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Review Th Books The N !tion!l 06 Friday, December 4, 2009 www.thenational.ae review th books Imran Khan at a protest against the detention of deposed chief justice Muhammad Chaudhry in Lahore in February 2008. Khan’s participation in such rallies represented a reversal of his initial support for Pervez Musharaf’s emergency rule.Arif Ali / AFP All round view Manan Ahmed surveys the many faces of Imran Khan – cricket legend, tabloid sensation, Lahori, Londoner, would-be leader of the Pathans – and considers his attempts to channel fame into political success Imran Khan: cricketer, celebrity, Sandford echoes this fascination, a lack of direct access to his subject across cultural divides. failure to translate widespread fame writer, philanthropist, politician. He chronicling the many women linked – he lists only three “long phone After 2001, Khan became a key into enduring political success? made his cricket debut for Pakistan to Khan – a “fine specimen of a man, calls” – and a concurrent reliance on spokesman of a knee-jerk anti-im- In October 1987, a few days be- in 1971 at the age of 19, and went on with a gym-honed body and a leonine previously published accounts. For a perialist sentiment, issuing blanket fore the start of the cricket World to lead the national team in an illus- mane of shaggy dark hair” – with dis- politician and author of several mem- condemnations of the American war Cup in Pakistan, Khan and his trious career that spanned 22 years. quieting thoroughness. Inexplica- oirs, Khan is notoriously silent about in Afghanistan intermingled with young team visited the most popu- One of the finest “all-rounders” the bly, he makes little of Khan’s 1995 his private life. His own four books twisted glorifications of his tribal lar talk show in the realm: Neelam sport has ever seen, the mere men- marriage to Jemima Goldsmith, the – Imran: The Autobiography of Imran heroes, the Pashtun, and a stricter Ghar, hosted by Tariq Aziz. At the tion of his name to any cricket fan daughter of the financier James Gold- Khan (1983), Imran Khan: All Round patriarchal reading of Islam. In the end of a question-and-answer ses- will trigger a mental highlight reel of smith, or of their divorce in 2004. View (1988), Indus Journey: A Personal 2002 elections, he supported Fazlur sion, Aziz turned to the captain and his greatest performances – against But there are scores of quotes from View of Pakistan (1990), and Warrior Rahman, the candidate of the con- asked if he had any words for the na- Australia at Sydney in 1977, against former “triumphs” happy to attest to Race: A Journey Through the Land of servative religious party Jama’at-i Is- tion. Neelam Ghar was, at that time, India at Hyderabad in 1983, against his “powers”. Sandford also reveals the Tribal Pathans (1993) – have noth- lami. From this one could easily sur- perhaps the most watched hour of England at Headingley in 1987, that the late Benazir Bhutto acted ing to say about his social, romantic mise that Khan had gone “fundo”, television in Pakistan; it can be gen- against West Indies at Georgetown “giggly” around Khan for two weeks or marital past. The first two deal as Pakistan’s press labels religious erously estimated that when Khan in 1988. To all Pakistanis, his crown- at Oxford. (“Their relationship was almost entirely with his cricketing conservatives. But he was also one of stood up to talk, he was address- ing achievement remains leading the ‘sexual’ in the sense that it could only life; the more recent two are best de- the earliest and most vocal support- ing the entire country. “Don’t spit country to the World Cup in 1992, the have taken place between a man and scribed as travelogues shot through ers of the liberal Lawyer’s Movement on the sidewalks”, he said. “Please year of his retirement. a woman,” is how Sandford threads with national glorification and tribal that ended the regime of General pick up trash where ever you see it. Despite all that has been written the needle.) triumphalism. Sandford uses these Pervez Musharraf, and he continues The world is coming to Pakistan and on Khan’s overlapping careers, little But Sandford never asks why Khan’s texts frequently, sometimes engag- to strongly support an independent we should make our house clean for justice has been done to his cricket sex life was of interest to the tabloids ing in the unseemly practice of pre- Supreme Court. He also condemned them.” I had never seen a cleaner La- itself. Christopher Sandford’s Imran in the first place. He surely wasn’t the senting re-workings of published the Taliban insurrections in Swat hore – until Pakistan lost the semi- Khan continues this trend, paying only attractive cricketer. Nor was he passages as “quotes”. Imran Khan: The Cricketer, The and Waziristan – and publicly argued final to Australia. a great deal of attention to his life the only cricketer to frequent night As a result of his focus on Khan the Celebrity, The Politician that the military operations there That night, as Sandford reports, but capturing almost no sense of clubs (always ordering milk, Sand- British cricket celebrity and Khan Christopher Sandford should be abandoned in favour of a the city’s broad streets were covered his game. So let us linger there for a ford dutifully notes). The truth is that the British gossip page playboy, HarperCollins dialogue, though he has not elabo- with broken window glass, and smelt moment: as a batsman, he was me- the construction of Imran Khan as Sandford’s treatment of Khan the Dh122 rated precisely with whom and how of burnt rubber. Khan made no tel- thodical, aggressive – especially off a particularly virile seducer of white Pakistani celebrity and Khan the po- this dialogue should take place. evised statement after the defeat, the back foot – and yet always calm. British women was only a step away litical figure suffers. Those interest- Khan’s stance on Swat and Waziris- and left for London that very day. As a bowler, he was one of the finest from the age-old tropes of the Sheikh ed in the other faces of Imran Khan his connections with England and tan surely stems from some sense This story offers some clues about that ever played the game, from his of Araby – illuminating next to noth- must read between and beyond Pakistan’s media and cultural elites. of personal connection to those re- Khan’s public life in Pakistan and his late inswinging deliveries to his ris- ing about Khan and much about Sandford’s lines. As such, his philanthropy represents gions’ Pathan tribes. As Sandford fate as a politician. As long as Khan ing short ball. As a captain, he led his the conflicted European fascination Khan’s philanthropy is the best a productive bridging of his bicultur- notes, Khan makes frequent refer- won in cricket, he was popular and team like a conductor, his 10 fielders with the sexual powers of the shaggy- starting point for a consideration al, bi-continental life. ence to the fact that he is a descend- his private lives remained his own. perfectly attuned to his slightest ges- haired Oriental despot. of his post-cricket political life. Af- Khan’s move into politics, however, ant of Haibat Khan Niazi, an inde- Whenever things went sour, he could tures. He was as quick with a scold as Sandford’s failure to complicate the ter his mother, Shaukhat Khanum, has been markedly less successful, pendent-minded governor of Lahore always leave – and he always did. Im- with a pat, and always in complete over-determined account of Khan as died of complications from stomach defined more by contradiction than in the mid-16th century. But what po- ran Khan has always been firmly of control – not for nothing was Khan a “playboy” (in the words of the New cancer in 1985, he began a project to anything else. In 1996, he founded litical or socio-cultural strands might two worlds, London and Lahore (and the captain called “the dictator”. York Times) might have resulted from bring advanced cancer treatment to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (Pakistan connect him to these same tribes in making this clear is Sandford’s best Khan moved to the UK shortly af- the people of Pakistan at little or no Movement for Justice) with the mot- the 21st century is a nebulous matter. contribution). In cricket and philan- ter his cricketing debut in hopes of cost. The Shaukhat Khanum Memo- to “Justice, Humanity, Self Esteem”. As a politician, Khan certainly hasn’t thropy, this is an asset. In politics, it getting a scholarship to Oxford or rial Cancer Hospital and Research The party’s focus was to be on cor- been able to convert his feelings of is not. Khan has tried to situate him- Cambridge. He ended up at Oxford; Center opened in 1994 after six years ruption – moral, social and political. connection into any tangible politi- self in Pakistan by working to erase after graduating in 1975, he moved Khan led his team of fund-raising. The hospital is now In a December 1995 column in The cal action or benefit. For despite his his London past and presents, reach- to London, which would remain his the leading care centre in Pakistan, News, Khan decried the collapsed own romantic projections, Khan is ing for a romantic connection to the home, and the centre of his richly like a conductor, his and Khan continues to be the big- morals of Pakistan’s youth, who fol- not a leader of the Pathan people, nor 16th century, and making political documented social life, until the 10 fielders perfectly gest individual donor.
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