Where the Opium Grows (کتاب دوست)

Where the Opium Grows
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
“You’re the reason I’m

travelling on. Don’t
think twice, it’s
alright.”
Bob Dylan
Crispy dry familiar mountain air, familiar wild November sun. It

was as if Scorpio season was in place. So fresh and I fancied to
borrow a menthol slim from my aunt and smoke the toxicity to feel
something more nostalgic. Growing up, watching them secretly and
enjoying the deep inhales in a locked room was a vice that could
inspire a rock star never to stop breathing. As I looked over my
ancestral home reformed into an upgraded concrete, partially
abandoned, it still looked like a guest house.
I could see the trees I once climbed up as a child and picked fruit
from, which no longer exist….it shifted a comforting feeling in me
like pieces of glass you can feel but cannot see. Why did baba chop
them off?
Fern and roses…that is what he seemed committed too…but my
eyes kept looking for the cherry blossom, the almond, and the
mulberry and that one walnut tree I played with. My friends were
gone.
I got back from Washington, D.C. just a week ago where I self-
published the novella on kindle. My agency in London whom I
worked with on the book for 5 months, got cold feet and I had to go
to Washington, D.C. and self-publish the book. The book was
thrown into Kindle space and soon to be forgotten like a catharsis,
a journey half travelled, a story I was never to talk about again.
I was standing outside what was once our old shack huge kitchen
and sitting room filled with smelling of food cooking and women’s
chatter. This was all like ghost behind me, the sound of tube well
was still familiar, the pool was gone where I played in the icy water,
but its music still soothed my nerves. Still thinking about the
menthol cigarette, but where was the cherry tree? The English
hybrid and local roses, though wilting, seemed lush. My baba, a
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.
In 2014 a novella (sanitized and edited version) was self-published

on kindle. All my accounts were hacked until after a long struggle
and a silence of 9 years when I found a publisher.
Here is the story.
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.”
Saadat Hasan Manto
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
invasion of Afghanistan by Soviet troops had led to a huge number

of refugees arriving across the border. From what was once a lovely
colonial town soon turned into a refugee camp of multiple ethnic
displacements.
My father was a liberal, schooled by the missionaries and was not a
typical Pashtun or Pakistani. He believed in education for girls and
tolerance and moderation, something almost wiped out in post-Zia1
dictatorship. So, when I arrived, he controversially decided to
celebrate my birth as a boy. This was unusual as girls were seen as
liabilities and still, they are considered so massively, whereas boys
provided a legacy. But my father insisted on celebrating his girl
child, by sacrificing a cow in front of friends and family and
distributing the meat amongst the villagers of my family origin,
Bostan, a village in district Pishin.
He had already chosen a name, Zeeshan, a boy’s name and decided
to still call me that despite it being a masculine choice. Thankfully,
the very doctor responsible to see through my mother’s complicated
9-month pregnancy, had christened me with her name Hajra. But at
home, I was shortly called Zeesho, until later I adopted the much
old-fashioned name Hajra, a seeker of adventure, as a Moroccan
girl once explained the meaning later to me, seemed a more
feminine option.
When I was two years old, we moved to Karachi as baba wanted to
pursue a new business venture, other than our lands. There were not
much business opportunities to expand in Quetta. His family had
earned most
of their wealth through lands. He ran a travel agency for many years
in Karachi, but my father struggled to find successful work and
lived off his inheritance after moving back, unlike his siblings, who
all went into business and comparatively successfully.
A couple of years later my sister was born. Never the one to shy
away from controversy, baba gave her a French name. He picked
up one of his distant cousins in London, married to an English
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
The restriction of conservative religious sermons was not part of

our lives and baba never asked my mother to reinforce strict
teachings. While may mother prayed on jay-e-namaz2 every day
and read the Holy Quran, baba was not strict and understood that
those forcing extremist agendas in society were not doing Islam or
us (Muslims) any favours, as was traditionally believed by the less
educated people in the changed landscape in the post-Zia rule.
Others were clueless and lacked education themselves as the
Ziafication turned the quality of our education and syllabi, once
esteemed mercenary schoolings, into a nationalized machinery. It
was the beginning of a downward spiral. As children we were only
taught about religion and the teachings in school and through
watching other relatives and neighbours, as well as having a maulvi
saab (cleric) teach us Arabic prayers after school. Being surrounded
by growing extremism but growing up as educated liberals meant
we became outsiders, or rebellious or those who denounce our
Pashtun “values” – but we knew no difference. Not at the time,
anyway.
Despite not sharing the growing Pashtun regressive beliefs of our
extended family and friends, I enjoyed a happy, carefree existence
– until one roasting hot Tuesday afternoon in Karachi after school.
It was my habit after lessons were over to run next door to play with
our neighbour’s little girl. This particular afternoon, I ran inside the
house to look for Annie and spotted her family cook standing in the
corridor. A Bengali man in his 40s, he towered over me outside the
gate. His bloodshed eyes quietly staring at me, he slowly stated
rubbing his crotch. He put his index finger to his lips, beckoning
me inside his quarters.
Confused, I did what I was told and followed him. Nobody seemed
to be home, as my eyes looked for the usual folk sitting around,
“Annie?” I said very quickly and loud.
Then as I crossed his threshold, he grabbed me and started touching
me. I froze with horror as he bent over me, his greasy lips pressed
2
The prayers mat.
4
Wild Flower
against my cheek. My stomach lurched with nausea. The smell of

him, a mix of body odour and stale cooking oil, was overpowering.
Why is he doing this? what do I do?
My young mind was in turmoil as instinctively I knew it was wrong,
and scary and something that felt shameful too. When he was
finished with me, he stepped back and nodded to the door as if
ordering me to leave. Throughout the ordeal he never uttered a
single word. I ran home as fast as I could, shaking and feeling
tainted. What had he done? Why was he picking on me? I just did
not understand and, like most children, blamed myself. I threw
myself onto my bed, my heart banging like a drum behind my ribs,
as images of him replayed in my head. But the loudest voice in my
head was do not tell my mama or she does not find out, instead it
being the other way around. It is mothers and fathers a child must
run after, but because she was always crossed with me no matter
what I did, I feared she will blame me or hit me, like she always
did. You cannot complain about an outside abuse to an inside
abuser. What a dilemma? Nature or geography appointed you as
your own protector? Since that afternoon I was never the same and
I swallowed the scream from within me as it broke something very
deep in my core and I knew I would live with those pieces inside
me. I was only six years, and I was never the same.
The next day after school I did not go out to play. I watched TV at
home. I watched Disney with my sister and felt my mother’s
suffocated and unexplained misery was a cloud of dread. It was
stifling, my baba was hardly ever around. But after a few days, I
missed Annie and decided to try and see her again and make sure I
avoided the creepy cook. But to my horror, the cook was waiting
for me in the corridor again. Only this time he pulled down his
trousers and asked me to touch him. I wanted to be sick or scream
but could not dare. He frightened me so much. I just wanted it to be
over. This time, I noticed how yellow his eyes were as he loomed
over me, his stare never leaving me.
Back home that evening my father was sitting on the sofa when I
walked into the living room.
“Zeesho!” he said. He looked pleased to see me as he had been
away working for a few days. I felt myself freeze, a similar feeling
5
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,
3
Self-righteousness of the traditional religious teachers
4
1979-1989
7
things had somehow gone wrong. A darkness had seeped through.

By the time we arrived ‘home,’ the city was overrun by desperate
families who were broken and traumatized by the Afghan war4 due
to the influx of refugees. Baba always tried to give them something
to eat if they came knocking but we were limited by what we could
do.
Baba moved us into a newly built three-bedroomed house next to
his sister’s home, our auntie’s sumptuous palace. He knocked down
a wall dividing the homes and actively encouraged us to move in
and out with our cousins. My aunt quickly realized a big part of our
care as children’s responsibilities would fall on her, as baba was
often away in the village focusing on the farms, and my mother
struggled to cope at times. My mother’s bitterness and abusive
behaviour grew more and more. My parents fought much more than
I remembered. Having my aunt’s house next doors was a welcome
escape from my mother who got worse once we were in Quetta. Her
abuse increased.
It is like she had me to take it all out on. But then it is all she knew.
Her father was abusive and had remarried, partially abandoning
them. He had six more girls from his much younger second wife.
She used to play with them sometimes. She saw them getting beaten
up by him. As old as he was, still having children that too girls, and
hoping for a boy, and he did 7th time. His daughter would talk to her
about his sexually abusive nature. She knew it was true as he tried
to kiss her on her mouth a few times with his tongue. She was
already used to not telling her horrors. She swallowed this scar too
and avoided him like the plague. Generational trauma in Pathan
women is almost hereditary. So many have lost their lives to
domestic violence or birth related issues, while the men just get a
new one. Cannot have a kid, can’t have a son, imagine having no
agency on your body and if you
8
Waking Up
are healthy enough to produce a child, with little or no medical help,

its systematic evil.
With the refugees came jobs with the UN who were based nearby,
so a couple of mother’s sisters went to work there. Other relatives
worked in the nearby school set up for the children in the area. In
our area, our family was affluent by comparison to most and we
were seen as progressive because the women studied and worked.
At first, we were sent to a convent school, which came as a huge

culture shock after our school in Karachi. All of a sudden, we were
no longer wearing frocks, not allowed out after dark and we had to
have our heads covered everywhere we went, including school. But
after a few months, baba moved us again to a private school where
our cousins attended after he realized the convents were not up to
the standard they had been in his time. Every morning we would get
a lift with our cousin’s driver, who clearly had an opium addiction
as he would almost fall asleep at the wheel. It was still a strict school
but more liberal than the convent and my love of books continued.
I fell in love with Jane Austen, and Sense and Sensibility became
my favourite novel of all time. Read it over and over.
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.
“One orphaned 13-year-old was brought in by her grandmother

when it was all too late,” my aunt sobbed one evening after work.
9
“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?”
Of course, to be healed and to be free of pain and shame. That is

what the meaning of life is. Was it? Of course.
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
prayed every night, to make me better, to help me go away and

to be what I want to be.
Pretty and happy. And most of all, free.
This would be my prayers in the earnest.
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
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
In 1992, the country of Pakistan was, for once, in the mood to

celebrate; we had won the Cricket World Cup. It was as if our
country and my family had received a boost to their self-esteem
and it was wonderful to see. I watched in awe as my aunts and
father jumped up and down when the final game was being
played, and some people even kissed the TV screen when Imran
came on to play. It was as if Khan were the saviour of the country,
and he gave us all an injection of hope where once we’d had
none.
A poster boy of what an esteemed modern educated Pakistani
man ‘should’ be, and the ladies worshiped him apparently, and I
just wanted joe Elliott to rescue me.
Then we heard as part of their homecoming celebration, the team
and all the players were doing a tour of the country and were
even coming to Quetta. My parents had no money for a ticket to
see the event, but my cousin was going, her father had arranged
for her special ticket, and she was promised a signed bat by none
other than Imran khan. I begged to attend with her, it took forever
to convince my mean and sadistic mother to let me go with her
as my cousin was so nervous going alone and we had a love and
hate friendship. Desperate to see the cricket team, I kept up the
nagging with my aunt who lived next door, and eventually she
caved in and paid for a ticket for me, but more so that I could
accompany her daughter.
Nagging me nonstop I escaped her eventually that evening.
A dinner was being held at the only hotel in Quetta, Serena, for
selected guests and players including the great Khan himself.
‘Forget it,’ snapped mother. Now that I was almost a teenager our
relationship was more strained than ever. I noticed how tired and
unhappy she was most of the time and I felt restricted in
whatever I wanted to do. Some of the older relatives again
blamed baba for allowing us too much freedom and why I was
such a headstrong tom boy. None of this, however, moved my
fundraiser.
15
“What do you expect?” said one of them. “They have different

ideals now...they want to see these famous people….be like
them…well enjoy it now you won’t be doing any of this in a few
years.”
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
I thought it would impress my aunts and baba, and the kids in

school, if no one else.
Sneaking up beside him, braving my way through all those

around him, I stood behind him as his back towered over my tiny
frame. He looked back as if someone had interrupted him. I
mumbled in a very low voice “it’s just a photograph.” My cousin
waved her camera next to me. I looked at her so we could capture
it quickly before we are shooed off like little bugs.
Imran looked through me as if I were made of glass and then
turned his head away dismissively. Not wanting to miss the
moment anyway, my cousin quickly took a shot and caught a
snap of me grinning next to the back of Imran Khan’s black hair.
I felt ugly and very stupid, but even if it were just me against the
backdrop of Pakistan’s most famous son’s head, it was a moment
that would be treasured? Despite a very nervous shot captured
on an old celluloid, the rock star captured my imagination over
cricketers many days as I entered my mills and boons age.
At the age of 41, he held little interest in me as I was only ten

years old awkward kid, who merely escaped her mother’s evil
nagging all evening. My cousin and me vented about why he was
so awful. But there was something about being even that close to
the man who claimed, and many believed to have solely won the
cup, the other few players accompanying him were just
supporting cast more like glorified extras at the event.
Nothing clouded the feeling of excitement at having seen the

team, and we went home thrilled to have been part of the
celebrations. She went to her loving supportive family. I went
home and silently crept into my bed hoping the monster does not
wakeup and I can close my eyes and the gloom around me would
fade and I can just enjoy the remains of a rewarding evening,
thanks to my cousin’s family.
18
First Collision
My cousin and I were fast friends by now and did everything

together. We often filmed our own ‘TV shows’ with her
camcorder or talked about our futures. We were also beginning
to get curious about sex. We were constantly told we would go
to hell if we’d try it, that our virginity was a prize, but we
wondered what the fuss was about. Since men had no such test
to pass, but we did. My mother told me nothing about the facts
of life, but my aunt told my cousin who relayed the knowledge
to me. It was all very confusing.
One day I saved up and bought a copy of Cosmopolitan to read

about other teenage girls. My father found it and went through it.
Clearly there were several pieces on how tops and what nots
about the modern girls’ guide to life, and he went crazy, not at us
but my mother and she took it out yet again on me with interest.
“Look at what she’s reading!” She screamed as she repeated his
words. Mother said I already watched MTV and baba said it was
all ‘bullshit’ too, but Cosmo was worse.
I was now gaining a reputation as a rebel. One of my father’s

older sisters told him: “There is a reason we do not celebrate the
birth of a girl. You have deluded her; she is more trouble than a
man and thinks like one. She dares question ‘tradition,” and you
were wrong in raising her as a boy. A girl must just be a girl.” In
spite of her words, like a girl, I dreamed of growing up to be
pretty, not manly or to be a man, just enjoy male privilege being
a woman, as I was taunted by kids and my mother for my large
nose. Cruelly, I was called ‘onion bhaji (pakora) nose.’ Once I
even heard a neighbour question my mother about my sister and
me.
“You are a beautiful woman,” she said. “And your husband isn’t
bad looking, so what happened to your ugly daughters?” My
mother used to laugh repeating this story.
Things became even worse when I developed bad acne over my

face, making me feel more unattractive than ever. My mother was
barely a mentor or a guide to look after our wellbeing, be it
19
getting our periods or taking us to a dermatologist. It is like not

caring was something she was more committed to than her cycle
of daily chores and long naps. Now as I was made fun of for my
nose and my acne, I never asked God for anything but would pray
repeatedly, “please help me get out of here, make me have big
lips, a good figure and be beautiful. I will have to fix my nose
myself.” I thought being good looking alongside having an
education would be my ticket out of there and a ticket to
anywhere.
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
killed by some sociopath extremist. I was told her husband had

asked for help to get her to hospital, but the men instead shot her in
cold blood, telling him, “It is time to pray. Look, she does not need
help now.”
Such sociopaths, hijacking spirituality, using it to no means of
violence and power seemed like a curse.
The images haunted me for many nights. I could not understand
how people could preach their allegiance to God and yet tolerate or
participate in such evil on our streets.
The brutality I saw extended to animals as well. One morning, I
heard a wailing noise outside and saw my father’s farmhand
shooting a dog, one who often came to our house for food. They
then strung him up, pulling out his guts. I screamed for them to stop.
“Why do you kill that animal without any mercy?” I cried.
“Because he might have rabies,” the farmhand said. I was
convinced he did not really know for sure. The dog might only have
been sick and hungry. My sister and I screamed in horror, and he
taunted us, saying, “You do not have the strong hearts of Pathans.
You are not fighters.”
If being Pathan meant meting out such cruelty, I did not want to be
one. The incident haunted me for years and was responsible for
igniting my passion for animals and animal welfare.
When I was 14 years, we returned to Karachi to college, where I
did my A levels. By now I had lost weight and people often
commented on my looks, remarking, “You should be a model,
Hajra.” But I laughed it off, although secretly hoped my prayers to
be beautiful were working.
I made the decision to try and follow version of our religion more
appeasing to my eco system, properly in a bid to fit in – for three
months. Donning my hijab, I joined my mother on the prayer mat
next to hers, even praying more than she did. I read the Holy Quran
and tried to really absorb the words, working out where I fitted into
this and focusing on any semblance of faith I did have. The more I
read, the more I started to understand something. In the religion, I
heard the men who spout on the street seemed to be in a completely
different context from the holy words of Allah I read. There was far
more compassion in the Holy Quran than I saw on the streets of
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
faced brutal attacks everywhere, from street corners to the fields.

Sexual repression was the pathway to brutality, I thought.
One evening I overheard a distant relative tell my other auntie he
had burnt his own TV cable so he could not get satellite anymore.
“Why?” my aunt asked.
“Because I had a dream where God asked me what I was watching
and when I replied ‘Baywatch’ he told me I would burn in hell.” I
baulked at his response.
One day I took off my hijab and rolled up my prayer mat and
decided not to follow our society’s oppressive version of Islam. I
knew I had isolated myself from that day, praying to a God to help
me be true to myself. All I could hope now was that my prayer to
leave the country would be granted. I could not see my future in
Pakistan, not the way our country was heading.
24
Chapter Six
The World outside my Window

Obsessed with all things Irish, I managed to find a place at a
college in Dublin to do a business studies course. I wanted to study
filmmaking, but the subject was not available, and neither would
have my parents allowed it. It did not matter what the course
subject was as long as I could leave home and move abroad to have
a fresh start in the Western world. Baba was still very supportive.
Somehow, I fought tooth and nail to get my college fee secured.
As distant as our relationship now was – I was still wary of all men
after my encounters with the cook – he was very encouraging
about my escape from Pakistan. Just before I left, I went to one of
the biggest hair salons, Nabila’s, in the area where I bumped into
a successful model at the time who was having her hair done. “You
have very beautiful hair,” she said. “I am doing a big campaign for
the salon. Would you be interested in being in it?” I was surprised
and flattered. It had never crossed my mind I really was attractive
enough. Back home I asked my mother and she immediately said
no.
“Nobody from our part of the world becomes a model,” she insisted.
“You should do something better with your life after you’ve had an
education.” Mother had dreams for me of her own. “I want you to
become a doctor,” she said firmly. “That was my ambition, but I
never had the chance because I was married off at eighteen. You
have the opportunity and should not squander it!”
I felt my rebellious side rise up in me again. I had no interest in
science whatsoever. I loved music, literature, and films, making our
home videos of lip-synching and dancing in our gardens after
school was over. That gave me a break from the bleak aging air of
despair around. “No!” I cried. “That is not life for me. I want to be
someone different from you!” Nobody sees magazines in Quetta,
who reads English newspapers?
After wearing her down with our rows, eventually she agreed as
long as baba did not find out and I went off to a photographer’s
studio to do a shoot. During the session, I met a very successful
stylist who I heard also came from Quetta. It was unusual to meet
25
anyone from my hometown and I was eager to swap stories with

her. But when I mentioned where I lived, she grimaced.
“I left that place a long time ago and never looked back. Neither
should you,” she said grimly.
She went on to encourage me to start modelling. “I think you’d do
very well out of it,” she said.
I sensed the conversation was closed, so just kept quiet. I also
understood Quetta was not a place to be proud of, but it was where
we were from, and I didn’t want to feel ashamed either.
But still, I could not wait to leave. The outside Western world
beckoned, and MTV, books, music, and films all proved to me there
was a huge life waiting to be lived. For years I had felt as if I was a
person always outside in the cold, staring in through the window of
a room full of warmth and fun. Now, finally, I was invited to join
in. When it came to East versus West, I knew which way I wanted
to head. I said goodbye to my family and friends and once I was on
the plane to Dublin, I barely gave a second glance outside the
window. I had hardly any money or belongings, but I had a college
place and baba promised to pay my rent on time. As a girl from
Quetta, I was happy to leave behind and perhaps never have to look
back and find my freedom.
At first everything was shiny and new, small, less glam than London
and much less diverse. The Dublin culture I had only known from
books and poems until now was alive and I could finally be part of
it. The weather was cold and wet, but the freedom was
overwhelming. As a woman, I was treated equally to men, as seen
exotic which was amusing to hear that word specifically used to
describe me. I could go where I liked, when and where I wanted.
With such overwhelming new freedoms, inevitably I went a little
off the rails, eventually going out with my classmates and having
fun, it was safe and weirds. There was only one thing I remained
wary of, men. I did not trust anyone and would shy away from any
men who tried to flirt with me or ask me out on dates. I developed
a rude stand-offish persona and only felt comfortable around non
straight men because they expected nothing from me. I was popular
amongst the boys, women in my class did not like much, I loved
26
The World outside my Window
wearing clothes I thought I looked nice in, but my classmates

seemed to differ.
Among the homosexual and trans community there was a lot of fun
and laughter and, unlike straight men, I wasn’t intimidated by them.
So, I moved into an inclusive guesthouse instead of living on a
student campus, where I never seemed to get along with girls, just
didn’t have the same vibe. I still had issues with trust around most
men, including my father, who despite his promises let me down
money-wise many times, especially by not paying my college fees.
It meant I had to miss my studies and find work myself. As an act
of rebellion, I worked and started staying out more and missed
classes in my finals. An immature response, perhaps, but somehow,
I wanted to get back at my father. My love life took a new turn as I
fell for an Irish fellow student, but our cultural differences were an
issue. He said to me, “You have amazing eyes, sparkling innocence
with a twinkle of mischief.” I thought that was a very pure original
compliment, one I would probably never forget it was the most
romantic thing anyone had ever said to me. However, he could not
see through a few differences. When I mentioned never having had
to do my washing at home because I had a servant, he found this
offensive, accusing me of being spoilt. Then when I confided in
him, I was still a virgin, he was shocked and even more put off. “It’s
all too intense for me,” he claimed, and promptly ended it.
I was devastated. The irony was not lost on me either that our men
would only accept a virgin bride, but I was being rejected by a
Western man for being one! Later that week, I spoke to a male friend
about it and asked him what the big deal was? “Don’t kiss me or
touch me, I just want to get rid of compliment, or any one can take
it.” I said as a joke, but he stared back blankly at me, “That is it,
isn’t it? I bet you would not hesitate to do that boom in a minute.”
But that guy who was nice to me did not think so, he thought its “all
too much to take that away.” “What’s all the fuss about?” He had
my feelings meltdown and cried and gave me a cup of Irish coffee.
It did not help as my existential crisis was polarized puzzle between
two cultural macho notions. Little first taste of love and heartbreak
was exactly how that first cup of Irish coffee tasted.
27
I could not believe such a simple act meant so much in my home

country but so burdensome to another. Despite the experience, I
continued to shy away from men, and when anyone showed me
attention, I avoided it and turned to my trusted gay friends for
company, instead. But then I met a Pakistani boy who became a
good friend. We fell into a very nurturing friendship together and
for the first time I felt looked after by someone even if I did not feel
very attracted to him romantically. I never found him imposing
himself on me. He was a very supportive, simple, and kind friend.
Then, as our course came to an end, he returned to Pakistan to marry
a girl from his family. I was heartbroken as I lost my good friend
but wished him well on his new journey. Even if I knew deep down
in my heart that I was not in love with him, but my friend had gone
where his new life awaited him. It is hard to find a healthy and real
friendships between straight men and women like men have with
other men. I always envy their bro code. But I realized I had my bro
and sister code with my friends at the guest house where I made
friends and enjoyed life’s lighter and freer moments, learning about
other cultures, people, and lifestyles. I was safe and happy and train
wrecking in a place I at first thought was an alien idea and feared
it. Deared? From whom? Men who were feminine? They were
kinder to me, and I never felt safer than in that little building in the
corner of Camden Street, Dublin.
I struggled to finish my course, returning to Karachi for a year and
then coming back to start again. Eventually, by the age of 26, I was
finished, but I had failed miserably by not completing two finals.
My teachers were shocked at how I went from passing exams with
80% grades to this. Because the college fees were still due, I was
not allowed to sit the final exams. My act of rebellion against baba
had, of course, backfired. I had spent nine years at college in Dublin
but would leave with no qualifications, no job, and no money. I had
no choice but return to the place I had escaped from – Pakistan.
With one card to play my love to become a filmmaker, but how? I
may have failed two subjects, but I had my real dream tucked away
in my heart’s corner hidden in a box.
28
Chapter Seven
Emerging from the Shadows

The day I landed at the airport I saw something that both confused
and excited me as I was travelling home in the car. A woman was
working, serving behind the counter in McDonalds. Up to now this
had been unheard of; a woman working in public in Pakistan. I did
a double take.
One of the first things I asked my mother when I arrived home was
what had been going on in the country.
“Women are now allowed to work in places like a fast-food joint?”
I gasped.
“What’s happened…wow?”
she gave a wry smile. “President Musharraf,” she said.
Musharraf era had ended, and PPP was back in power after the very
tragic assassination of Benazir Bhutto, a beloved strong woman.
Irony was, seeing women out in economic contribution and
empowerment, I prayed they are not harmed and harassed. And
these breakthrough women can be an easy Benazir and should be
treated very different from men, not just by men but my women too.
Under the previous dictator General Zia ul Haq, women had been
oppressed and Islamization had taken over following Khomeini’s
reign in Iran and the so-called Islamic war between Afghanistan and
the Soviet Union. He denounced 'Zina' and ordered punishments for
sex-related crimes and prohibition against drugs and intoxicant and
blasphemy laws. All these laws had negative repercussions. We
have created a nation so sexually hyped, deprived, and obsessed.
We have perverted these people for predatory dark ways of
exercising the needs, while objectifying women’s very existence,
let alone their bodies. It seemed like women are not humans but just
sexual props that will tempt them. He also gave Afghan
Mujahedeen diplomatic, moral, and financial support. Not only that
but his involvement in the Afghan war, obviously at the behest of
the USA, led to a large number of refugees and unchecked arms and
ammunition in Pakistan as well as open drug trafficking.
Musharraf was a military dictator but with an economic agenda.
Although I disagree with his politics and how he sold out Pakistan
29
on the US proxy ‘War on Terror,’ he worked on women's rights

more than our former female prime minister Benazir Bhutto had
done or could have done, though the challenges she faced were huge
in a post-Zia Pakistan. She would have wanted to do more if she
had been around or could have. I have always believed that if men
in a patriarchal system spoke up gently and acted with equality and
sympathetically to woman’s wellbeing, it would be a more non-
frictional transition to a gender equality than woman fighting for it.
So, I do not doubt she had multiple challenges to face but will
always be remembered as a strong fighter who could have done so
much given the chance and the hand.
Musharraf also encouraged a free media and a clean-up of
Madrasas 4, where many poor children, mostly boys face a very
abusive environment. Post 9/11 was a critical time for Pakistan and
along with some of these policies, he improved the economy.
“It’s wonderful news,” I said. “I cannot believe something good has
finally happened to this country.”
With the encouragement of more liberal attitudes and an
environment where we had private media, a rising fashion and TV
industry, I became optimistic. I felt inspired to make decisions
about my own life now.
With little idea of what to do next, I decided to follow others’
suggestions and pursue modelling. Predictably, my family gave me
no support and were angry I had failed college.
“You cannot blame your failure on lack of support from your father.
He is not perfect, but he tried,” cried mother. “It is your own fault
for straying. Anyway, we think you should not have come back.
There was and is nothing. Education was all you could have had,
getting a good job and just staying there but you couldn’t hold that
up.”
I tried to bite my tongue now as I was back living under her roof,
but I was angry. Not only at her but my father and even myself. It
was all such a mess, and I was back where I had started from. But
life was trickier than ever, as I had brought back my solid liberal
4
Religious seminaries
30
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.
31
“You need to lose more weight honey.” I heard the choreographer

mumble. Walking on the ramp with other models was a nightmare.
I was new and nervous and not so thin! I had curves, unlike other
girls. So, Marilyn was, what I was assigned I found, that flattering.
It was my first pay check. I opened a bank account with manifesting
more will follow. But the short Marilyn hair did not open doors for
me. Pakistani models and actors do well only with long brown hair!
I realized a setback; I might have to wait out and just keep looking.
Despite this, I found work and with each job I used the money to
improve myself, getting my lower teeth corrected to perfect my
smile, having surgery on my nose and laser treatment to smooth my
uneven skin. With each step taken my confidence was boosted and
I started to become busy with work. I learned about my work then
how to look good off the job. I noticed others were more focused
on weight, makeup and what not to say. But I was very casual. If I
want looking for a gig, I was at home with my pets and helping,
staying outside, or watching movies and reading.
Around this time, a young very feminine well witted makeup
wearing person knocked at our door looking to protest against the
killing of local stray cats and dogs. I invited him in, and we found
an instant connection.
He reminded me of the many men and women I met at Frankie’s
guest house. His name was Osman, and he was very open about his
highly unusual opinion regarding our society. I soon discovered that
he possessed a heart of gold. When he told me a story of how he
saved many animals from being sacrificed during the traditional
celebrations, I did not know whether to laugh or cry. Because on
normal days like many he had no problem eating mutton or beef,
but like most people, when they witness animal slaughter, they feel
pain and sympathy. I, on the other hand, gave up eating any
mammal. I saw their lively beings gentle and harmless standing
around trees tied up so peaceful. Nah, not going to hurt that, I
thought.
“You’re crazy and a rebel like me, black sheep, underdog, weirdo,
a bit messed up and messed with lol,” I said to him.
Despite his feisty attitude, he suffered for his beliefs and refusal to
hide his feminine nature at home or anywhere, his brothers gave
32
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
education and was articulate, even if I wasn’t the best looking.

Because of these other skills I was offered work as a TV presenter.
While I had been away in Dublin, President Musharraf ploughed
money into entertainment and suddenly there were many new
outlets on TV, including fashion and MTV-style channels. As a
young female English- and-Urdu speaking woman, I got a job as a
TV presenter for Fashion TV. At first, I was nervous in front of a
camera but after a few sessions, my fears melted away and I found
it fun and liberating to be chatting about clothes and women’s
issues. I was told I was a natural on camera, something I could
never quite believe but because I enjoyed going to work, I felt
lucky. I sensed a sea change, too, now more women were working
within society. The idea of the ‘dowry’ had changed. The country
needed more women to work and any woman who did so was seen
as a useful commodity, not to bring in money but to earn more after
marriage too, in many sects.
Marriage for me was something not even on my radar. I had seen
my aunts’ and mother’s marriages and none of them, as far as I
could tell, were happy or fulfilling. Marriage meant little more than
a bind to me, and I was happy to hang on to my independence for
as long as possible. And my father’s words,
“Don’t marry until you’re really mentally mature and wise to know
better.” Good advice, I thought.
For the first time my parents were relieved, too. I was working
regularly and making decent money from it. My extended family
were less supportive and would ring my parents when they saw my
shows, telling them I was ‘not wearing any sleeves or dressed
modestly’ or had ‘too much make up on.’ But for my parents, the
pluses outweighed the minuses, because my family struggled with
money. Once income started coming in, their criticism wore off. I
was leading a more liberal life but was doing so successfully for
once. My choice was accepted, if not endorsed or approved. I was
making my own humble money.
34
Chapter Eight
Behind the Mask

One day someone contacted me on Facebook. It was a producer,
Tariq Ahmer, who worked for Newline, one of the biggest
entertainment houses in Pakistan at the time. He was known for
picking ambitious girls from the “gutter” or plain obscurity and
turning them into stars, a norm in our industry where females got
a chance at turning their life around. Ahmer had worked in the
Pakistani film industry for many years before it fell apart.
The production company were planning a mega-budget
glamorous soap opera and looking for a woman to play the role
of a feisty, rebellious, sensuous girl.
He thought I would be perfect. At first, I did not understand. Why
would I be so sought after? After all, I was only a presenter on a
fashion show? As always, I talked it through with my new best
friend. He was my neighbour, and it was so easy to catch up and
crib.
“This is amazing, Hajra!” he cried, his eyes shining. “You will
be famous! And I know you would make a good actress. You
have that ‘something’.”
I laughed with him, as he knew I could be dramatic when I
wanted to, but acting for money was different. I was so confused,
I still hoped to work for a bit and leave eventually.
My parents were far less keen. After all, pretty much all Pakistani
actresses were considered to be glorified prostitutes. Being seen
on national TV would be scandalous for my family, I wondered
how far I can push the envelope. “It is a sleazy, horrible industry,
full of vultures…and why would you want to work in this…why
not something else?” said baba, while my mother was similarly
unimpressed. She said: “Nobody from Quetta becomes an
actress. Bad enough you are presenting. What will people say?”
I listened to them, but immediately dismissed their arguments
that times have changed. Still wanting to carve out my own life,
I did not want to believe them at all and wanted to defy those
slanderous beliefs and labels tearing women down. I wanted to
35
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
respect to be shown. He could not abide lateness, either. I was

happy to be professional, too, and abide by his rules. He told me
once I would never come across such professionalism in any
other production company – and he turned out to be right.
But as much as I enjoyed the days we filmed, I started to see the
first signs of the darker underbelly to the acting world that did
not just involve drugs. As the eccentric director pointed out to
me, I had swapped raw, primitive Quetta for Western civilization,
then come to one of the most corrupt and contradictory places in
the world: show business in Pakistan. He said, “This is glittering,
not gold, and things are in fact going down. And you are an
actress by default.
Acting is not just a talent, it is a lifestyle, young lady. You are
very different from the mould.” He looked up at me from the
script he
was holding and added, “You sure have the looks and the talent
. . . you can make a lot of money.”’ Then he grinned to himself.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” I said.
“This make-up we wear for camera never comes off for an
actress. That is all people see and, after a while, it’s all you want
them to see. It will be your best friend and your worst enemy.”
Then he stood up and walked away, leaving me at a loss to
understand exactly what he meant.
I soon discovered this was the case first-hand, not only because
of the excessive drug use but also when a director persistently
asked me for a date. Now I started doing some commercials and
music videos. It became a norm to be asked for a ‘coffee’ after
on texts.
“Come on Hajra, what is wrong with you?” He teased most days.
I found him flirty at first and then a little irritating. Finally, he
wore me down and I agreed to go for a friendly dinner with him
after work. He bought me flowers after this and pursued me
relentlessly for more dates.
I was flattered by the attention, but then heard a rumour he was
married. As soon as I confronted him, he did not even deny it,
38
Behind the Mask
and admitted he was simultaneously hitting on others. In my

naivety, I found this very shocking.
“Don’t ever contact me again,” I made quite a spectacle of
myself. it was ridiculous. Not getting the support one needs from
home can make you very vulnerable to predatory attention. It is
unhealthy and this thing has sunk many young girls to a sunken
place. If anything, I cannot stress enough how important it is to
build women’s self-esteem and teach them never to find
temporary distractions from those in sheep’s clothing.
The whole thing made me feel sick. After this I vowed once again
to ignore all the men who made advances. I was not going to be
like the ‘other’ actresses. I wanted to avoid trouble and was not
going to sleep to get to the top or ask for favours. That always
creeped me out. Some greasy, illiterate, and pretentious
megalomaniac persons, thinking the same job that was offered to
me comes with the added audition of entertaining them on and
off the job. We got snide remarks, sarcastic comments on our
looks and age, and mansplaining and open objectification and
the silent understand you must obey, act dumb and smile back at
the sleaze thrown our way and be grateful when you do. The bros
did not face this with their bros. We did. Though we all had our
jobs to do. But the memos we got as women were not the same.
The men got a pat a pat on their back all the fake flattery and a
handshake and solid partnerships, we got nothing.
A few months after becoming a household name, I was invited
to a party at Jahanzeb Asim’s house. Asim was a very successful
middle-aged industrialist and known socialite and although we
didn’t have a celebrity culture in Pakistan, I had become well
acquainted in a circle. However, I still felt as though I did not fit
in. Asim was an intellectual man who became a good friend and
who liked to host gatherings I sometimes attended, introduced to
by my co-star and socialite Seher. He was friends with many
actresses, including another leading star called Faria Abdullah,
who I noticed networked very well and liked to party, it seemed
almost like she ‘ran’ the joint, and he was merely providing the
39
place and goods. As I stood chatting to Seher, “Imran is going to

be here” She slipped in.
“Whose Imran,” I asked expecting it to be some actor or producer
or anyone famous from the industry.
“Imran Khan.” she rolled her eyes.
“Oh …ok…nice,” I responded.
Imran Khan and his posse suddenly swept in. I was struck at how
quiet and reserved he was, despite his effect on the room. Other
party goers conducted themselves very respectfully around him
and someone whispered to me how Asim was his ‘only trusted
friend to socialize with’ in Karachi. I was impressed! I noticed
Imran khan did not smoke or drink. As usual I minded my own
business and mingled with the people I had started to acquaint
and make some small talk with. People were flocking to him and
sat quietly looking like he was so over it.
As the night went on, Asim suggested he should introduce me,
but I was not keen as I did not think the great Imran Khan would
be interested in the likes of me, looking at his bored demeanour
parked in the couch all evening and others trying to engage him.
He insisted on it but when I went over Imran barely looked at
me, and I scuttled off again. Asim returned a few hours later, to
ask if I had
got on with Imran. I said we had barely spoken so he insisted on
introducing us again.
This time, it was a rare occasion when I was feeling bold, I just
chipped in.
“So, who is rattling your cage these days?” I chided.
Imran did a double take at me but said nothing. He seemed like
I startled him with my question.
“Well, every time I see you on TV, you’re having a fight with
someone or the other,” I laughed.
“It’s better to be talked about than not at all,” Imran replied.
I laughed as I realized he had misquoted Oscar Wilde.
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
She seemed aloof, I said he was such a nice man, so down to

earth.
She seemed indifferent or refused to comment. Could not tell.
I looked at her.
“You know him, right?”
She nodded; I asked if she knew him well.
She replied cautiously,
“I have known him around for many years, seen him just
someone like that. Not good to know him closely.”
I was so fuzzy from the evening and tired I did not read too much
into what she barely mumbled without making any eye contact.
Immediately, he replied: “You are an extremely attractive and
intelligent woman, I only wish I could have stayed longer and
talked to you.” It was 3 am and I started laughing out loud. This
was a huge confidence boost. The great Imran Khan had said
lovely things about me. That text alone from Imran was enough
to make me feel like Cinderella at the ball. And that was it, end
of a nice, sweet interaction with decent empathetic man who did
and was doing so much to bring change. A huge change from the
sleaze balls around in the industry.
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
He told me Lahore was conservative, but also a ‘happening’ place

at the same time. “I will wear a sari,” I texted. “You would look
amazing in that,” he replied. “The experienced eye has made that
assessment already.” I blushed as I read his words.
He said one of his guides would pick me up but when I asked if they
could collect me from a beauty salon, he insisted I did not need my
hair or make-up done. “Your youth and beauty should shine
through,” he added. I knew I would need to look a million dollars
for such a big event, I’m sure all of Lahore would be there and I
needed to make a good impression as an actor.
A designer friend of mine made a beautiful white sari with a
blouse for me to wear at the event. It was stunning and when I
tried it on, her face erupted into a smile.
“Wow, Hajra, nobody will be able to keep their eyes off you
wearing that!” she gasped.
I felt a little embarrassed. “Do you think it’s too revealing a sari I
mean?” I asked nervously. “Not at all…nobody should wear
shalwar kameez at any event. The only Eastern wear acceptable is
a sari!” she replied. I was overwhelmed with nerves about the
whole idea of meeting Imran. I would no idea how it would go or
even what his motives were. I turned to Osman for guidance.
“Oh, Hajra!” he exclaimed. “Enjoy every minute of it! It is not like
you’re going to be invited by one of the most well-known Pakistani
men to a gala every day. It will be amazing, do it for every crush
every woman ever had on him here!”
Hearing his enthusiasm helped my nerves and I vowed to try and
put my concerns aside. After all, what was the worst that could
happen? I might make a fool of myself, but what an incredible
honour it was to be asked by Pakistan’s most famous son to go
out for the evening. If nothing else, I was intrigued by this man
and by his charity work and hence the event. So, I arranged for
Imran’s private car to pick me up at the salon and he told me he
would meet me inside the venue. I was to sit at a table with his
friends,
he said. Swallowing my nerves, I texted him back to thank him.
“Just enjoy every minute at the gala,” I told myself, turning
44
Heat Rising
Osman’s words into a mantra. I did not know anyone in Lahore.

So, I stayed at an hotel. The car arrived precisely on time. I took
a deep breath, adjusting my sari as I slid onto the back seat and
draped a scarf around my shoulders self-consciously. The driver
knew where to take me and we sped off towards the Palm Resort
in Lahore. I was met on arrival at the entrance by a man who
appeared to be expecting me and he took me to a round table full
of middle-aged men at the back of the room. There was an
expectant buzz in the air but no sign of Imran. I nodded polite
acknowledgements and tried to calm my nerves with a glass of
water.
However, I was relieved to be at the back of the room sat by myself
all dolled up looking stupid. I knew I could push myself forward at
an event like this, but my shyness held me back. I suffered from
panic attacks sometimes and really did not want one this evening,
so drawing attention to myself was the last thing I wanted. I
watched Imran as he made a speech. He did not need any celebrities
coming to his gala as he was the biggest star there and the crowd
loved him. The evening sped by with the audience erupting and
cheering into huge applause every time Imran spoke. Then, as soon
as it was finished, I was shepherded into a car where Imran was
already waiting with his friends. He ducked his head as I jumped
in, and the car sped away into the night almost before I had even
closed the door.
My nervousness began again as I wondered where we were going
and what would happen for the next part of the evening. I hoped
Imran did not expect too much from me as I didn’t even know this
man. I still did not know what his motives were. Perhaps we would
just get to know each other and be friends. Full of trepidation, I
wondered what to talk about with Imran Khan. Politics? The
country? As much as I was trying to enjoy the experience of his
company as many would, I was overwhelmed. But Imran seemed
very relaxed and chatted to me as I congratulated him on the gala.
“Your speech was very good,” I said thinking of other things to say
that would be polite.
“Thank you. We raised a few million,” he replied calmly.
45
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
I started to feel anxious again and decided to ask Imran a question

to which I hoped for an honest answer. “How often do you get
your friends to set you up with a young lady?” He looked around
the room and not at me, as if I had deeply offended him. A
defensive shrug.
“Do you think I need to do that?” he asked, finally, his eyes
narrowing a little. “No,” I said quickly. “I’m sure a man of your
position doesn’t need to.” I explained. He looked at me. “A man of
my age and experience means one thing and that is you learn what
you do not want, not what you want, so that eliminates 90% of the
population. The moment I laid eyes on you I knew you were
different. I trust my instincts. You have not been with many men,
have you?” I shook my head, wondering how he had guessed.
“Sorry I’m just nervous, I don’t go out much” I insisted, changing
the subject. “I don’t know anyone here.” “You know me,” he smiled
sweetly, and I felt reassured, sure I knew him but then again, I
didn’t, did I? I knew him from his public fame and celebrity, I did
not in fact know him or anything about him, yet here I was.
They talked a lot about cricket. Imran criticized the team and talked
about his captaincy and how he made them go to bed by 9 pm. Then
he expressed his pity for players who let themselves go and
struggled with fame and temptation. “Instant fame and greed for the
unexposed is a lethal combination,” he added.
Next, he took a phone call. He explained to his friends that Sunny
Malik’s generator was not working because he’d gone on a party
binge for three days and it was burnt out. This was the first thing
that made me laugh all evening. Once I laughed, Imran smiled and
shook his head at the absurdity of the story. He was aware of my
nerves and asked me if I needed a cigarette. I could smoke. He said,
as he had seen me smoke in Karachi, “We all need to have at least
one vice,” he went on, adding: ‘One must choose sins wisely.
Humans are not angels. I only judge people on their integrity and
values.”
Then he disappeared into the bedroom while I went outside to call
Osman. I could feel myself starting to panic as I did not know how
this night was going to pan out.
47
“Osman,” I whispered. “I am with Imran in a bungalow miles away,

I’ve no idea where tonight is heading…there just these men and no
women here. It is just I don’t know!” Osman, being Osman, saw
the funny side. “You’re with a public figure and he’s surely not
going to do anything stupid,” he said excitedly. “Had I been at your
place, I would just ask him to marry me!”
I laughed. “You are a mad man, and drunk by now, I wouldn’t!”
He told me off for worrying so much. “Just lighten up, it’s no big
deal,” he said. “You are young, beautiful and deserve to have some
fun. Anyway, how is he?” He wanted to know.
“A gentleman talks a little weird, but still, it is kind of lot, it is just
these men no women,” I replied. As my breathing began to ease, I
thanked Osman for his kind words and said goodbye. Taking
another deep breath, I went inside where Imran was sitting on the
sofa, looking concerned.
“Who were you speaking to, Hajra? Updating your friends?” he
asked. I felt a kind of embarrassment.
Suddenly, I realized how suspicious it looked. Perhaps Imran
suspected I was ringing the press to do a story on him or gossiping
among my friends? In a panic I decided I had to explain the truth. I
just needed to speak to a friend, I said. He listened compassionately
as I explained how awful my anxiety could be.
“Please, Hajra,” he said. “There is nothing to be worried about. You
are SAFE.” After a couple of hours, the others suddenly left,
leaving Imran alone with me. My nervousness returned as Imran
looked at me, his demure look suddenly sensuous.
“You really have the most beautiful lips, I have thought about them
ever since I saw you,” he purred. I did not know what to do as he
clutched my hand and led me to an attached room. I kept Osman’s
words in mind: “Try and have fun, let go of your worries, just
relax.” The room was very run down but appeared clean, as if we
were expected. Imran seemed to be in a philosophical mood. He
went into the bathroom, came out sniffed and rubbed his nose, and
became more uninhibited as he spoke.
“I deal with people in crowds every day all day and when it’s my
own time, I like to escape to solitude,” he said.
48
Heat Rising
He talked passionately about his ambitions, and I listened. Walking

freely, with passion in his stride, he stopped and stood in front of
me, his body muscular and toned. I could not help but get flashes of
him in his youth and prime, as I’d seen him on TV, in his cricket
whites bowling before a cheering crowd of thousands in all his glory
and might. Now he was mysterious and private and here I was, in
the presence of the Khan. He was like a lion, and I was like a kitten,
seated in front of him as he looked intently, as if to absorb the sight
of me.
“I haven’t interacted like this with a woman this young in years,”
he said. “Normally I meet women in their 40s who have had kids
and that changes the mind and body. You are young and smart, a
rare combination. Can I just look at you?”
I was extremely flattered as he took in every detail with his eyes.
To have Imran Khan look at me in such a way flattering but a bit
intense and overwhelming, all those years as an ugly duckling
seemed a world away, as did that moment when he snubbed me in
Quetta asking for a picture, I was just a kid. He looked as if he was
in complete awe, and it felt as if it validated that awkward
interaction years ago. He talked and I listened unlike one would see
him in a public or social, and he talked a lot.
The spoke of a life, dreams, death, and survival, as he paced around
the room. He spoke about a scar on his stomach from his surgery,
showing me. “I nearly died from appendicitis,” he explained. “The
hospital I built in Lahore saved my life, although the doctors were
nervous performing surgery on me.”
“Be grateful for your scars,” I replied. “They have the power to
remind us that the past was real. Hannibal Lecter said that.”
“Who is Hannibal Lecter?” he asked. As I explained he was the
villain in the film Silence of the Lambs, based on a novel by
Thomas Harris, he listened with great enthusiasm. It turned out he
was no film buff, and confessed he may have seen only one film in
10 years. I was no cricket fan either, but I knew more about the
game than he did about my profession.
“During the time of my operation, my mother came to me in a
dream,” he went on. “She told me she was looking after me.”
49
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
Smoke and Mirrors

The next morning at 11 am I woke to a text from Imran, asking me
if I had slept well. This was proof, if I had needed it, that he was
keen to keep in touch, and perhaps he also really cared too about
his female guests, like a gentleman.
A car had arrived as he had promised and then I went to a family
wedding I’d been invited to in the north. At the wedding one of my
aunts talked about Imran and his politics and I said nothing,
wanting to keep my date to myself. Another uncle completely
blanked me when I tried to say hello and I heard from my cousins
that some people in my family did not approve of my lifestyle
choices. And that made me more determined to stick to my choices.
“Being an actress comes with a price, in this society.” said one.
A few days later a call came from Imran inviting me to his place in
Bani Gala Islamabad.
“It’s beautiful unlike Karachi where you live, I hate going to that
dirty city,” he said. “You’ll love it here.”
It was then I knew it probably was the start of a special friendship
even.
I was picked up by his driver and taken to his home isolated from
the city. It was an enormous farmhouse with a huge veranda, a
beautiful place with a garden filled with colourful scented flowers.
Inside he was wearing traditional Pakistani clothes and seemed to
be waiting patiently for me. “Come in,” he said. “Welcome to my
paradise,” as I stepped inside awkwardly.
As we sat and talked, I noticed how peaceful Imran seemed, turning
off his mobile phone and paying me full attention. It felt intimate
already. We talked about the family wedding and then soon after a
little small talk, he gave me a blank stare. Pulling out a little plastic
wrapper from his box on aside table, he called the intercom and
asked for a warm plate. He smiled and asked me, “Do you coke?”
I nodded no, never tried it.
He took a deep breath and stretched on his sofa, “Ahh you should
try it. It is good fun, relaxes you, you seem very uptight.”
51
I was intimidated and did not want to sound prudish or rude. I

laughed awkwardly.
“I am scared of drugs. I do not think they’d suit me. I get panic
attacks. It is hereditary.”
“Nothing to be scared of, it’s great, makes you uninhibited.”
The door was knocked on. He got up and half opened it in just to
take the plate.
Came back, took a crisp note, a card from his box and sprinkled the
white drug very expertly on his plate, chopped fine lines.
He mentioned how he had recently met with a former Indian
international beauty queen who seemed very intelligent and
impressive at first but gave herself away as a gold digger.
Focused acutely on making lines, he rolled the crisp note and
inhaled a line, took a deep sniff rubbed his nose, closed his eyes,
and jerked his head back. I had seen people do or take drugs before.
But watching him was a bit different. I remember when I first met
him in Lahore, he was probably sniffing it in the other room, where
the bathroom he kept revisiting was.
“Hajra! never put a price on yourself. I hate gold diggers,” he
muttered with a revived vigour in his voice.
“After I realized how materialistic this woman was, bragging about
her Bentleys and her jewellery, and how successful she was and
adored by men of value, I just got up and left as she continued to
brag. She was in the time of month, which is why I left basically.”
I nodded. But to be honest I did not understand why he was so
intimidated by a successful beauty’s queen’s achievements. Men
brag about theirs all the time, and if a woman gets sit, she is a gold
digger. I could sense Imran was trying to sound me out here, he
hardly knew me, but he knew an idea of me like I had an idea of
him. It was a bit weird of him to criticize a very well-known
articulate woman as a gold digger and hold that against her, judge
her. “She sounded nothing more than a business tycoon’s keep,” he
said, dismissively. “Never, ever, put a price on yourself, Hajra. A
person is more than that. I have never put one on myself.” He stated
almost convincing himself.
52
Smoke and Mirrors
Then I listened to him talk about his marriage. He said previously

very briefly he had had to give up everything for politics including
his marriage to Jemima. “I suffered a lot, so did my ex-wife. It was
not easy for us. Bi-racial relationships are hard, but we tried our
best,” he said. “I could not live there in the West as a lounge lizard
perhaps just occasionally contributing articles on cricket. What
respect would she have for me or I for myself if that were how I
ended up?” He looked at me briefly then pranced around and
continued. “You know I thought it was going to work out how could
it not. We were committed to same goal, but she was stuck here,
and I was stuck there if I lived with her and her family as a house
lizard. After my marriage once we moved in, that is when I realized
this was never to work out. Her values had changed, and she forgot
our goal.”
He paused and looked deep into the dark outside his perch, the
green ending over the hill. His doors wide open into the garden. His
dogs resting on the porch. He took a deep breath.
“Retirement is hard for any man, especially a sportsman…suicidal
…not knowing what to do after is scary.”
Shaking his head and looking down, he added, “I miss my
children… sometimes.”
“Do you miss cricket too?” I asked, with sympathy.
“No. I have never missed anything once I’ve done it with my all.
Went to university, do not miss it. Played cricket, do not miss it.
Got married, definitely do not miss it. Only play cricket with my
sons now.” He turned his head back towards me. Arms on his side.
Imran got up to use the bathroom again. “Have you noticed I need
the bathroom a lot?” he said. I had not but nodded anyway. “It is
because when I’m around you I feel like I used to feel before a
cricket match,” he said. “I get a rush of adrenalin.”
My mouth felt open. This man, one of the most celebrated
sportsmen in the world, just compared me to a cricket match?
“Oh,” I gasped, not sure how to respond. Thought it was a prostate
problem he had at his age.
While he was in there, I thought about what he said though initially
he oversimplified blaming the failure of his marriage on his
53
politics…but after the whole rant which I interrupted and gave my

full attention very curiously, it merely felt like a marriage that didn’t
comply, because the two people in it didn’t want to move forward
in any place together. She did not see a happy future here and he
didn’t see one in London, both chose their freedom. Do not know
what their goal was that he mentioned! philanthropy? Politics or
something else. I did wonder.
When he returned, he changed the subject once again, this time to
religion. “I don’t condone in extremist conforms.” I confessed,
trailing off, not sure what else to add.
Imran frowned. “You must have faith in Allah,” he said. “Don’t
believe in this modern bullshit or designer religions that are
cultivating in the West.”
It was my turn to mirror his frown now. “I believe in Allah, reality,
good and evil. New or old man-made conforms don’t mean much
to me,” I said firmly. “I saw how extremism repressed Quetta.
Faith left my hometown a long time ago with the poverty and
cruelty to both people and animals.” I ranted about all the
suffering, how badly women were treated in Pakistan, in Quetta.
More so, how poverty and ignorance go together.
He was well aware of this but was surprised at how raw the
subject was with me.
“I had to try and do something to change it,” I said. “I just wanted
to silence the screaming of the lambs,” I added, explaining the
incident of the dog being killed in Quetta. This time he understood
my reference to one of my favourite films. He understood it because
he too was trying to silence the screams of many helpless cancer
patients by building a cancer hospital after his mother died of the
disease. Empathy, it was all about empathy, and where would the
world be without it.
I agreed with him that, however small it was, change began from
an individual. “I feed several stray cats and dogs by my parents’
house with offal mixed with bread every evening,” I said. “Just
knowing I make the difference to one animal helps. It starts with
those who are most vulnerable and helpless, then works its way up.
Feet up.”
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.
During the conversation, however, Imran accused me of sounding

too Westernized at times, but always politely. I honestly did not
understand what that meant as I begged to differ. He was a man who
had courted only Western rich white women all his life, married a
rich white Western woman, who now had returned to her very
modern life in London unapologetically, his children were raised in
London by that woman and her family. They were Jewish. They
were THE WEST! Yet the moment you criticized or brought up
human rights, they were Western, political, or liberal. No, it is just
human rights to think people should be decent, safe, and protected,
it’s not political or cultural. I enjoyed being modern yes but why is
modern synonymous with the West according to people like him,
draconian brown saab talk? Is progress and liberty just a Western
copyright? Do we not deserve to enjoy the fruits of modern
machinery, travel, communication, living standards, medicine, art,
and entertainment?
“Don’t turn your back on what is good in Pakistan, and I want to
make a difference,” he said.
“I am not that’s why I’m here doing the best I can with my work
and civic duties. Indeed, it is easy for you to say since you are a
man, an elite successful man. Pakistan is the best place like you
mentioned for you, you said you would not have this freedom if you
were still married and with your family in London. Wasn’t even the
same for your wife here?”
He gave me a long gaze, his pupils dilated his head of full hair wild,
and a bit sweaty and really casual and taking his shirt off. He got
up and started prancing around the room. There was no music or
TV on. Just the sound of the void outside his hilltop large villa. His
55
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
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
spotted a story about Pakistani men arrested in the UK for terrorism,

I suggested the Pakistani community and Muslims needed to speak
out against fundamentalism more strongly, for our own sake. I did
not understand how this could be denied. He nodded but changed
the subject to the beautiful roses in his garden when I saw his face
darken. “Terrorists arrested?” ‘Were they terrorists?’ He did not
look up and turned the papers, his glasses resting on his nose as she
moved to the next story.
Despite our differences in political opinions, we got on very well. I
told him about my trans and non-binary friends and how safe I felt
with them. “They say sex is all different now because of the fears
around AIDS and STDs5 for this generation,” I said. Imran nodded.
“I am from the previous generation and agree, we never worried
about such things, I still don’t worry about such things,” he said.
When I told him I had not been with a man for a long time, Imran
told me he didn’t have time to see anyone else. Despite all the
rumours, I never questioned him, and I was impressed by his
integrity, too. He told me that during his divorce his lawyers, like
many others, expected him to ask for money from his wealthy in-
laws, but he had refused, saying money didn’t matter to him. I could
not help wondering how many other Pakistani men would think like
that in a country obsessed with dowry and status. I doubted there
would be many. He was indeed unique.
However, this humungous villa and the land he owned made me
wonder. On our walk, as he showed me around, he said, “This house
was made by my wife…. for her to live in a better place.”
“Your ex-wife?” He giggled.
During the divorce I offered to pay her back, but she did not take
the money.
So, she had invested in it as Imran did not seem to have money
except for the note used to sniff coke, or never put his hand in his
pocket. I could have taken a lot in the divorce settlement, but I did
not, they assessed me, and I said no. I still stay with my mother-in-
law when I visit London. If my friends visit me, they meet me in
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
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.
62
Lend me an Ear
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?”
63
I started to wonder if perhaps that was where some of his

attraction to me lay. I was less interested in him as a sex symbol,
lor sex and more interested in him as a person. It was his kind
and gentle personality that had me in fondness, but there was
something there each time I met him a grey spot that grew wider
and wider, but I could not completely put my finger on yet.
Nobody knows the real Imran, but that was what I wanted to
know. I did not treat him as the celebrity Imran Khan and boy.
Was I naïve to think it was such a virtue? Or my naiveté lack of
experience, a misfit in fool’s paradise? To me, very quickly, he
had become just Imran, and he appreciated the difference. I
believed. The best thing a girl can be is a beautiful fool, (great
Gatsby), or is it? I wonder now.
64
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.
65
“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
66
Pretty Fools
fantasizing about his housekeeper, apparently his most frequent

exposure to the opposite sex at the time. And he noticed and
watched her cleaning the house and found it hard to resist.
He further said he knew it was finally over when his ex-wife
recommended couples therapy in London. He was not there as
usual and stayed with his in-laws as he was supposed to, as didn’t
have a place of his own. By now I would realize he couldn’t rent
a hotel room unless someone else was paying for it.
He laughed as his eyes glazed outside his villa into the dark. How
during therapy, he tried to focus on the large bosom of his Jewish
therapist and not on the therapy as he was so frustrated. Funny
thing was he even managed to sexualize his divorce. While I
never doubted, he could or seemed to me to be having such a
problem, but he had his sexual addiction. I was becoming clearer
and clearer after this conversation. There were no doubts left in
my mind.
He further continued those years after his divorce, as his ex –
wife was dating another clown as he called him, at a charity
event. He was the latest partner, some real estate British guy,
whom he did not approve off. They were obviously staying in
different rooms. After being intimate without protection with her
partner, she sneaked into Imran’s room and told him how much
she missed him intimately. They got into a childish quarrel and
soon she asked him to take her and come inside of her as she had
just parted from her partner. So, this turned him on, and he did,
and she went back into her room.
After all of this bollixed up story he was blabbering on about and
taking mild jabs at her monkey vining, it seemed he had
mentioned this to the idiot listening to this something out of a
Harrold Robbins 80’s sleaze fiction. Not so! What came to my
mind was, while taking jabs at her while she was dating with
mentally drug addicts, it was out of concern for her or his
children. I think he counted himself in it and it started when she
was love-struck puppy at 20. A normal person would worry
67
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.
68
Chapter 13
Caught in the Middle

It was all in between a mediocre work quality and long schedule,
a bad haircut taking time to outgrow and further ruining my
career, thanks to a bad show lined up by Seher with a hair styling
franchise. Once again, my hair was chopped off, which is
equivalent to a career cut.
It was after that one event that we, as colleagues, covered and
then chilled out at the venue over tea. I still remember a young
man working on Geo English at the time, just back from his
education in New York. Eccentric and very attentive to all the
different passionate voices on politics, films and art, he cut
through a political debate as I closely supported a voice
favouring Imran as a politician. He inhaled the last bit of his
cigarette, distinguished it in his coffee mug, smiled and stated,
“I really hope Imran khan comes into power; I really do…. it is
the only way people will see him for what an imposter he really
is…. anyways.”
I hope Imran will bring the change we need. Things will get
better? I wondered how the girl I saw first at McDonalds and at
the airport was holding up. Was she OK?
Away from our time together and back in the real world, rumours
about Imran started to worry me. People constantly told me not
to get involved, while many more others urged me not to think
so high of him. He was constantly accused of being a hypocrite,
a womanizer, a user, and unqualified for the job. Criticized as a
fickle politician and very arrogant.
I remember early on a tarot card reader commented on his ability
to run for PM.
“He cannot, how can someone, who has never run a lemonade
stand, run a business? A whole country? Low. Forget about his
vices and his hypocrisy. Is it really this simple that he knows
about running businesses or a country? Even if he were genuine
person and not a drug or sex addict, he still wouldn’t qualify for
running anything in government.”
69
They hoped I was being cautious as he was such a playboy.

However, being with him in any context was stupidity. I
questioned Imran when I saw women had sent him rather
revealing texts to his mobile. If he was what people were saying,
a sex addict? I was not his wife, but his friend. He showed some
of them to me.
“Look at them and look at you. You are so much more beautiful,”
he said. I was not worried about him but more about my beliefs
and my opinion of him failing me.
I told him about all the rumours of his addiction. But he
dismissed them.
“Do you ever notice that I don’t respond to rumours and
criticism?” he said. “I decided on that long ago when critics
tagged me as ‘Imran Can’t’ and reviewed my weaknesses. These
were useless words anyway and I know my own flaws better than
anyone else out there.”
The women circling him were inevitable, but his stories were
extreme. Two ladies offered to give £1million each to his
hospital if she could sleep with him. He refused.
“Am I a whore, sleep with much worse and for nothing…I’m
very generous that way?” he said, simply, half smiling.
I knew he looked down on prostitutes, they were the lowest in
his eyes. He once confessed his first sexual encounter was with
a prostitute in Karachi on Napier Road (red light area). And how
he and a friend of his sneaked there. It was surely a story one
would least expect from him. Was he self-loathing? Projecting?
It was hard to tell at the time.
People who put any ‘price’ on themselves were in fact the
lowest in his eyes. I would argue back that a sex worker is the
most marginalized person in any society, sells her body to meet
her dread circumstances.
Most of them not out of their will. What about politicians, or
even athletes who engage in match fixing? Why is a woman
only called a whore? He agreed and nodded. Is that not a
70
voluntary price of sheer greed and corruption? His claim when

it came to women were, “Never sleep with married women or
when I am married.”
He said, “Growing up I saw women in my family unhappy
sometimes, so I would never do that to a woman or break up
someone’s home life.” This was something we both connected
with, sharing an empathy for a woman being cheated upon and
lied to in a male-dominated polygamous society, where men
bragged of using women. This man had a moral stance.
One day, however, I pointed out the presence of other women at
the farmhouse who were with his friends like Nasir and Sunny. I
was surprised they were not particularly groomed or educated
women but well behaved and very aware of Imran’s charisma.
To me, Imran seemed very down to earth and shy in gatherings
even till then.
One evening, a woman in her late 50s could not stop staring at
Imran, and commented, “God has made you so beautiful, Khan,
that it’s hard to look away from you…….do you remember
me…. a few years ago …you and me …we.” He got blushed like
a young boy and looked hard at her trying to recall but shook his
head. This was the side of Imran I enjoyed seeing the most. When
he was humbled and respectful.
“Do you know who these ladies are?” I whispered
to Imran. “No, no idea” he shrugged, legs crossed,
and arms folded.
I suggested to Imran they might not be trustworthy, but he
shrugged again. “Ah you know it’s just about socializing, and I
don’t care what other people do,” he said. “However, some of
these women are probably even married,” he tutted. “Believe it
or not.”
“If so, what a sad state?” I looked at him and agreed that indeed
it was, but for varied reasons. I asked him if he was worried,
they might speak out about this side of his life. His private life,
his coke.
71
He thought for a moment before dismissing this. “Nah not an

issue,” he said. I realized then how much he had been protected
for many years.
In the outside world, although I felt protected to some extent, the
cost of having to live a secret life as Imran’s special friend was
taking its toll, and me questioning everything around me was not
helping at all. I started to have more frequent panic attacks and
it affected my work. One day I would be feeling fine and getting
on with filming, the next minute my chest would feel as if it were
going to explode, and I’d have to take time out. I started to
wonder after all, if this man would affect my mental hygiene and
career as many people would think of me and I avoided them.
I met up with a doctor about it, a psychologist.
“In our society I would advise you to look after your wellbeing
and name. You do not want his stamp on you. You have a life
ahead of you, a future.” And prescribed some relaxants in case I
have any panic attacks.
I never asked Imran for anything, in any sense. I was not
interested in any and I did not deserve to be in any way. All his
gift offers were merely sexually in nature. He insisted I should
try, surrender, and learn.
One day I teased him and said I wanted ‘a present.’ He looked
concerned. “Like what?” he said.
“Ooh, I don’t know . . . can I have anything I want?” I smiled
cheekily. He looked a little more worried and then sighed. “I
suppose so.”
When I said I would just like copies of his biography by
Christopher Sandford autographed for my friends, his face filled
with relief, and he signed several copies.
“No problem…. you are so silly,” he laughed. “You do make me
laugh.” A little later, while reading his paper and looking most
serious, he asked me to throw him an apple from a fruit tray on
a table next to me. So, I picked it up with a smirk and said, “Sure.
72
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
73
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.
74
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.
75
Since the panic attacks were increasing, I decided to see a well

reputed therapist. He explained panic attacks are hereditary for the
most part. I confessed I was under the influence of a person like my
father figure but more than a friend.
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.
He offered me some anti-anxiety medication and said, “Trust me as

your therapist, you do not want Imran’s stamp on your name. This
society is very unforgiving, it will scar you if you do not look after
your interest and sanity.” I thanked him but at the time did not
understand what he meant. Although associating with Imran proved
stressful in some ways, he bought me enormous distraction and
comfort thinking the future will be better in our country, that our
industry would be a better environment, with less sleaze and more
merit. He was one huge role model to me and others and when that
role model devoted time to me, it made me feel better.
By now I had put on a few pounds with the medication and was
being slated for my weight, even if Imran was giving me
compliments, the contrast was fuelling rebellion. As Imran’s career
was starting to soar, mine was starting to fade. By this grim though
I had secured a new TV show, which I had the liberty to creatively
control and interview people. I had moved my mother, sister, and
myself in a better apartment in Clifton and furnished it and paid
most of the expenses. They seemed happier with the financial
stability and ease now, but it was not particularly healthy or happy.
They like the money but did not like my work and felt I was
constantly berated given a chance.
Our bond was plateauing as I told him that sometimes you are
adorable as a person. I explained quickly, sensing it was a big too
much. His face lit up when I said the word ‘adore’ to him in this
context. He understood the word and so did I, and it was true.
Listening to his stories and experiences which were getting wilder
and unadulterated by every meeting I could not help but comment
once.
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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.
A few months ago, I recalled one particular meeting in Bani Gala,

on my father’s birthday that October. Before it was too late, I gave
him a call to wish him happy birthday. I had an idea.
I suggested to Imran that he could wish my father a happy birthday,
too. I knew baba would be thrilled.
Imran smiled and reached for my phone. After wishing baba many
happy returns, their talk quickly turned to politics. I could tell baba
was stunned and excited to speak to Imran. He knew I had met him
a few times but, a phone call was unexpected.
The pair chatted about Quetta and baba was obviously encouraging
Imran to come and meet more constituents there. Baba’s own
political ambitions were humble and humanitarian, poor guy could
never make money nor pursue it. I knew having the likes of Imran’s
visit would be a huge coup.
Afterwards Imran looked pleased with the call too. He had
invited baba to his home in Islamabad. “It will be nice to meet
him, Hajra!” he said. A few days later I spoke to baba, and he was
still buzzing about having spoken to Imran.
“He is a great Pakistani, we need change and a new start,” he said
proudly. “I am going to join his party and help spread his message
in Quetta.”
A few weeks later they did eventually meet when baba travelled to
Imran’s house. I stayed away, as I knew the men would want to talk
in depth together. Also, they had a friend in common; Imran’s
closest aide Naeem ul Haq. Naeem was a close friend of my uncle.
When his wife was diagnosed with cancer, he stayed in London in
my uncle’s apartment for 6 months, for which my uncle never took
any favours back, not that Naeem could have. So, they took it from
there on. I felt strange and validated knowing I had bought these
two men together. Although perhaps it was not conscious, I knew
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deep down in my heart Imran represented a father figure to me and

now he was meeting the man who was my father but had barely
been around to fulfil the role. It was too much for me to actually
comprehend when the forces combined.
My father knew nothing of our relationship, but the men got on
well and baba agreed to campaign on Imran’s behalf in our town.
For the first time, perhaps, I felt my father approved of me
especially for introducing Imran into his life.
He had no idea we were close, but he did not need to know. By
now baba was also involved in overseeing local law cases. I
found the local laws barbaric, even if my father was trying to
uphold them. For example, one man came to him after he had
shot his wife. Baba asked him why he had done it and he claimed
she might have committed adultery, so he’d killed her. The
woman’s family had forgiven him, however, after settling the
issue with blood money and so legally there was no case to
answer for her murder. I asked my baba how he could bear
dealing with these people.
“It is morally wrong, that murderer should not be punished,” I
argued. He sighed and said there was nothing to be done as this
was the law of the land. He had to accept this, even if he agreed
with me. Imran was also a supporter of Sharia law at one point,
despite the mistreatment of women. By now I had become
politically more aware and longed to do something other than
acting. Imran’s words constantly rang in my ears, “Do not hang
out with other actors. You have far more integrity, you are far too
smart, and many are sadly just whores.” As the show ratings
plummeted, and with production winding up, I began to look for
other work. My ambition had waned as the toll of being Imran’s
lover had taken hold and people had taken against me. One
evening, however, I saw some of the older actors at a party after
shoot, all smoking and perched likewise owls on their bar stools.
They spoke of a game I was yet to understand.
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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
79
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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Chapter 15
Behind the Scenes

One evening I met a courtesan classical dancer called Mehek at the
studio. She was there for a classical performance. She lacked
education but was streetwise. She stayed away from films, media,
and socialites. Instead, she confined just to dancing her way into
earning money for family functions in classical attire and no mujra.
Imran’s friend who was highly active in cultural activities had taken
her under his wing when she was very young, and her actor sister
was shot. When it comes to courtesan culture or the whore, the
female, the dancer is the bread earner, her fate was no different
though she was out of the markets muddle, supporting her family
for years through dance and even courtship, as many dancing girls
did. But she did it with grace and I found myself really admiring
her. A true survivor, she did not feel the need to lie about her family
background or that she had once sold her body to survive. Now she
had left behind that dark chapter and lived a reclusive life. Although
she had a price, it was her only craft now. While in contrast half-
naked girls danced for nothing but for men on films, a common
entertainment enjoyed by many Pakistani men called mujra, where
dancing girls ooze their success for ill acquired wealth and poor
taste of men.
To me her story of survival and choice to live away from the glitz
of Pakistani high society was remarkable. She had more dignity and
self-respect than many actors I knew, but when I recalled our
conversation with Imran, he dismissed her, saying she was still a
whore, and he didn’t want to know a ‘whore’s story.’ Her views
remained fascinating to me, and her means of survival tough, yet
vulnerable.
I argued that nobody would choose to be a whore and often women
did not have much choice, but he refused to listen.
Back at work one afternoon, an actor said to me. “Aren’t you
Imran’s chick?”
“I am not anyone’s chick,” I retorted.
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Another asked me how I had managed to get his attention. She

said she had worked in the industry for 20 years and never got
anywhere near him. She could not understand why I didn’t brag
about it or didn’t have an apartment or even a holiday out of it.
Why I was not successful or obsessed with shoes or getting bags.
I replied we were friends and that was all. I tried to explain I was
not interested, but she couldn’t grasp this. I still found myself
arguing in his corner, he gave our generation hope and we
believed he would make things right. “Did he have a team around
him?” “No.”
“Did he run successful businesses?” “No.”
“Was he a family man anchored by values and emotions as a son,
husband, brother or father?” “No.”
I once asked him about Tyrian (his first child out of wedlock
from a Californian woman).
He said his relationship with her was improving, she came every
summer and stayed at Zaman Park at his sisters, and she was
growing up into a young adult.
Once the actor Faria openly accused Imran of womanizing again
and I leapt to his defence as she laughed in my face. Surely
nobody knew Imran better than me? Surely, he would not be so
desperate?
My relationship with Imran had entered its second year and the
power balance had shifted between us again. Now I was the one
texting him first. But he still remained delighted by my arrival
and hugely attentive in my company. We met less and less. He
got busier.
In September 2011, Imran was having a book signing in
Islamabad for his latest book, ‘Pakistan: A personal history’ and
I attended it too. But as I watched the crowds, I spotted his once
rumoured love interest Asiya Tim at the event. I had heard about
Imran’s affair with Asiya and that it was over, but I bristled as I
watched her wandering around. So afterwards I confronted him.
“She is just a journalist who supported my book,” he shrugged.
He point-blank denied anything would happen between them.
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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.
Just a couple of months later, in December 2011, I attended a rally

where Imran spoke of his decision to introduce animal welfare laws
if he gained power. As I listened to his words, I felt more thrilled
than ever. Through all our discussions he took me seriously but
moreover he was doing a good thing for the country. But as I left,
one of his posses asked me to give someone a lift.
Suddenly, Asiya jumped into the back of the car. I intuitively knew
who she was, and she clearly recognized me too, so we didn’t speak
a word as I dropped her off at the hotel.
This time I was furious with Imran and for the first time I let rip at
him on text. He denied everything again, as he always did, and told
me to stop being an idiot. He was very calm, trying to smooth things
over and reassure me. I felt unable to show my emotions face-to-
face so just did not bother texting him for a while.
The next time we met, our discussions had become more heated,
too, on popular culture and social causes. I asked him what he
thought about the Roman Polanski case. My opinion was the
mother of the 13-year-old assaulted by Polanski should have been
held accountable and the little girl should have been protected by
her parents. I found it very weird and extremely dirty and
irresponsible that the mother responsible for her minor daughter,
lied about her age then desperately begged the circle of adults in
Hollywood to take her in so she could become an actor. When the
incident happened, I could only wonder why her mother was not
held responsible. Who were used to partying like they did in the
70s. But Imran did not agree. He talked vehemently against some
Western feminism, especially ‘aggressive’ new laws. He thought
the ideal of ‘career’ women was destroying family values and a
mother’s role should be focused on motherhood first. He thought
83
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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Behind the Scenes
authority and the chance to do something different from the run-

of-the-mill cheesy shows.
The fee was low, but the show gave me an edge over the
mediocre mass popularity TV entertainments. I was very friendly
with the producer, and I decided to show him loyalty, even if
other channels were making bigger offers for me. That is how
naïve I was, and I was not learning from anyone around me,
slightest discomfort and I’d walk away.
My mother finally moved back to Quetta to spend time with my
father. Honestly, I never understood why she did not worry about
him or spend more time with him. I thought he was on his own,
except my brother to whom I wasn’t close. But suddenly she
decided to move back, it was very unlikely.
Imran was supportive of my new venture and agreed to come and
be interviewed on the show. On the day of filming, one of his
posses made a comment to me.
He said, “Imran is different around you, the most comfortable I’ve
seen him in an interview in a long time.”
Eighteen months into our friendship and rumours were now even
more rife about Imran and his indiscretions. I heard he was a
playboy as a cricketer but never questioned him. What right did I
have to do that? He was Imran, he was single and could do what he
liked.
One morning before filming I looked in the mirror in the make-up
room and wondered aloud to myself where my life was heading.
The irony hit me how now I had the beauty I wished for, big hair,
full lips, and high cheekbones. I was now what many thought of as
conventionally beautiful, yet I did not have a normal committed
relationship with a man. Suddenly I also recalled how Ahmer had
said to me that beauty is our blessing and our curse. With my
association with Imran, I actually remained hidden from other men,
emotionally unavailable to all and resentful of their ways, just at
the point I had become my most attractive.
For several months, my contact with Imran had been less and less
frequent. Neither of us officially gave up on the other, but also, I
85
was too busy picking up the pieces of my career while he was

working hard on the election.
His words echoed in my mind as I saw him on TV.
“In God I have faith I will win, Hajra,” he had said. He had also told
me the last time he saw his sons off back to the England at the
airport he’d said to them, “The next time you come to Pakistan, your
Daddy will be Prime Minister.” His confidence was overwhelming.
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Chapter 16
The Mask Slips
In June 2012 Naeem ul Haq, Imran’s close friend and an

acquaintance of my father, took me out to dinner. I thought it was
just a friendly meal, but he seemed overly attentive over me and
eager to dish the dirt on Imran. He told me how Imran might
have been chased by some actor called Faria that night after the
party at Asim’s house. As I listened, I tried not to appear fazed,
but my heart banged like a drum as he continued to explain, “But
she annoyed him by texting him a lot.”
“Oh yes here I see, I’m not surprised.”
I dug into my food, listening but avoiding too much eye contact.
I took a sip of a drink trying to control my breathing. Imran and
Faria? Surely not?
“That’s all I know, but I’m not sure,” he insisted, adding, “Wise
men believe you need to see woman in order to feel attracted to
the woman you are getting comfortable with. It keeps things
exciting, so you do not get bored too quickly.”
I was stunned. At the time I had been mad at Imran for having
Asiya there, but he was with neither of us. He was probably with
the likes of Faria, the actor I had once stood up to when she’d
bad-mouthed Imran about his lifestyle and values. My cheeks
burned with humiliation, knowing I had stood up for Imran when
someone like her laughed about him.
Nasir continued making snide remarks about Imran, only to wind
me up chancing I might be the vulnerable, jealous damsel in
distress so he could take a chance. It made me question the
people Imran surrounded himself with. Indeed, he was vastly
different from most Pakistani men, but to have such men as his
friends seemed very sad, especially those who lived vicariously
through Imran’s celebrity and desirability. This game was old,
and he was transparent to me. I was raging at his cheek more
than at his winding up. Basically, all of Imran’s close friends, a
bunch of bootleggers and losers old wait for Imran to be done
87
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.
“I thought you had looked at Medusa and turned to stone. Perhaps

now you will ask how much you are worth,” I whispered in a breath,
looking away. A dark rage was coming over me. Now he looked
confused.
“It’s a quote from Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte,” I explained.

“Try and read, Naeem. It will help you get perspective in your life.
There really is more to life than ‘having fun’.”
“Medusa is that Greek mythological monster?” he asked.
“No, she was not born a monster,” I said. “They turned her into one
for a crime she didn’t commit.”
“Well, I don’t read mythology,” he said in a
defensive manner. I thanked him for dinner and got
up to leave.
“Hajra,’ he called out, ‘it is your eyes, they are your most beautiful
feature.
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The Mask Slips
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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One night my brother showed up on my doorstep, looking

dishevelled. I allowed him to stay as my parents instructed, because
he had nowhere else to go, but at 3 am he burst into my room saying
he was hearing voices. I had no idea what to do and put him back
to bed, worried about how he was reacting. The next day I left him
alone as I went out to film for 12 hours. But when I returned, he
was sitting in the house having made a huge mess. We had a row
and he hit me, the first time a man had ever done so. I called my
parents but incredibly they took his side, saying I might have
provoked him and to suck it up. Inevitably, a son would always be
favoured over me, the girl. Rules were no different for me, an
actress.
A few days later I was watching TV when my brother, looking
weird, started prancing around my apartment. I was sitting with a
female co-star friend. “Is he OK? He looks like he is not, he’s
looking at us strange.”
She was uncomfortable and I understood it was not good to make
her feel that way. She left soon. He had returned from his parents
again, crept up behind me with a kitchen knife and stabbed my hand
as I tried to protect my face and neck.
“You are a whore, a disgrace to our tribe. Bloody actress,” he cried
as I leapt up, screaming. Thankfully, he ran off. My sister came in,
he was 6 feet tall, big guy and it was hard to fight him or defend
ourselves. I called Osman and we took a cab to the nearest hospital,
which was South city.
This time I needed hospital treatment and in ER they told me that
as it was a domestic incident, I should contact the police. But I had
to protect my brother knowing my parents will blame me if I did
not. I refused and called my parents instead. They showed nothing
but sympathy for my brother, although they were shocked yet in
denial at the same time. No one saw this coming. I was obviously
furious and beside myself as it was a testing time for our family. I
knew I would have to show up at shoot with stitches and bruises
over my body as there was no way I was getting time off.
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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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The Mask Slips
know what I expected from him. Love? Support? I’d no idea, he

gave me a few words of condolence and then he shocked me.
“Sweetie, I think it would be really helpful to you if you read a bit
of Rumi”, he drawled.
“Rumi?” I gasped, thinking I’d not heard him correctly.
Imran was fluent in two things, limited myopic view of the world
and mansplaining with immense insensitivity and lack of logic
laced in repetitive delusional notions and boring dim-witted
vocabulary.
It was my turn to be silent now as he repeated himself. As his words
and response to my torment sank in, I realized for the first time how
wrong this was.
I’d had a terrible time and all I was looking for was a few words of
genuine concern and he suggested I read a book about spiritual
philosophy? I choked back my anger, thanked him, and said a
hurried goodbye. I didn’t even want to give him the satisfaction of
knowing I cared. I was hurting and I was furious.
For the first time I truly understood what a load of bullshit
everything was. During the day Imran could address crowds of
60,000 people who were like cattle and sheep to most politicians,
and then I’d been his Persian cat at times, purring back at him as he
talked at me about his ideals. All of it meant very little as when I
needed him, even asking for something so small as an ear to listen
to me, it seemed too much to ask. Perhaps Imran was so used to
having things served up on a platter he couldn’t be there for anyone
himself. Empathy was something of which he was void.
In so many ways I craved honesty from him. Even if he’d said, “You
should be a whore and have a price as this is a cruel world. It’s all
as men we want from you, weak species objects of our lust.” It
would have been more real to me, like everyone else. Sure, he
worked out well for him.
I needed to refocus on my career. Decent work had dried up, along
with my will. I agreed to a meeting with another producer in his
office. He started speaking about Imran as soon as I sat down,
telling me how much better I deserved and that he wasn’t faithful
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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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The Mask Slips
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.
95
Back indoors I lay on my bed in tears, trying to come to terms with

everything. I thought of my aunts and how determined I was not to
be married off. How I wanted more for myself and didn’t want to
be at the mercy of any man.
While I was trying to recover from the trauma I just underwent, I
recalled a meeting with the same kind of a man who tried to make
himself unique in the industry. It was a small party organized by
Seher where I was invited too, besides two or three more
colleagues. One of them, the head of a production and a very expert
in film making who had seen the ups and down of women coming
in from the notorious diamond market of Lahore or the demise of
Pakistan’s golden film era. He spoke very high of himself when he
said that he would pick up girls from trash (no one’s fantasies in the
real world) and make them showbiz stars with his unique skills and
devotion, and he would not ask for any ‘reward.’ The girls who
were not that pretty in the real life but very photogenic and who
were from very ordinary background. They were made stars by
him being a producer and still he wouldn’t touch them even as a
producer. I was shocked when he uttered the words ‘he wouldn’t
touch them even as a producer’ and looked at Seher, who also
felt uneasy. He thought as if it was the entitlement of every
producer to touch the new coming girls to their studios. This was
all disgusting and spoke volumes of the filth in our industry.
Now here I was, a pawn in some other men’s game. It had the
same rules, just a different game. But as the realization struck me
with full force so did something new. I understood what had
happened, I was in control now with this knowledge.
“Hajra,” I told myself, “You put yourself in this place and so you
will work your way out again.”
And even if I didn’t have a faith in what these Godless monsters
preached to help me do it, I had something else, a faith within
myself, to know right from wrong, good from evil.
Feeding those helpless vulnerable animals straying in the alley
taught me this. As they waited for me like they did every night,
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He Mask Slips
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.
He kept his rant up and seemed to be getting tired down after

more sexual escapades of his youth, they were wild seriously
wild too much for my palette and naïve resume.
His most cherished memory was one he had with a blonde
English model and a black 80s edgy pop disco Diva, the details
99
were more aggressive to my naïve mind, but he was high and

reminiscing his past.
I asked him about the press linking him to Indian actresses, were
those pairings true?
“Ahh, initially I met one and she was very attractive, great body
but into some kinky stuff, so I checked out. The other one was a
very well-respected Muslim art actress, she was very eager to
hook up, had invited me on a date.” But Imran didn’t show up,
and sent his friend Naeem ul Haq instead, she was most furious
and sent me a message That he could have had the decency to
show up himself. And Salman didn’t like him talking to Katrina,
said he made Salman insecure.
“And then you know about miss universe, with the diamond
rings…”
I nodded, “Yes you told me.”

He just couldn’t get over her talking about her achievements or
success.
Then he laughed that Dev Anand offered him a film role, and he
opted out.
“You make a bad actor in some hippies Dev Anand movie for
sure …good call.”
Then he got higher in his nostalgia which he claims he doesn’t
suffer from, he kept talking about women here in a few British
socialites Ghislaine Maxwell and princess Diana and that he
introduced her to Dr Hasnat’s very wealthy Indian friend of a
socialite at whose home he always stayed with. I forgot her name.
He never spoke about Tyrian’s mom and felt cagey about the
subject also. I never asked many questions. I’d just listen to his
stories and watch him get high. It truly was something more of a
curiosity of the mysterious icon and his private life and his
stories.
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The Mask Slips
As he asked me about mine, I had nothing a fraction of such

colourful stories to share with the designated listener. Slowly as
he got the most intoxicated, I’d seen him ever, he went to his
bathroom.
He got back and by now his hair was dishevelled, his pupils
dilated, and the evening was getting heavier. He sat on the bed,
and said you know lately why I am having these fantasies, his
speech slowed down and he was very focused on his thoughts.
He shared for the first time that in boarding school he had some
intimate experiences with boys. And those experiences have
stayed in his memory. He looked deeply into my eyes and
cautiously went on,
“I’m having these fantasies …I haven’t done it…it’s just
fantasies …. of young boys 12 or 14.” He paused and kept
looking at me as if I’d seen a ghost probably. I never expected
this, none of his stories, his mannerisms, his brazen language
about women and sex prepared me for this, and it totally
destroyed every ounce of faith I had in humanity. This triggered
me as the child who was molested and broke me in pieces I was
still putting together. I no longer worried about his sex addiction
because the darkness taking over him was a bigger evil than
anyone or anything two consenting adults would do. Children?
boys? seriously at 58 years of age, a father of three children and
a hopeful candidate for the prime minister of the country!
He probably freed my face as I said nothing in shock. And
followed “But I haven’t done it… yet…it’s a fantasy.”
I was exactly that age when I first met him, at 10 in Quetta,
thinking he was some hero everyone believed him to be. Now
standing here in his room facing him drugged up and lonely,
abandoning his family, surrounded by nasty scavengers, feeding
him off, he was narrating paedophilic fantasies of sexualizing
12-year-old boys.
We and many like me were pinning hopes with this self-
proclaimed predator. It’s not like he was unaware. He showed
me exactly who he was when he texted. He knows how sick and
evil he is, he knows he’s an imposter and an evil fraud, he knows
101
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
revelling in the insinuation of a recent interaction with Imran Khan.

Incensed on Imran’s behalf, I texted him for the first time in a while
to let him know what was happening. For a man of this standing
this was humiliating, compounded by the fact this bunch of people
had never had a fraction of the celebrity or integrity of Imran, or
were they all the same. He was a humanitarian and a sportsman who
had on the surface done his bit for Pakistan.
But putting aside my feelings it was my turn to tell him he had to
be more than this.
“Nothing happened at all. I’ve been busy, saving the worlds ha-ha.”
he replied, denying he knew any of these people.
“I don’t want to interfere with your business, and I don’t care what
you do and who you do,” I said. “But you should know to be careful
who you are introduced to or who these opportunists and
bootleggers, whom you choose to be around set you up with. At
least look at your name and your commitment to being a leader.
You were in Karachi at a dinner recently, and they planted a girl, a
regular on their payroll, then the profanity you texted her, she
showed everyone the next day. Hope this helps. Get a grip for
heaven’s sake. Your addiction and your providers will be the end of
you, but these scavengers won’t be responsible, you will be. They’ll
find another trap, another source to feed… but you will face their
demons.”
He denied it all, but when I gave very specific details, including
details of this young girl and the text, he finally admitted it.
“Oh, I feel you, you please check if there’s anything
around…there’s words of these tapes,” he admitted.
I knew what he was s talking about, rumours of him being taped
were afloat, and he seemed slightly concerned about their
credibility, and authenticity. I wasn’t surprised at all. The point
was, will they be released?
I stared at those words for a while, unable to reply, such a sad
admission coming from him. At the start he had joked to me he
was a predator, but now he was simply ‘feeling dirty’ and didn’t
even hide this fact because of the filth that surrounds us in that
place. The hunted had become the hunters as games continued in
the dark underbelly of foul players all around. I could have wept
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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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As for me, my dues are still owed to me by the producer. Nothing

much came out of the case, despite Imran’s help. I didn’t take
work, and in the end achieved resolution with the one man who
finally came to help me out with whatever little he had left from
his losses, my father. Years of resentment, struggle and bad
decisions were made peace with finally, down to the most
important and rare thing he gave me, his willingness to let me fly
and not chip my wings and to dream and think for myself. Yes,
the world was a wild place but finding my place under the sun
was on me.
He celebrated my birth as a boy-child in a misogynist society. He
wished me well and knew that this time it was my final exit from
the fields of opium, where I was born, never to look back again.
I am forever grateful to my father for that privilege and help.
Hence, with that resolution made, I left Pakistan with nothing but
a story to tell.
I made the decision to author this book not out of anger or
revenge of my own but to show everyone, whoever they are, that
life is not about a price but is definitely about value. Money is
not the only currency. I am not some statistic who knew Imran
Khan. I’ve decided to ‘own’ what has happened in my life and
how many can find their voice in this screams that are muffled,
the many who can’t break these sound proof ceilings, veiled
under shame, and this song is for you, it’s your dear girls, and
what you go through and your stories are worthy to be shared
and listened to. With my mistakes, my beliefs, I am standing up
to be counted, even if there is a risk attached to this. I will be
called many names, including a sinister rebel back in my
homeland for daring to talk about all things taboo. But even with
the inevitable trolling, it will be worth the controversy.
When this original draft could not see light due to agency getting
cold feet in loon, an over romanticized and sanitized version for
Imran’s part was all I had to self-publish. I’m glad I did so in the
cold of Virginia in the U.S., with little hope. Though I initially
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.
My brother was the main factor in his demise. He was an optimist

and happy go lucky chap, happy in the humblest and flowers and
children’s laughter creed him up.
I had to once again relive the trauma of my brother’s drug
induced hallucinations and violent outburst after a meth coma on
baba’s first death anniversary and it was clockworks all over
again, enabling inability to manage and the usual unstable
outpour on my maternal side. Thankfully, my father no longer
had to suffer any of this.
It was only a miracle that a publishing house was finally

interested in publishing my book. The fills festival sand winning
awards had given me enough credibility to attract interest,
As after 9 years of silence, attacks on my email and blocking of
my amazon account, I have never seen a dime of my sales, or
have no idea what that book has sold? Yes, it was Imran’s
109
handlers and his media cronies who were watching me and

trolled me, framing me as un-Islamic on my Instagram which
they also succeeded in hacking in 2021.
But God has a plan, there’s is light in the end and despite of all
those years of injustice, my book and my story will finally see
its day.
The way I viewed it from outside Pakistan, many institutions in

Pakistan are tragically regarded by the outside world like a
brothel with the people who are running it as the pimps.

Pakistanis in fact put a low price on themselves; most of the
leaders have sold themselves out. They tie up their money in
foreign bank accounts, they encourage the rich, who all segregate
themselves, only viewing the mess of the country from air-
conditioned cars and through dark glasses.
Decent civilians in the minority communities are being
massacred on a daily basis and the poor are being endlessly
exploited and burdened. Nobody cares. The world turns a blind
eye, the politicians who know what is happening joining them.
As much as I believe, Islam is full of compassion. I do not want
to be labelled or be part of any group or mindset who preaches
otherwise as many Muslims wish for a peaceful and progressive
way of life. Women deserve protection not home jail, their
autonomy and agency recognized, a poor man deserves his free
health where his body is not treated at hard labour and dangerous
jobs, his life not insured and his rights not trampled, like his life
doesn’t matter. He’s only subsiding for the rich and elite. Where
children play and are safe on the streets and not abused. Modern
transportation, public health care, security, equality, best
hospitals and schools, great opportunities, thriving tourism and
cultural capital should be the assets of modern Pakistan which I
dreamt off, not drugs and imposters in dark basements using up
110
Epilogue
young boys and girls for entertainment, in exchange for a little

dream pawned and under the guise of ‘having some fun.’
To me, sadly, a large part of our society is a confused,

hypocritical place to live, with oppressive, deprived elements,
some even part extremist and psychotic, in denial and desperate
for a saviour. Women, mostly, are treated like mere objects, many
still think you are either a housewife or a whore, and there is
nothing in between. It is a country where millions of children
work on street, risking rape, and brutality every now and then
and where minorities and the poor are treated like maggots.
Part of my wishes I could accept a life as a trophy wife in Karachi

and be a woman who worries only about designer handbags and
God-knows-what instead of viewing the bigger picture, but I
cannot. I want my own story and my own passions move me.
Create through perseverance, patience, and hard work the
universe finally conspired to make me a filmmaker.
I produced my first short film last year before the floods in

Mancher Lake. It was tough but totally worth it. I got my dream
fulfilled. I’ve written 3 films so far in past 7 years and my writing
ambition blooms as I finally get to publish after being showable,
harassed, silenced and outcast by a fascist group in power. The
only themes were corruption, violence, propaganda and
silencing critics of freedom and voices of sanity and reason.
May be a poppy doesn’t want to be grown and cut to become
opium, maybe it didn’t bargain to have a price on its pretty head
and used for intoxication.
Maybe it’s just an innocent flower that wants to bloom in the wild
and live. I am one of those many wildflowers.
Resolution comes from the truth and so does self-worth and respect,
letting go of crippling conformities and embracing freedom, truth,
and justice. If, however, I can survive a childhood in Quetta and a
life working in Pakistani show business, along with all the
111
disillusionment, I shall survive the next chapter of my life, whatever

that may bring.
While so many Pakistani women have been denied a voice, I am
choosing to speak out. This is for every helpless poppy flower,
every war widow, every slave, every molested child worker, every
woman killed in the name of honour, every Muslim or non-Muslim
shot in their place of worship, every person of a different sexual
orientation denied his or her identity and dignity. By authoring this
book, I am doing it my way – just as the men in my life have so
often done it in theirs.
112
2023
Looking Back over the
Dark Reign of
‘Red Woman and
Stannis Baratheon’
What must be taken from this memoire as I couldn’t resist but

compare his dark reign to his empty promises, is that finally two
sociopaths found each other and lived in pure evil ever after. This
is what happens when two imposters connect their dark dots and
openly practice occult and show us what happens when a retired
prostitute and a retired hustler team up and find their way into
government, destroy every fabric of society, while enslaving a
whole cult under the sheer fabric of esteem and machismo, run by
propaganda disguised as democratic party. Here is his short and
ugly stint.
When Imran was brought into power in 2018, a democratically
elected prime minister was sent to jail.
Imran’s co-founding partners had already left when PTI was a
pressure group claiming to make changes and reach civilian
supremacy. Clearly like many decent patriots they allegedly
smelled the rot spreading and bid farewell to PTI.
Imran came into power with turn coats and his bootleggers. None
had first served in government.
All his claims in bringing in best team were just words of the past
and empty promises forgotten like slants. He neither created
10,000,000 jobs nor did he give 5,000,000 homes to the poor.
Neither turned PM house into university nor did he go to the office
on bicycle.
NAB office in KP remained virtually closed during PTI government
(2013-2022) and provincial Ehtisab Commission established by
PTI itself was utilised only once and that too against PTI’s own
MPs who allegedly dared to question the PTI’s CM regarding his
malpractices. Soon doors of the commission were locked.
Presently, KP’s economy is reportedly in shatters.
In fact, Imran used helicopters every day to come from Bani Gala
to PM house and used provincial helicopters (especially KP’s) like
Uber at taxpayers’ expense.
113
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.
114
2023
Islamic jehadi campaigns grew as he allegedly brought back

hundreds of terrorists of TTP back from Afghanistan and
Pakistan8,9 is in the grip of terrorism once gain.
His tall claims of never going into IMF and committing suicide
proved otherwise as he allegedly took the largest debt from IMF
after a failing clueless governance in 3.5 years than Pakistan had
received in all 75 years.
He devalued the rupee, later admitted he made a mistake.
Allegedly, he painted Pakistan as corrupt country on his foreign
trips and allegedly quietly handed over Kashmir to India. No one
was allowed to question him.
Allegedly, crime, rape, unemployment, and fascism grew at an
alarming rate in his government.
He was finally ousted democratically through a VONC by the
opposition parties, which he unconstitutionally tried to stop, and
later went on revived anti US propaganda and campaign against
Pakistan army and parliament not accepting the verdict of
democracy. This further isolated Pakistan diplomatically,
something he had very gleefully managed in 3.7 years of
misbehaving with foreign diplomats, sitting crossed legs, showing
off, and talking down at them.
And it is despite the fact that he was allegedly a US boy. While on
his official visit to the US, President Trump appreciated his role in
advancing the US agenda in Pakistan as he complained that the
previous governments in Pakistan never worked with the US the
way Imran did. While Trump was uttering these words, Imran was
sitting beside him and enjoying Trump’s remarks about himself.10
In a speech during his presidential campaign, the former US
president Trump also said that when the US forces killed the Iranian
General Qasim Sulemani, Imran was reported to have said that it
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
115
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.
He left Pakistan in crimpling debt, devalued currency, and highest

inflation, subsiding without authority and allegedly sabotaging the
very IMF deal he sold Pakistan out to and left the country on the
verge of default. While he went on a rampage of damaging Pakistan
through his propaganda cell, he allegedly exercised mutiny against
the state by terrorist attacks on the military installations. This was
not the first time he had encouraged anarchy or attached buildings,
however, it’s the farthest he went.
Meanwhile his racket of money launderer and bribes allegedly
included his new wife and her accomplices, where they took bribes,
stole state gifts, and sold them. Imran remained committed to rallies
and daily YouTube soaps and sermon mimic icing the office of a
PM. He just could not accept that he was dethroned and wanted it
back at any cost. His lies, accusations, nonstop scripting, and re-
scripting were running out of more soap. And lies to keep his trolls
and cult fed and finally he was convicted of selling state gifts and
not declaring his taxes. His corruption and terrorism cases are in
court at the moment along with his foreign funding case and money
laundering, where he took money for his hospital in donations but
used it for his political campaigns. Tipping donations were made
from Israel and India, allegedly.
Lastly the notion that he could have taken millions from his ex-wife
in a divorce settlement but did not is also busted to make a narrative
for his benefit. Jemima goldsmiths net worth was 100 million
pounds in 2023. Their divorce came in June 2004. At the time, her
net worth was 35-40 million pounds. If he got 50% of that in 2004
11
http://x.com/MurtazaViews/status/1721858853195669885?t=1I7Ont13I_YRYH
BhFMYCyA&s=08
116
2023
it would be 10 million pounds. Child support would be 30 % of that.

7 million pounds in 2004 would be 74 crore and 42 lakhs rupees.
He got Bani Gala’s 300 canal land home, and an apartment which
is now worth 120 crores rupees.12 Also, Imran does not pay child
support, allegedly.
So, the myth that he rejected the settlement is false as he is clearly
profited from the divorce more by being gifted the land and house.
Imran is in jail at the moment for stealing state gifts. It makes me
wonder why he was so intimidated and jealous of miss universe’s
Rolls Royce and diamond rings now. She never stole from the state,
neither did she take diamond rings from a property tycoon to sign
on illegal real estate housing schemes.
His turncoats continue to jump ship and his long-time loyalists
walked away one by one before the madness came into action. No
projects, no development, and no progress in his tenure as PM.
Only corruption, destruction and photos and propaganda and his
entertainment dancing rallies are all he will have to show now.
As the universe would have it, he allegedly tried his level best to
stop the appointment of General Asim Muneer, as the Chief of
Army Staff, who had bravely confronted PM Imran and his wife for
corruption while he was serving as DG ISI. But despite all evil
efforts, General Asim Muneer took office in November 2022.
Allegedly, despite all evil efforts to halt the reinstatement of the
judge who dared to question him on his unconstitutional acts,
Justice Qazi Faez Essa became the Chief Justice of Pakistan.
Despite all efforts to shadow ban me, scare me and harass me, I am
now publishing this book.
Praise be to Allah.
Sometimes you just have to let go and let good.
In more news:
Sunny died of a heart attack; close circles say it was allegedly a
drug overdose related.
12
X account of Farrukh Abbasi, 11:44 am, 06 Aug 23, @farrukhjAbbasi,
117
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.
118
Acknowledgements
‘It’s my job to like

me not yours.’
Katie Byron
My special thanks to Andrew Lowie for believing in me and my

story, to Shannon Kyle for all her input and support on the novella,
to Rosie Staal for editing the manuscript and to everyone who made
this book possible.
Thanks also, once again, to my family, and to the many people I
have met who encouraged me, to my friends who stood by me and
inspired me, especially Sandra Campbell, sadly departed, who
would be so proud of me today looking down from heaven with a
pint. My many friends in the trans community of Dublin, friends
and foes in Pakistan and London, Annette O’Connell, for her strong
empowering influence early in my life and, last but not least, very
special thanks to every special human I met and who taught me
something, mostly nameless and faceless. I saw in abstracts, most
of all those people who were constant reminders of what I did not
want to be.
And the girl at Karachi airport McDonalds, I hope life is kind to
you.
To the child who recycles, you deserve a school and a playground.
To the woman who got battered because the food was not warm
enough for her in-laws, you deserve love and a vacation,
To the old man selling vegetables in the heat, you deserve welfare
and a safe job and most of all leisure.
Jay Z. who, along with Kanye West were my inspiration I
discovered in London, walking every evening authoring my book.
And rock n roll.
119

Where the Opium Grows (کتاب دوست)

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Where the Opium Grows (کتاب دوست)

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Where the Opium Grows

“You’re the reason I’m

Crispy dry familiar mountain air, familiar wild November sun. It

In 2014 a novella (sanitized and edited version) was self-published

Here is the story.

Saadat Hasan Manto

invasion of Afghanistan by Soviet troops had led to a huge number

The restriction of conservative religious sermons was not part of

against my cheek. My stomach lurched with nausea. The smell of

things had somehow gone wrong. A darkness had seeped through.

are healthy enough to produce a child, with little or no medical help,

At first, we were sent to a convent school, which came as a huge

“One orphaned 13-year-old was brought in by her grandmother

Of course, to be healed and to be free of pain and shame. That is

prayed every night, to make me better, to help me go away and

In 1992, the country of Pakistan was, for once, in the mood to

“What do you expect?” said one of them. “They have different

I thought it would impress my aunts and baba, and the kids in

Sneaking up beside him, braving my way through all those

At the age of 41, he held little interest in me as I was only ten

Nothing clouded the feeling of excitement at having seen the

My cousin and I were fast friends by now and did everything

One day I saved up and bought a copy of Cosmopolitan to read

I was now gaining a reputation as a rebel. One of my father’s

Things became even worse when I developed bad acne over my

getting our periods or taking us to a dermatologist. It is like not

killed by some sociopath extremist. I was told her husband had

faced brutal attacks everywhere, from street corners to the fields.

The World outside my Window

anyone from my hometown and I was eager to swap stories with

wearing clothes I thought I looked nice in, but my classmates

I could not believe such a simple act meant so much in my home

Emerging from the Shadows

on the US proxy ‘War on Terror,’ he worked on women's rights

“You need to lose more weight honey.” I heard the choreographer

education and was articulate, even if I wasn’t the best looking.

Behind the Mask

respect to be shown. He could not abide lateness, either. I was

and admitted he was simultaneously hitting on others. In my

place and goods. As I stood chatting to Seher, “Imran is going to

She seemed aloof, I said he was such a nice man, so down to

He told me Lahore was conservative, but also a ‘happening’ place

Osman’s words into a mantra. I did not know anyone in Lahore.

I started to feel anxious again and decided to ask Imran a question

“Osman,” I whispered. “I am with Imran in a bungalow miles away,

He talked passionately about his ambitions, and I listened. Walking

Smoke and Mirrors

I was intimidated and did not want to sound prudish or rude. I

Then I listened to him talk about his marriage. He said previously

politics…but after the whole rant which I interrupted and gave my

During the conversation, however, Imran accused me of sounding

spotted a story about Pakistani men arrested in the UK for terrorism,

I started to wonder if perhaps that was where some of his

fantasizing about his housekeeper, apparently his most frequent

Caught in the Middle

They hoped I was being cautious as he was such a playboy.

voluntary price of sheer greed and corruption? His claim when

He thought for a moment before dismissing this. “Nah not an

Since the panic attacks were increasing, I decided to see a well

He offered me some anti-anxiety medication and said, “Trust me as

A few months ago, I recalled one particular meeting in Bani Gala,

deep down in my heart Imran represented a father figure to me and

Behind the Scenes

Another asked me how I had managed to get his attention. She