Khan Vs Khan

Reham Khan's memoir about her life - and her short-lived marriage to Imran Khan - is both racy and readable 

The one image that readers will take away from this book is of a stark naked Imran Khan, lying in bed, rubbing kaali dal (black lentils) all over his body (including his genitalia) when his wife, Reham Khan, walks into the room. Unperturbed, the former Pakistani cricket captain – and now, the man widely tipped to be the country’s next Prime Minister – rolls off the bed, shaking the dal off his body and on to the bed. The dal is then collected, boiled for 72 hours, and then thrown away – along, presumably, with the evil spell that had been cast on Imran.

In her re-telling, Reham Khan refers to this incident as her entry into ‘Hogwarts’ (Harry Potter and the Devil’s Dal, anyone?) because this incident was yet another illustration not just of her husband’s love of black dal but also his belief in black magic. Imran Khan comes off as a superstitious man who was constantly worried that someone had hexed him, and would consult with ‘pirs’ (religious leaders) on how to remove the curse. The solutions ran all the way from magic amulets tucked away in drawers to kaali dal strewn all across the bed.

There’s more to these black magic stories than mere black magic, of course. They are a way for Reham to illustrate that Imran does not have what it takes to be the leader of a truly Islamic nation. Belief in superstition is strictly forbidden in the Sunni version of Islam, which Reham and most Pakistanis practice. And she uses these incidents to paint her former husband as a lesser – and less observant – Muslim that herself, helpfully pointing out that Imran doesn’t know Arabic so he can’t even read the Koran.

But the impatient reader will have to wait a long time before getting to all the juicy Imran gossip. The book begins with Reham’s childhood, her brief stint as a child star on TV, followed by an early marriage to a first cousin whom she barely knew. Ijaz Rehman is a psychiatrist and the young couple fly off to England, where he starts practicing while she plays the dutiful housewife.

In Reham’s version of events, the abuse begins almost immediately, and she recounts in excruciating detail her first husband’s controlling behavior, his emotional torture, and his physical attacks on her. This part of the book makes for troubling reading and is the more powerful for that. Reham Khan skillfully paints a portrait of a young wife and mother trapped in an intolerable situation, looking desperately for a way out.

It is only 12 years and three children later that Reham manages to break free of this relationship. And then begin the single years, in which she works two to three jobs to bring up her kids, working in radio and television. It is hard not to root for the young mother as she drives herself from job to job, to make sure that her kids have the best life she can make for them.

But these are not the bits that people will buy the book for. It will sell only because of whom Reham marries next – and the acrimonious divorce that follows. It will sell because of the scandalous, and mostly unsubstantiated, gossip that abound in the latter half: Imran’s alleged penchant for sending naked pictures of his genitalia to journalists in Pakistan (one woman who apparently asked for proof that this was, in fact, Imran’s junk was sent another picture with his watch in the frame); his promiscuous lifestyle that took in everything from drugs, drink and fornication; the women who sexted him all the time even after he and Reham were married, with one of them promising to ‘ride him hard’; his inability to perform because of his drug habit; the size of his ‘package’ (‘naam baray aur darshan chhotey’ a famous 70s Bollywood star is quoted as saying); his bisexual tendencies; and so on and so salacious.

The book, though pacy and readable, is rather unevenly written. It starts off with a high-minded tone as the plucky tale of a young woman who is stuck in a loveless abusive marriage and how she summons up the courage to leave. By the time Reham has her first ‘encounter’ with Imran, it has veered irredeemably into Mills and Boon territory. (“He started to say something, and as I looked up expectantly, he instead closed the distance between us and leant down to kiss me. It was a light brush initially. I froze in fright. As he proceeded to kiss me more ardently, I put both my hands on his chest and pushed him away…In a daze I fell to the ground beside the swimming pool…”) And after the marriage collapses, the narrative descends into straight-out revenge memoir territory.

Nobody knows the truth behind the allegations that Reham Khan was paid off by Imran’s political opponents to publish this tell-all book just before the elections were held in Pakistan to destroy his prospects. But equally, nobody can deny that this book has the potential to do much damage: if only to Imran’s reputation rather than his actual election tally.

Maybe it’s time for Imran Khan to break out the kaali dal again. This time, with a brand-new recipe, to cope with the fury of a woman scorned.

  

An Inconvenient Woman

The life and death of Qandeel Baloch

“How I’m looking?” That’s the question Qandeel Baloch asked in her first viral video, writhing sexily as she pouted for the camera. Pakistan duly clicked on the link and didn’t quite like what it saw. Scratch that. They hated it. But even as the outrage flowed and the abuse got more graphic, “How I’m looking” became a catchphrase in that country, and Qandeel became a bonafide social media star – albeit one that everyone loved to hate (or so they claimed, at any rate).

Sanam Maher, a Karachi-based journalist, tells the improbable tale of this unexpected breakout star in The Sensational Life & Death of Qandeel Baloch. The book begins with the death of Qandeel, and the media frenzy that followed. And then traces her journey from her impoverished life in a small village near Multan, to a doomed first marriage at 17 (which resulted in the birth of a son, whom she abandoned), a disastrous appearance on Pakistan Idol, to the hard-scrabble existence she led as she tried to establish herself in the ‘glamour’ business, and finally, to her short-lived triumph when she became an international star.

It was not an easy haul, by any standards. Pakistan, a conservative, hide-bound society that swears by Islamic mores of propriety and modesty, had never seen anyone quite like Qandeel Baloch. There had never been a woman who had no compunctions about doing a ‘strip-tease’ for the Pakistani cricket team to encourage the players to win in a match against India (she promised to go the whole hog for Shahid Afridi if he managed to beat India). Nobody had ever posed in a skimpy outfit and sent out a video message proposing marriage to Imran Khan. Or, for that matter, released pictures of herself with a respected Islamic cleric which seemed to suggest that the two of them had got up to no good in a hotel room.

So, as is usual in such circumstances, Qandeel was dismissed as a ‘whore’, a loose woman who was bringing shame on her family, her country, her religion. She was forced off Facebook (briefly) after a concerted campaign to paint her as a blot on Pakistan. She was threatened with rape and murder. And she was inundated with abuse every single day of her life.

The only problem was that Qandeel declined to play along with this narrative. She refused to be shamed. She refused to apologize for the way she looked, the way she dressed, the things she said, or the videos she released. She was a woman who owned her own story; a woman who was comfortable in her own skin; a woman courageous enough to live the life she had created for herself.

In many other countries, she may well have gotten away with it. Sexy videos, revealing outfits, and outrageous statements are the staple of ‘social media stars’ all over the world. As Qandeel admitted in an appearance on a Pakistani TV show, she was ‘inspired’ by such Indian women as Poonam Pandey, Rakhi Sawant and Sunny Leone. And she was routinely described as the ‘Kim Kardashian of Pakistan’ in both local and international media.

But while all Poonam Pandey and Rakhi Sawant had to contend with was being the butt of cruel jokes in India, Qandeel had to deal with actual hatred and contempt, not just from Pakistani society and media, but also her own brothers, one of whom ended up killing her for the family ‘honour’. While Sunny Leone could follow up a porn career in America by forging a new mainstream avatar in Bollywood, Qandeel was doomed to being dismissed as a ‘beghairat aurat’, a woman with no honour, forever beyond the pale of polite society.

It is tempting to speculate what Qandeel Baloch’s fate would have been if she was born in India rather than Pakistan. Would she still be alive today, putting up risible videos on Youtube, clocking up millions of likes, even as people laughed at her rather than with her? Would she have achieved mainstream stardom if she had fulfilled her ambition of starring in Bigg Boss? Would she have become the new Sunny Leone in our lives and on our screens?

But this is not a story about India. It is a story about Pakistan, and Maher tells it with journalistic rigor and creative flair, pulling together several strands with deceptive ease.

And like all good writers, Maher doesn’t restrict herself to telling the tale of the transformation of a young girl who was born Fouzia Azeem but turned herself into Qandeel Baloch. Instead, she uses the prism of Qandeel’s transmogrification to tell the story of a slice of Pakistan itself, through the medium of different characters.

There’s Khushi Khan, a model coordinator in Islamabad whose family lost everything in the 2005 earthquake, and who had scrambled to make a living ever since, dealing bravely with all the misogyny and sexism she encounters along the way. There’s Nighat Dad, the founder of Digital Rights Foundation (DRF) based in Lahore, which helps women deal with cyber harassment. And then, there’s the handsome ‘chaiwallah’, Arshad Khan, whose picture, taken at his humble tea stall, goes viral and changes his life.

But shining through all these stories is the shimmering figure of Qandeel Baloch, the quicksilver star who burnt all too briefly before being snuffed out for being far too bright.