Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Recollections and Remembrances Foreword

are a married man. You cheated me. Why didn’t you tell me before you were
already married?”
Then he told me in what circumstances he had been married.
Later he brought his mother along and she explained to my family as to how he
was made to marry his cousin when he was just 14 and they asked him to sit in
the wedding if he wanted to get his favorite cricket bat set.
Q. What kind of a man he was?
A. He had very few friends. What nobody knows about him is that he was a
very shy person, very shy. He read a lot. He educated me too. He gave me books
to read and made me read a lot of books. When I was having children, he gave
me books on psychology, so that I could understand my children. He used to say
that our children should not do anything which could bring bad name to the
family.
Q. Where did you go for honeymoon?
A. Paris and Rome. Interestingly, my mother-in-law accompanied us during
our honeymoon. In fact, her daughter Mumtaz, had been married to Col. Mustafa
who was posted in Turkey at that time. She wanted to see her daughter. So we
took her along. We went to Paris, Rome and then to Turkey where she stayed
with her daughter and we went to London.
Q. How did he get into Ayub Khan’s cabinet?
A. I think his parents knew Iskandar Mirza, who would visit them frequently.
One day Iskandar Mirza said he wanted their son to be a Minister. Before that, he
had written a pamphlet, titled: “Federal or Unitary Government,” and the
government was angry with him. Later, he was sent as a delegate to international
conferences on behalf of the government and he became the Commerce Minister.
Then Iskandar Mirza was thrown out. We were in Larkana at that time. We had
no plans to go to Karachi which was the Capital at that time. But he received
phone calls after phone calls. Ayub Khan wanted to keep him as a Minister. Then
we had discussions on whether we should go or not. His father had died by then.
His mother and I suggested he should agree. So he accepted it.
Q. Would he discuss politics with you?
A. Quite often. I never forced in opinion on him. I just said what I genuinely
felt. Some time he would accept my advice and some times he would reject it.
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