Aatish Taseer Exposes Corruption of his Corrupt Father Salmaan Taseer
Outlook Magazine – Book Review – 13 April 2009 – New Delhi, India
Present In Our Memory Games
A self-identifying, dispiriting tour of Islam’s extremities inlaid
with personal history
“Salmaan Taseer had his ups and downs. Under [Benazir] Bhutto he
prospered. He turned to business and made a tidy killing. He acquired
a large house, yet another wife, drank Scotch, ate ham, bacon, pork
and lived it up.” By KHUSHWANT SINGH
Indian-Sikh Writer of Hindu-India
If both your parents are Muslims, that is no problem: you are Muslim.
If one parent is Muslim and the other not, you have the choice of
opting for the faith of one or the other. However, if the father is a
Muslim of one nationality, and the mother is a non-Muslim of another
nation, the child is all at sea, not knowing what faith or nation he
or she should opt for. That, in short, is the case of Aatish Taseer:
his father Salman Taseer is presently [PPP] Governor of Pakistan’s
Punjab. His mother Tavleen is Sikh and a well-known [Indian]
journalist who writes regularly for The Indian Express. His parents
separated soon after their short-lived liaison, met up briefly in
London [UK] and then went their own ways.
Aatish was brought up by Tavleen’s parents and spent his childhood
with his Sikh cousins. The discovery of his being different from them
makes amusing reading. One afternoon playing with his cousins he went
to a quiet corner of the garden to empty his bladder. A cousin who
joined him to do the same stared at Aatish’s penis with awe and
wonder. He came back to announce to his assembly of uncles and aunts:
“Aatish ka susu nanga hai!” [The penis of Aatish Taseer is naked.]
They broke into hysterics. He was the only boy in the family who had
been circumcised. He was Muslim.
“Stranger To History – A Son’s Journey Through Islamic Lands” [a book
written by Aatish Taseer] is a personalised study of Muslim identity
in different countries: Britain, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia,
Pakistan, India. The only thing they have in common is the passion to
restore Islam to what its Messenger Prophet Muhammad had in mind by
destroying its enemies today as they perceive them, notably the
[Satanists of] U.S., [Satanists of] Israel and [Satanists of] Britain.
Their methods of achieving this end are determined by their own
internal problems. In between analysing responses given to him, Taseer
interposes his own problems with his father betraying his mother’s
trust. The reader should know something about their family
background.
Salmaan Taseer’s father was a minor literary celebrity in pre-
Partition days. He married a Scandinavian (or maybe English). As often
happens in cases of mixed marriages, Salmaan turned out to be a very
handsome young man who had no problems seducing good-looking women. He
was also a great admirer of [PPP Founder] Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and
hitched his wagon to the rising star in Pakistani politics. He wrote a
highly laudatory biography of his hero and came to Delhi [India] with
his publisher to promote his book in March 1980. They stayed a the
Oberoi Hotel where Tavleen met him.
Tavleen is the granddaughter of Sardar Bahadur Bajamber Basakha Singh,
one of the principal builders of New Delhi, including the North Block
of the Secretariat. He lived next door to us on Jantar Mantar Road and
was my father’s closest friend. We saw him almost everyday. He also
stayed with me in London. When Tavleen met Salmaan, she was in the
prime of her youth and extremely attractive. A fair game for our
Lothario from Pakistan. Though married with children, he had no
compunction in seducing Tavleen. They hit it off and spent the whole
week together. Tavleen became pregnant. She wrote to him in Lahore and
toyed with the idea of aborting her pregnancy. He dissuaded her from
doing so. He rented a flat for her in London. He joined her for a
while. But his ardour had abated. He had more affairs, including one
with an Indian film star whose name is not revealed by Aatish. Tavleen
sensed the romance was over and returned to Delhi much embittered by
her experience. Some of it washed on her son. Salmaan was unfazed and
remarked that he had left his foreskin in India but brought the body
back to Pakistan.
As might be expected, Aatish had a disturbed childhood. At school in
Kodaikanal he spelt out his view of his father to his counsellor. She
asked: “How do you feel about your father today?” He replied:
“Nothing. I mean the man is obviously a shit. He abandoned my mother
with a baby to bring up on her own. Everyone has shitty people in
their lives.”
Meanwhile, Salmaan Taseer had his ups and downs. Under [PPP ex-PM
Benazir] Bhutto he prospered. He turned to business and made a tidy
killing. He acquired a large house, yet another wife, drank Scotch,
ate ham, bacon, pork and lived it up. When [Zulfikar Ali] Bhutto fell
and was hanged, [corrupt military dictator] General [Muhammad] Zia ul
Haq put him in jail. The only book he was allowed to read was the
Quran. He admitted he read it front to back and back to front but
found nothing in it for him. When [corrupt Army tyrant] General
[Pervez] Musharraf was forced to resign and [corrupt PPP dictator Asif
Ali] Zardari took over, his fortunes were again in the ascendant. He
is now Governor of Pakistan’s Punjab. His son Aatish met him before
that. He was welcomed by his stepmother and step siblings but his
father remained aloof and cold. He never wanted to see him again.
Aatish Taseer’s account of his meeting the new generation of Muslims
makes depressing reading. In England he met British-born young
Pakistanis wearing skull caps and sporting beards to assert their
Muslim identity; in Turkey, a group of people who regretted Kemal
Ataturk’s attempts to modernise them. It was the same in Iraq and
Syria and worst in Ahmadinejad’s Iran. He performed the lesser
pilgrimage (Umra) in Mecca carefully hiding the tattooed image of
Shiva on his arm and the steel kada his Sikh grandmother had given
him. In Sindh he was disappointed to see its age-old Sufi Islam give
way to Wahabi bigotry. However grim his portrayal of Muslim
communities in countries he visited, his account is honest, perceptive
and makes riveting reading. I will look forward to reading his
personal exploits which got wide coverage in the world media,
Inshallah, another day.
– Information Press – http://www.InformPress.com
– IP Newsletter – http://www.InformPress.net
– The Report Press – http://www.ReportPress.com
– RP Newsletter – http://www.ReportPress.net
– Chief Editor – Journalist SYED ADEEB – www.SyedAdeeb.net
INFORMATION PRESS – News Views Media – www.InformPress.com – USA
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