take the high.
“Sometimes when I visit these schools or there are these young
girls standing next to me trying to get close…. I can almost smell
them get wet.”
That took me by surprise, it was very unhinged thing to say,
seeing his daughter is older then and upon fans who look up to
him, and very inappropriate state of observation to make of
young girls under 18.
That was strange and made me a little uncomfortable. I got up
and sat up on the sofa, my arms folded in. He watched my body
language, changed, and got a bit defensive.
He got up and started talking about his garden and the pool and
what more work things around the estate needed. Surely it was
huge and must be worth millions even, most expensive part in
Islamabad was Bani Gala even then, and he loved it and kept
mentioning how much he loves it here. A huge contrast from his
Zaman Park family house, where I interviewed him in then, run
down, old chips floor, old tiles stained and run down furniture
and bad cracking paint. I had called a young boy when I had to
use the bathroom to clean up with strong cleaners as the tiles and
commode were stained. It was definitely a place that needed a
lot of work, I figured his sister can’t afford it probably.
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“And then you know about miss universe, with the diamond
rings…”
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The Mask Slips
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but he also knows we don’t. So, he churns his wheel of lies and
deceit to keep the lambs from not screaming, till he hunts them
down one by one.
I recalled how once a woman (she was probably a widow then)
said that Imran was having sex (and she was the eye witness)
with a she dog (Labrador) and how I had snubbed her. Animal
sex in Pakistani society and that too by a person as esteemed and
eminent as Imran Khan, it was impossible to believe her then.
But it was easier to be convinced of her revelation now.
I got up and walked to the spot he often stayed at looking out his
open doors and chiffon curtains dancing with the chilly wind. I
looked over the capital. Not a single lamppost around streetlights
on Bani Gala hill lit, some grass that faded into pitch dark.
Darkness it was, no hope and no light. We had placed our hopes
in a sexual addict narcissist whose rallies had now replaced his
cheering fans in game of cricket, so he still feels the adrenaline
to keep him relevant and alive.
Power was what he sought, surrounded by scavengers. It shows
why he didn’t have any decent intellectual around. Why he
chooses Pakistan? Because only in Pakistan can he get away with
the vices he has. Only here he is free. Only here he had the
getaway to anything without any accountability, and we had
placed our hopes in him, to save us. With stupidity and audacity,
he laid on his bed and eyes closed, I looked at him one last time
and thought this would be last time I’m ever coming here and
quietly I’ll distance myself from all of this. As for my father, I
hoped he’d make good choices, and this will be his prerogative
not mine. I had checked out of it mentally already.
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Chapter 17
Collateral Damage
“When the fox hears the rabbit
screaming, it doesn’t come to
it to save it.”
Hannibal
While the friendship was over for me, the contact I had with Imran
remained zero and I didn’t even dignify the contents of our last
meeting. I silently closed the door behind me, without him noticing.
When he was left badly injured after falling off a lorry platform
while canvassing in Lahore in May 2013, I felt bad for him, wished
him health. I understood that politics always was and always would
be the driving force in his life compared to personal relationships,
family, friends, and party members. His narcissism was his true
companion and that was just the way he liked it and perhaps knew.
During interviews when asked why he’d not married again he
would say he ‘didn’t have time’ for marriage. What I knew Imran
really meant was that he wanted to perhaps remain uncommitted.
However, it was obvious that wasn’t true. Lots of politicians were
married. He didn’t want to get married, or committed or anchored,
being a full-time parent, though looking back it was probably best
for his kids.
Despite my disillusionment, I appeared to remain in Imran’s heart
at times. He responded to my text to Naeem ul Haq regarding my
money stuck with the talk shows producer. It was commonplace not
to be paid on time in our media and this case not paid at all. I never
brought up that night, the last time I knew I’d seen him and knew
it too in a way.
He stepped in to help telling his cronies to sort it out what I was
owed after I sued the producer of my chat show who had refused to
pay me. The same money I was counting on to leave Pakistan. He
told Naeem, “Well ‘tell her it’s not the profession to be in, she can
do better.” And this time I replied with bitterness and sarcasm. “Yes
tell, Imran, indeed you have told me that and you may be right, but
I think I am in the wrong society for that profession. Perhaps it’s
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not that the actresses are in the wrong profession. May be there are
wrong people in our profession, in our art and in our economies.
There are just too many sleaze pimps pulling the strings, including
these sleaze balls sitting in the same association by producers who
are part of this scam.” There, that was that. But there was no
denying our paths were not crossing any longer and I was fine with
that. There is a time and a place for every relationship and ours was
never going to be one that lasted.
Baba still campaigned and voted for him and remained in his party
up to 2018 elections (which he contested but lost) till he passed
away. But due to his ailing health and disillusionment with Imran’s
rude behaviours, getting more and more obvious with power, he had
quietly distanced himself. Either way baba’s focus was no longer
politics. He had done a lot for Pakistan. As a celebrity, a good poster
boy with philanthropic achievement and now a political career
about to become bigger than a solo pressure group winning on a
narrative that he gave up his marriage, yet he gave up nothing he
choose, i.e., his selfish needs and ego. I would never let my personal
disillusionment take that away from him as a leader and as a
philanthropist. I was at my friend’s house watching the election live
when the results came through. By 11 pm, the early forecast had
been given. Imran’s party had lost by a huge margin. I stared in
surprise as commentators started to say his opponents had won and
it was a done deal.
May be his fall saved the country?
I held my hands over my face and thought about that last time I saw
him; how could this have happened? After all his work, all his effort
and campaigning and all he had done, Imran had lost. He was so
confident he was going to win, sweep as he’d say. It was barely
conceivable. Not after he’d put so much faith into winning, too. I
felt tears slide down my face for him and tried to contact him to
even ask how he was? I simply didn’t want to.
By January 2014, our affair was long over. But when I found myself
at a party in Karachi, my first time socializing for ages, I heard
Imran’s name being spoken. At first, I ignored it but then a young
giggling actress was laughing about him with all the others. This
was a typical Pakistani scene, privileged people partying and
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Collateral Damage
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Where the Opium Grows
for him in a parallel universe had I not seen the darkness he carried
with him. After losing his election, things were quickly sliding out
of control for Imran and I wondered just how long he would be
protected and for how long will our country be protected, from his
dark reign?
I no longer felt safe, at work in my country or even in my home
now.
It was time for me to blow into thin air and on one-way ticket and
out.
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Epilogue
About his cricketing and political careers, the great Imran once
said to me, ‘Everything anyone ever said I couldn’t do I did it.’
But his 17-year (now 26) fight to become prime minister appears
to be one ambition he kept missing and it’s his personal and
professional relationships that probably let him down and vice
versa, He once called his marriage a ‘bigger struggle than his
career in politics and cricket’ and I believed him. Relating to a
rally is easy compared to the difficulties of relating to women or
individuals when you’re a sex addict and a narcissist who is
walking contradiction. Machiavellian rule will be the opposite of
who you are to deceive people into believing what you’re not. If
you lack empathy, you function as an empath. ‘Leaders should
always mask their true intentions.’
As Imran grows older, he seems to be more desperate to prove
his prowess. It is this corruption around him – and not any
political or financial reason – which I fear could be his downfall,
the trap of calculating men leading him to situations and drawing
on his weaknesses. I can also clearly see why the oppressed
Pakistani men turn a blind eye to this. Imran is living their
fantasy and is their envy, too. A fantasy it indeed is, and nothing
like reality, for he is no doubt one of a kind – and perhaps no
angel, either. Whatever his vice may be as a single man, I doubt
many Pakistani men can even relate or aspire to his kind, gentle,
unmaterialistic side. They can only idolize or envy his celebrity.
Very few people know the real Imran. To know him as I did was
a privilege initially indeed.
I always thought it is the good in him I will always cherish, not
the negative rumours and accusations made against him or the
price I paid for my association with him, until he was brought
into power in 2018, as a young man from New York had
predicted 14 years ago over tea like he read those leaves, we saw
the ultimate scam that was his politics and him as the imposter.
Pakistan needs Imran Khan, the great philanthropist and man of
integrity I came to know. I doubt that in another 100 years
Pakistan could produce another Imran Khan.
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108
Epilogue
palled on staying there, but that would mean I’d never see my
father, and my sister.
It was the news of my brother overdosing in Quetta yet again,
after another stint in rehab, decided to quietly come back in the
end of 2015 and restart, from where I left. To get me to the next
train of my journey, where will I head, but first I’ll keep my head
down, stay low, work, and just work and then see where the
universe takes me.
The book served as a great catharsis and therapy. I had almost
called my powers back and knew never to mention or promote
the book for now. And it was. I was glad to be with my father by
his side, and my sister. He was diagnosed with cancer, fought it
bravely and got rid of it after multiple surgeries. Thankfully, he
himself sidelined himself in 2018 from Imam’s party quietly.
He passed away in 2020 during Covid of what seemed to be a
stroke. He passed away in his sleep.
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Where the Opium Grows
110
Epilogue
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Where the Opium Grows
112
2023
Looking Back over the
Dark Reign of
‘Red Woman and
Stannis Baratheon’
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Where the Opium Grows
The only jobs he allegedly created were his only area of interest,
his social media troll farm, he hired and paid trolls from
government funds to bully lie and troll and promote his agenda. He
allegedly lied and hired actors everything out of Hitler’s playbook
and that was what paid off in creating a cult. That followers of that
dangerous cult only believe and get its fix from this soap opera and
their propaganda machines and presenting him as a Messiah and a
handsome PM.
During Covid he allegedly managed to watch 500 episodes of
Ertugal (a Turkish dubbed soap opera) and allegedly hired actors
on his pay roll to speak for him. Anyone who criticized him was
crucified by the industry and his handlers like me.
Not only did he not end corruption but allegedly broke all records
on transparency chart.
He allegedly victimized his opponents, tortured them endlessly and
derailed democracy and made sure only his people run every
institution in the country. His own wealth allegedly increased by
500%.
He was allegedly known in the show business industry as predator
and Pakistan’s reputation abroad grew as a fascist country. He also
allegedly targeted, bullied and terrorized anyone critical of him,
using trolls and the system.
He allegedly called men non robots and blamed women for rape by
wearing provocative clothes.
The same sportsman who once claimed not to court married
women, allegedly married his friend’s wife, Pinky, whose allegedly
occult practices were her, and later on their, way of life. Allegedly,
Imran was heavily depended on her superstitions. Even before he
had married Bushra bibi, he was involved in witchcraft and would
practise things that are impossible to be tolerated in the 21st century.
And through these dark practices, he would run the country. Surely,
a black curtain had descended upon this country from 2018 to 2022
like the ‘Iron Curtain’ that had descended upon the eastern Europe
in 1946, to use the Churchill’s words. His attraction for boys, in any
way round, was disgusting. This pedophilic disorder has been
talked about by his ex-wife Reham Khan in her book too.
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2023
8
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iyXJTXp7hjg
9
http://www.dawn.com/news/1731063
10
http://x.com/NaGuftaBeh/status/172197846884012480124856?t=SuF-
MtEoQfTxADoh6a-_HA&s=08
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Where the Opium Grows
was the biggest moment of his life and went on weekly holidays. so
happy he was!11
Imran never talks to people, he talks at people, mistaking
independent thinkers as his herd of cult slaves. It’s symptom of
people who start believing in their own publicity and lies, a hype
they pay for.
11
http://x.com/MurtazaViews/status/1721858853195669885?t=1I7Ont13I_YRYH
BhFMYCyA&s=08
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2023
12
X account of Farrukh Abbasi, 11:44 am, 06 Aug 23, @farrukhjAbbasi,
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Where the Opium Grows
Asim whose company had defaulted Rs. 4 billion was made head
of commerce chambers in Karachi by Imran, and they allegedly
tried burying his default cases.
Naeem ul Haq died of cancer in 2019. Imran did not even attend his
funeral.
Despite being in jail, Imran still remains protected, others have paid
much more for so much less. Who are the powers who still protect
him? Your guess is still as good as mine.
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Acknowledgements
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