Published in English Daily, Daily Times.
Begum Nusrat Bhutto passed away on October 23. Her "natural" death has broken the spell that had overshadowed the Bhuttos for decades — one Bhutto after another had been assassinated one way or the other.
Her sad, but natural, demise reminds me of J M Synge's ever cherished play, Riders to the Sea. In the Irish playwright's masterpiece , all members of an Islander family drown at sea one after another, deprived of a land burial. When the last son of Mauria, the protagonist, also dies young at the sea, luckily his body is retrieved. The mother at this tragic loss with tearful eyes and trembling voice rejoices that her son is going to have a land burial at least.
Mrs Bhutto's sad departure reminds me of the tragedy by J M Synge. Like Synge's protagonist, the Bhuttos' story is also ridden with tragedies. Their sufferings are even greater than that of Synge's protagonist. The charismatic Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's relentless services to the nation were rewarded with his judicial murder. Then Shahnawaz Bhutto was poisoned to death and later Murtaza was shot dead in Karachi. His own sister was a sitting prime minister at the time of Murtaza's murder. Finally, Benazir Bhutto, too, was mercilessly killed in December 2007 while addressing an election rally in Rawalpindi.
Begum Bhutto suffered all these miseries and at last her torment came to an end . The spell is broken. As Mauria's last son after his tragic demise got at least a land burial , the fifth Bhutto at least came across a natural death.
May she rest in peace.
Tassawur Bosal
Mandi Bahauddin
Daily Times
Tuesday November 1st, 2011
