LAHORE: Former military ruler Pervez Musharraf never allowed his family to interfere or influence his thinking when it came to running the affairs of the state.

But whenever there was a family reunion, education and how to use technology to make Pakistan a progressive country —along with a healthy dose of politics — would always be the topic of discussion, according to the late general’s son, Bilal Musharraf.

From Oct 1999 until his final day as president on Aug 18, 2008, Musharraf kept his family out of the public eye and the media glare. As the first lady of Pakistan, his wife Sehba Musharraf had to stand by his side and be seen in public, both at home and abroad.

But their children, Bilal and daughter Ayla Musharraf, kept low profiles and were never in the public eye.

In a chance encounter at a conference in 2013, this scribe had the opportunity to sit down for a chat with Bilal Musharraf, and in subsequent interactions, the general would occasionally come up as a topic of conversation.

According to Bilal, his father rarely discussed his governmental work or political moves with his family. Whatever he revealed to them, it was only after he had made his decision, leaving little room and time for the family to discuss and, perhaps, persuade him to change his mind.

But at the same time, Musharraf granted his children leeway with their careers and was never rigorous in disciplining them.

“That was hardly the case because we were good at studying and never disappointed him in terms of marks, creativity and so on,” he explained.

Bilal lived with his parents until 1994, when he attended the University of Illinois after passing intermediate exams from the Cadet College Hassanabdal.

He spent a decade in the field of actuarial science, pricing automobile insurance for the state of Massachusetts and valuing pension plans for a human resource consulting firm, and later began his MBA at Stanford University in 2005.

On October 12, 1999, when Gen Pervez Musharraf assumed power in a coup, Bilal was in the US.

“You may see that during my father’s peak days, I remained abroad, so family reunions only occurred during holidays or when he was in America,” he said.

“No doubt, his government days were full of stormy turns and twists, but he never lost his cool, and rarely discussed the difficult decisions or situations with us,” he says.

But it was hard for the general to conceal the worries generated by the political mess.

In recent years, he says, their meetings had been few and far between. Until, that is, when Bilal settled in Dubai for vigils with his father in his final days.

He revealed that his father had fond memories of Lahore’s Forman Christian College, of which he was an alumnus. “Few people are aware that he invited an FC College delegation to Dubai a few years ago and donated books and money to the institution,” Bilal said.

Published in Dawn, February 12th, 2023