Image Credits: Book Cover from Infibeam, down left - Mustafa today from Topnews
I was feeling slightly disoriented and my breath was coming fast. No, it was not the onset of flu or anything as disastrous. I had merely finished reading
“My Feudal Lord” by Tehmina Durrani. It’s a horrific memoir detailing Durrani’s life with Mustafa Khar a powerful politician in Pakistan. The book begins with her first meeting with Mustafa at a party while she was still married to Anees where Durrani is hopelessly attracted to the politician. His rakish dressing and charisma attracts her and she divorces Anees to marry the much married Mustafa. She realizes a little later on that the Mustafa she fell in love with was just a façade and the real man is a monster who comes alive in the night to beat the pulp out of her. Eventually, she manages to break away and divorce him and gains custody of her children.
There are two reasons behind my uneasiness - Mustafa’s treatment of Tehmina and the actual movement of the book. The emotional rollercoaster that Tehmina undergoes is so sickening that sometimes I just inadvertently let my breath out, which I had been holding unconsciously. Mustafa proves to be a schizophrenic, cold, calculating and mentally sick person who has to have complete control over Tehmina and is extremely possessive. One of the most heart wrenching scenes occurs when Mustafa is at his nightly abuse with Tehmina while their weeks old baby is wailing in the other room. She is left without even the strength to get up and take the baby. Manipulative to the core, he comes back groveling and begging for forgiveness after each abusive session and each time Tehmina accedes until she reaches a saturation point – after 15 years or so. As if the abuse was not enough, he carries on an affair with Tehmina’s youngest sister Adila too on the sidelines.
Tehmina’s life was nothing short of unbearable. She went through extreme mental and physical suffering and bore even social ridicule on many occasions including from her own parents. But my question is,
as a few other readers have also asked, why did she endure such cruelty for such a long time? Of course, I do understand that her resources were very limited since Mustafa controlled every aspect of her life and she wasn’t even allowed to go shopping. She explains that she didn’t want to face social humiliation and sneering, which was the case in Pakistani society if a woman left her husband. Divorced women were not treated kindly. But would you go through such torture just to keep society’s mouth shut? The other reason she gives is more valid. She fears her children would be taken away from her and she would never gain custody of them if she dared to do anything on her own. But she did have opportunities and if she really had wanted to I feel she could have done something. In this case I appreciate the guts and smart thinking of
Sultana who manages to make something of her life and live independently after enduring the claustrophobic society of Saudi Arabia and her husband’s irrationalities.
The characters in
the book are constantly flying between Lahore and Islamabad and Paris and London and everywhere else, which is the other reason behind my disorientation. Tehmina’s writing too is not orderly, she moves between politics on the national front and on the personal front. It can be a bit confusing at times and it perhaps mirrors Tehmina’s mental state. There are a couple of odd sentences that I encountered, which surprised me coming from a woman like Tehmina. She goes to visit the shrine of a saint in Ajmer, India where she is followed everywhere by two of Mustafa’s aides. She resents their presence – I would too if two people followed me everywhere constantly. But what she says next is what puzzled me,
“My two shadows were at my side as I entered the shrine. Their Hindu presence disturbed my Islamic prayers.”In what way would their presence disturb prayers of any kind? I did not fathom this religious barb at this point. Tehmina is not absolved of faults in the novel. Apart from such oddities, she displays a political ambition of her own, which she follows at the cost of spending time with her children. Why would she assist a madman like Mustafa in realizing his ideals, just because they matched her own? She left a well-meaning husband only because she didn’t find him exciting and stimulating enough as our Mr. Crazy here. And this despite being constantly warned by Sherry, his first wife.
And her suffering has not antagonized her towards marriage. She is currently married to another politician named Shahbaz Sharif. After undergoing such trauma that has killed love and romance and broken your spirit, as Tehmina admits, would you still be interested in even looking at another man? Wouldn’t it be better off to make a living for yourself and live independently? One positive thing is that
Tehmina has reached out to other women who have suffered similar and worse fates than her, including one of Mustafa’s sons, Bilal’s wife Fakhra.
As you can see, this book has raised quite a few questions in my mind. But the biggest one remains to be answered. Why do women return to men who abuse them continuously, be it mentally or physically? What attracts them to this destructive force? After reading quite a number of memoirs where the woman continues to go back to an abusive person, to believe the person’s inane promises and eventually multiply suffering, I continue to shake my head. Maybe that’s another reason why I am disoriented.
Verdict: Must read to understand the workings of Pakistani society and women’s lives
Rating: 3.5/5
Interesting words learnt: Bulwark
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Image Credits: Book cover from mostlyfiction and below - the real Dr Crippen and his wife Cora from dailymail
Crippen has all the elements of a potboiler – romance, murder, mystery, suspense and pursuit. But what elevates the book above an average book with these elements is its humorous language, a sardonic look at Victorian England and many an observation on its hypocritical society. The character of John Hawley is sketched with all the crayons of a usual suspect. He appears as someone cold and detached but with a self-effacing attitude when it comes to his wife Cora. Yet it appears like he is capable of doing the most heinous of acts. Along with the chilling and thrilling tale that Boyne unfurls he takes humorous potshots at upper-class behavior and their attitudes. I cannot write more without revealing pieces of the story, which I don’t want to.
