Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Recollections and remembrances

go to his hostel in the night, and next day, he told his Dean: “Sorry. I stayed withmy wife.”But he was so young that the Dean did not believe him. So he took me to him andthen the Dean said he felt sorry that we could not live together and did notpunish him for staying out that night.Q. How was Sir Shah Nawaz like?A. He was very old by that time. He was a very good person. When we werein Oxford, he would keep writing that I come back. Finally I came back to livewith my in-laws, and I was not very happy about it because by that time I was inlove with my husband and I wanted to live with him. But my in-laws thoughttheir son would not study properly if I was with him. So we would talk ontelephone and I would cry for not being with him. After sometime, my fatherpurchased my tickets and I went back to Oxford to live with him. It was in 1952that I got pregnant then I told him we were going to have a child. He was sohappy to hear it, that he shouted on the street with joy “Oh... I am going to be afather.” Then in 1953, I gave birth to Benazir.Q. Somebody told me that Mr. Bhutto had a sister whose name was Benazirand she died at a young age and he named his daughter after her, is that true?A. Yes. It was much earlier, before Independence. She studied in Poona andlived in the school hostel. We later saw her diary in which she wrote about herkeenness to finish the school and come back to her home. But there she gotmeningitis and died at a young age. She was buried in Poona. It was after her thatmy mother-in-law, named our daughter Benazir. She was only 15 years old.Q. How was your mother-in-law like? It is said that she belonged to a poorfamily.A. There has been much talk about my mother-in-law, and I think that has tobe settled once and for all. My mother-in-law was Begum Khurshid whosemother was a new Muslim. Mr. Hidayatullah, who was not a Sir at that time, hadmarried that lady after she had converted from being a Hindu to be a Muslim.Two daughters were born out of that marriage, Begum Khurshid being one ofthem. Later Hidayatullah divorced that lady and married another woman. NowBegum Khurshid’s elder sister is married to a person, whose name, I think, wasMir Maqbool Ahmad Khan. Now this Maqbool Ahmad Khan was a close friendof Sir Shah Nawaz Bhutto. Sir Shah Nawaz’s first wife was very old and hewanted to marry again. So this Maqbool Ahmad Khan suggested to him that hecould marry his wife’s sister, Khurshid, and so they got married.Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Recollections and Remembrances; Copyright © www.bhutto.org 13