Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Recollections and Remembrances Foreword

After the death of our father, he gave a lot of love to our brother Imdad Ali
Bhutto. He being a boy could remain with his uncle all the time and Chacha was
always so caring and concerned about him inspite of his own very busy schedule.
I remember that during a rainy winter my brother joined Shaheed Chacha on
shikar. My brother being a little careless was not wearing any warm clothing.
Chacha called the servants and was angry with them because they had ignored to
give Imdad warm clothing to wear in that extreme cold. He took off his own
warn coat and made Imdad put on that coat.
Chacha’s coat is still treasured by Imdad.
His political engagements kept him away for long intervals, but he always kept
himself aware and informed of everything about us.
His love could not be measured by the time he gave to us. We knew that he never
belived in making a show of it. But his love was deep, sincere and immense.
Rukhsana, when still very small got sick. Together with that she was also upset
with her Chacha and complained that Chacha could not find time to come to see
her. But Rukhsana’s doctor told us that Chacha used to telephone him every day
to know about Rukhsanas condition and the results of various tests.
Whenever he would be in Larkana he would comc to visit us. Usually he would
be so busy that he could only visit us late at night. The children would wait for
him and would never go to sleep without meeting him.
I and my sister were from our childhood interested in composing verses. He
knew of our interest and whenever he would come he would make it a point to
ask us to recite our verses.
Much as we loved to recite our verses. I remember that I would freeze with
nervousness, when ever he would say, “so what have our young poetesses
composed this time. Let us listen”.
But his encouragement over what ever we had written in that young age would
give us new confidence and so our talents for writing poetry grew and we
continued to write.
As children we wrote a poem for him. Although it did not rhyme very well. I
still remember a verse which I will quote here.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Recollections and Remembrances; Copyright © www.bhutto.org
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