Pakistani cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan does not regret splitting up with his glamorous socialite wife Jemima Khan even though it hit him hard.
Pakistani cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan does not regret splitting up with his
glamorous socialite wife Jemima Khan even though it hit him hard.
Khan told his official biographer that his marriage with Jemima was happy and "he is nostalgic introspecting about all the pleasures of friendships and the enjoyment of sense and reason that Jemima brought in his life".
Imran vs Imran: An untold story, the biography by Indian national Frank Huzur, is scheduled for worldwide release in spring. Huzur told a British magazine that Khan
"did not mind any kind of inquiry into his life, including needling him over the 'love-child' controversy Sita White slander campaign'".
"When I told him I need information from Jemima Khan, he was a little amused. I explained that the biography wouldn't be credible work... (so) Imran convinced her to speak to me..." Huzur, who visited London twice to speak to Jemima, told the magazine.
Asked why Khan's marriage with Jemima failed, Huzur said, "There is a saying in South Asian folklore about marriage: An old man who marries a young wife grows younger, but she grows older... the marriage suffered in the first year. Radical Islamists hit hard at him for marrying a woman of Jewish descent and went so far as to spread a canard that it was part of a Jewish conspiracy to capture Pakistan polity and power.
"...Nonetheless, Imran told me it was not from reason and prudence that he married Jemima. It was sheer inclination. Marriage for him was not a ritual or an end... it ultimately was a long, intricate, intimate dance together in the turbulent waters of Pakistani politics," Huzur was quoted as saying by the magazine.
Huzur also said that Khan doesn't "regret the separation which hit him hard". Huzur made six trips to Pakistan in the past year to meet Khan, with whom he has been "awestruck" since he was nine years old.
"I had before me hundreds of icons in my own country but I couldn't feel fire in my imagination... (Khan does not) represent dynasty politics nor does he belong to a filthy rich industrial house. He is a commoner, so rare a commodity in the mud pond of politics in India and Pakistan," Huzur said on his reasons for choosing to write the biography of Khan.
But it was a difficult task to approach Khan. "It is not easy to get to Imran Khan... When I first met Imran in New Delhi, he was aware of my (interest) in his life and times.
However, my unflinching determination bore result," said Huzur, who has had over 24 sessions with the former cricketer who now heads the Tehrik-e-Insaf party.
Huzur also said Khan "was not finicky to the same degree as Aamir Khan is in India if you talk about celebrity fuss in our part of the world".
Huzur added: "He didn't wish to see the manuscript. Here I would say he was neither fastidious nor fussy at all." The book has a long chapter dedicated to Khan's failed marriage.
The 400-page book 'Imran vs Imran' will feature "rare" pictures of the cricketing legend and his family. Publishers have decided to contribute 15 per cent of the book's cover
price to Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre, which Khan set up in the memory of his mother.
Falcon Books, the publishers, will initially launch the title in English. The book's Urdu and Hindi versions will follow later in the year. Zeba Naureen, a Toronto-based
Pakistani writer and journalist, will translate the book into Urdu, said Huzur, who scripted a controversial play Hitler in Love with Madonna when he was barely 20.
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