I STILL cannot bring myself to believe that she is no more.

How could such a vibrant and vital soul disappear in a matter of a few moments? I was in Islamabad but was not at the site of the tragedy when it took place.

When I received the CNN breaking news on my cellphone I was in the process of re-writing my column for (Dawn’s) EBR Weekly. I just sat back.

Dumbstruck and stunned, all strength in my limbs drained. I wanted to cry, but could not. She was larger than life to have gone so quickly. I still cannot imagine a Pakistan without Benazir. For most of us who were both highly critical of her as well as enamoured by her, she was our political reference point.

The last time I had stolen what I would like to call a quick exchange with Benazir Bhutto was on Oct 3, when she was addressing her last press conference in London before returning to Pakistan via Dubai. I had asked her if she was not violating the spirit of democracy by agreeing to participate in the election of a uniformed general.

Despite it being a seemingly offensive question, she disagreed politely and explained rather patiently that she had not yet given up the option of resigning and in any case, her party would boycott the elections and that she said in her opinion would not be an action violative of the norms of democracy.

What was more touching for me was that she heard me over the din of questions being shouted at her from other media persons, mostly representing leading foreign media organisations and asked them to allow me to put my question as she said with a straight face: “Mr Ziauddin is a very senior Pakistani journalist and I must listen to him first.”

My first meeting with her was an experience in itself.

She had just survived a no-confidence motion against her first government and had invited some senior correspondents in Islamabad to discuss what had gone wrong and how she could improve her performance now that the immediate danger to her government had been averted.

Most of us went after her with no holds barred. I even criticized her decision to make her father-in-law the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee and allowing her husband to run his private business from a room in the PM Secretariat.

She listened, defended and argued but never for a moment did I find her losing her patience or her cool. I had gone to the meeting after hearing many stories about her arrogance, hot temper and short fuse. But the Benazir I met was a person one could communicate, enter into heated debate and argue with.

After this meeting I had several longish debates with her mostly in the company of the late H.K. Burki.

On these occasions, I would listen mostly to the monologue of Mr Burki who would dissect her policies and actions like a surgeon without mincing words.

She would listen attentively and would never make even the slightest unpleasant response to the most unpleasant and uncharitable criticism of Mr Burki. He was perhaps the first person to tell her on her face that her choice of Farooq Ahmed Khan Leghari as the president was wrong and he even went on to predict that Mr Leghari would betray her.

In my discussions with her, I found her to have a deep understanding of economic issues. She was very well versed in the subject and could stand her ground in a debate on economic issues even with the experts.

During campaigns leading to the 1988, 1990 and 1993 elections or before delivering her speeches in budget sessions, she would hold bull sessions with the country’s leading economic experts and then come up with scintillating arguments of her own for or against whatever subject she would chose to attack or support.

In my more than 40 years of journalistic career I have found most Pakistani politicians to show phoney respect to those among us who they knew carried a very sharp and effective pen.

But Benazir was different. Her friendship was above such pettiness.

I have had the dubious privilege of being highly-critical of her as a professional and I know some of my colleagues who were even more critical in their writings. But she would never let this come in the way of her friendship or her respect for those whom she really liked. I know a journalist couple who had crossed all the limits of decency in their criticism of her. But I don’t think she ever ostracised them.

She was a great gossiper. She would regale her friends with the juiciest gossips on occasions. And she carried no ethnic biases.

Once three of us (all having the same ethnic roots) were criticising her Urban Sindh policies in rather bitterest terms, she argued and defended rather vehemently, but never for a moment did she let the fact of our own ethic affiliations distort the debate.