"Songs of Blood and Sword" Fatima bhutto book released

Fatima Bhutto is excited about her India tour for her memoir Songs of Blood and Sword. “I’m going to wear a saree at every city launch.
A Maharashtrian silk for Pune, a south silk for Bangalore — it’s a good cultural relations strategy, don’t you think?” she smiles with a small bindi on her forehead, as we begin the interview in her room at the Taj Mansingh hotel,delhi.



The 28-year-old writer-journalist is the grand daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, daughter of slain political leader Murtuza Bhutto and niece of Pinky Aunty, Benazir Bhutto. “You didn’t know she was called Pinky? I called her Wadi and we used to read books together,” she says. This was before 1996, before her father was shot dead two days after his 42nd birthday.


New Delhi: Her book couldnt be published in Pakistan but in India,its already caused some stir.It was only a matter of time before Fatima Bhutto,granddaughter of former Pakistan Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto,wrote her memoir.Songs of Blood and Sword telling the story of Pakistans influential but blighted Bhutto family that has seen much violence and death was released here on Saturday.

At the open-air venue of a five-star hotel,Fatima Bhutto chatted with William Dalrymple,read extracts,and talked of life with her father and even with her aunt Benazir,before she became prime minister.Suspected to have been behind the killing of her father Murtaza Bhutto,current Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari emerged a villain,of course.She recalled how cruelly Zardari had broken the news of Murtazas killing to 14 yearold Fatima on September 20,1996 and later,delivered his first address on the 12th death anniversary.

Its not just the politics or the story of her family,theres something about Fatima Bhutto herself.She has studied at Columbia University and University of London.The 27-yearold journalist-columnist appeared in a green sari bindi and all and sipped white wine as she spoke of violence and betrayal.Members of the audience complimented her youre looking beautiful bought copies of her book and lined up to get it signed.Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar was also present at the gathering.



Asked to draw a family tree and indicate which diseases a particular family member suffered from for biology-class,high-school student Fatima was flummoxed.A good part of her family was claimed by political violence,not any disease.But the death at the centre of her memoir is that of her father Murtaza.
Fatimas parents split when she was still an infant and Murtaza raised her.They lived in Damascus and Syria,and Murtaza did his best.She recalls her father chopping her hair in a fashion that made her look like Mowgli.She thought herself as Mowgli till she figured he was a boy.Her fathers second marriage and her stepmother Ghinwa Bhutto,a Syrian-Lebanese and former ballet dancer,brought some semblance of order in her life.If she had fond memories of moments with her father,unlikely though it may seem now,she says shes had a few of those with aunt Benazir as well.

Shes been told she is like her aunt several times.But what she once considered a compliment now sounds like an admonishment.
Fatima still feels cornered.She had a column in a paper in which she wrote on politics.After Zardari became president,she says,she was encouraged to write on travel and food.She,however,maintains columns in several other dailies and websites.Her writing includes a volume of poetry,Whispers of the Desert.

Her father was no angel either.He,too,had cases against him,reminds Dalrymple. He was not male Aung San Suu Kyi, she said,but political propaganda rendered Benazir in angelic tones and painted the brothers as the monsters.That was part of the mythology built around him, she says.


Justice not only carried out in Pak courts’
It’s been almost 14 years since her father was assassinated but Pakistan’s slain former PM Benazir Bhutto’s niece Fatima Bhutto has not given up hope for justice. ‘I think there is a hope for justice. Justice is not only carried out in courts. Young Pakistanis, who have seen the violence in Pakistan, will stand up to the justice one day,’’ she said. On joining politics, she said, ‘I don’t think politics is the best way to bring change. Academia and the media are phenomenal ways of change. That’s the way I have chosen.’ AGENCIES