The real story of Pakistan's most flamboyant figure. In Politics, in Sports. In Austerity, in Indulgence.
In summer of 1996 when Imran Khan slipped into a politician's attire, he was hailed as the agent of change. A decade later when he is on the verge of adulthood in his political innings, he is revered and reviled alike for being one of few honest political animals in his battered homeland as he is ridiculed for his off-and-on tryst with night-out in some of world's glitzy hotspots. From a green horn student of politics and economics to chancellor of Bradford University, from a world-cup winning captain of Pakistan cricket team to leading a fledgling political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (Movement for Justice Party), the four-decade-old journey of Imran has been a saga of sacrifice, struggle and swashbuckle. Yet, he remains an enigma to his political opponents.
Some call him the ‘Poppy Prince’ of General Zia-ul-Haq, others mince no words in rubbishing him as a bearer of Taleban’s anti-civilisation legacy, a handsome Taliban apologist.
The hardliners, Islamist radicals in his own backyards, curse him for his adulterous, fornicating past. In stark contrast, the youth of modern Pakistan hail him as Che Guevara. He doesn’t disappoint them in raging bull-like political rhetoric and firepower speeches. Imran Khan promises them ‘revolution’ never before seen on the soil of his nation. For hundreds of thousands of conscience keeper, he disappoints just as a fuddy-duddy would and they raise their fingers at his failure to keep Jemima Khan, ex-wife and mother of two sons, in matrimonial bliss. Who is Imran Khan? Beyond cricketing boundaries, is he the bringer of shining path to hapless Pakistani or a mere pretender to the throne, a philanderer who delighted in murdering poignant emotions of his lovesick flames, spread across continents?
He is still as much feared on political pitch as he had been in his cricketing heydays. Can he become the Prime Minister or President of Pakistan sometime in future? Why the man who once ruled the 22 yard pitch continues to inspire hopes in spite of repeated rumblings at the hustings in Pakistan, a country whose tryst with democracy has actually been a cloak and dagger game.
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