ALL great people carry the infection of inherent contradiction. It makes them more engaging, more compelling. Like her father before her, Benazir`s personality was a constant interplay of light and shade. Such a life could not be ordered into supine routine.

History`s greatest triumphs are followed by tragedy. Her death has enshrined her and will remain a fixing moment in all our lives. We will always remember where we were and who we were with when he heard news of her death. She gave the outer appearance of being strong and stringent but she was immensely sensitive and vulnerable. Her very essence, her core, was defined by the suffering she had undergone. Though she came across as a strong-willed and confident politician, the trauma and trial of her father had left her with a shaky inner core. Her inherent sadness and pain connected her instantly to the poor.

Benazir was never unidimensional, she was intrinsically versatile. From Madonna to markets, she could converse with ease. She had an inherent fondness for life and continually questioned and examined all its aspects. All things in the universe fascinated her.

She was remarkable in how easily she could mingle and mix with those who represented the sorrow of this land. Like her father, she could easily blend into their world. Like her father, she connected with the constituency of the rejected. For the Pakistani youth, she was the zeitgeist queen.

Her fearless and rampant soul remained a prisoner to her legacy and the overpowering but self-imposed sense of duty. She was a people`s person and spent endless hours with them, even when those hours were duty without dividend. She fulfilled her duties to her children, her husband and her family. She remained loyal to her friends through her highs and her lows.

Her laugh was infectious as was her warmth. The girlie giggle, the mischievous wisecracks and, above all, the sympathy and solicitude carried in a tender heart were her hallmarks. Though bruised by reality, she never stopped dreaming those dreams. She was supremely unique, sublimely human.

Though always comfortable among the poor and supremely confident amongst intellectuals and dignitaries, she remained strangely insecure and shy whenever she had to make an appearance before the chattering classes, the social elite. She felt that they were peering at her through a magnifying glass and were judgemental.

She was alert to the fact that her life had often been invaded by predators and parasites, creating the smoke and saga till the truth lay in tatters. The Bhuttos were considered the nation`s best-known soap opera, and she knew it.

Benazir was many, many things. She was a volume with multiple chapters, each with a different theme. She was, among those many things, Don Quixote`s fantasy adventurer who was the slayer of all the dragons met on a tortuous journey. And she spent much of her life tilting at windmills. Ironically, the dragons in her life were not delusional.

In the summer of 2007, we were having dinner one evening at her flat and the discussion led to books and poetry. She asked me if I had read the poet Anna Akhmatova, a Russian poetess who together with her son and husband had suffered horrible persecution during the Stalinist pogrom.

I had not, but made it a point to buy her book of poems. I did not get around to opening its pages in any seriousness until after her assassination. When I started flipping through the pages, I stopped. I was startled when my eyes fell on the following passage

“How terribly the body has changed/ How withered the tormented mouth/ I didn`t want a death like this/ I didn`t set the date./ It seemed to me that storm-cloud with storm-cloud/ Collided with something on high/ And a flying flash of lightning/ Descended like angels, upon me.”

Was this death foretold?

She was determined to return home and all our imploring and protests did not deter her. She came back even though knowing the dangers that awaited her — she came hugging the delusive phantom of hope.

When she had arrived back from exile on Oct 18, I stood alongside her on the fatal truck journey; she turned to me while waving to the crowds and said, “Isn`t this great ... I can feel their love.” And after a pause, “I can never let them down.” The change had already begun to manifest itself.

Moments later, a deadly and devastating bomb blast tore out the soul of a nation. One moment there was a sea of cheering, clapping, dancing humanity and in another there was the gruesome spectacle of smouldering embers, the odour of burnt flesh and charred bodies. The tunes of love had died in the din of the dying. The terrorists had come out singing their hymn of hate.

This was the time she could have cut and run. If she now wished to retreat to the safety of Dubai, the doors were open. But bravery was bred in the marrow. She would stand and fight, she would fight till the last breath in her body.

On subsequent visits to her at Bilawal House, where a very few of us would be around her in the wee hours of the night as she tried to unwind and reflect on the day`s happenings, she talked but her talk was soliloquy. She was seeing a vision. The look in her eyes, the beat of her pulse, the song of her soul, all conveyed a different message.

She had travelled a great distance to reach here. The traveller had transformed during the journey. She was clearing her decks, reiterating her belief in the higher things of life. And as though in recognition of its consequences, she was bidding farewell to all of us.

She knew that from the moment she landed at Karachi, notwithstanding her deal with the general and the powers that be, the entire dynamics of the political power balance had changed. She was recalling her father`s message in that famous letter when he had told her that there is much merit in pragmatism, but to never forget that the “paradise of politics lies at the feet of the people.” She knew too that there was deception in the air; the dice had been rolled, so let the chips fall where they may.

One year and one day ago from this very December day, she left for Rawalpindi`s Liaquat Bagh, not far from the site of her father`s hanging 28 years ago. She looked royal and radiant as she smiled and waved at the euphoric crowds. But tragedy was blowing in on the tail of a treach

erous wind. An assassin was lying in wait.

Benazir on that day left the stage she never wanted. Circumstances threw her into the dirty, murky world of politics where she had to deal with the sleaze that breeds in the political ghettos and gutters of Pakistan.

She had been trained to walk the corridors of power and fame, mingle with kings and queens. Her life took her into the backyards of an unpleasant world where she had to deal with carpetbaggers and kerb-crawlers. She was forced to learn about their ways and deal with factors that were external to her ethos.

It was repellent to her nature but she accepted the challenge. She had to deal with troublesome `uncles`, men who lurked in the shadows and elements from the country`s ubiquitous security apparatus. She vanquished them all along her tortured journey but laid her life gallantly before treachery`s final bugle.

Her assassination may yet prove to be the catalyst of the change she predicted. But more importantly, her blood has mingled with the soil of this land and nourished a legend more powerful than the legend of Marvi whom she recalled in a poem she wrote to mark her 50th birthday.

How would she like to be remembered? She would be the warrior princess who battled dictators and overcame them. She would be the great reformer and emancipator. She would be the redeemer with the healing touch. She would be the poet who wrote stirring verses. She would be the Joan of Arc who raised her party`s standard against oppression. She would be the flower whose fragrance never faded.

She was all these things. But above all, she was what she most wanted to be. She was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto`s daughter. To us, her family, she was the giant oak whose shade we have been shorn of.

When the tide of time washes ashore, people will remember her for her kindness, they will remember her with affection. She died before she was meant to. She was a song half-sung, a verse half-written, an incomplete life, a story half-told.

This then is the story of Benazir, Pakistan`s princess.n

Concluded