NAME: Bilawal

AGE: Pushing 16

NATIONALITY: Pakistani

CLAIM TO FAME: Heir to the Bhutto-Zardari legacy

BORN to an ex-prime minister and into a family where the men have spent years behind bars and died unnatural deaths, Bilawal Zardari is a teenager with a troubled legacy. Almost 16, Bilawal, the son of Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari, is visiting his homeland and father after a gap of four years. The elder Zardari, who has been behind bars for the past eight years, is currently under treatment in a local hospital in Karachi.

An O’ Levels student in Dubai where he is living in exile with his mother and two sisters, Bakhtawar and Aasifa, Bilawal is making use of his daily visit to his father to catch up with each other’s lives. “We talk about school and life, and things we missed out when I was a child. I have gone through lots of things and he wasn’t there. At the time when we needed, him he was taken away. We were denied a normal life,” he recently said in an interview.

Certainly, life is anything but normal for this family, but it is so due to the actions and choices of the parents. For half of Bilawal’s life, Asif has been behind bars. In fact the third and the youngest child, Aasifa, has not even seen her father a free man. And Benazir’s commitments to PPP, despite being away from the centre stage of politics, makes it difficult for her to function as a normal mother who can cater to all her children’s needs. All the materialistic comforts a child can wish for and efficient caretakers are at the disposal of these children of fame but a carefree childhood is not. Lack of freedom of movement prevents Bilawal from playing cricket, something he longs for.

One can’t help but feel a little sorry for this teenager, but he fully understands why life is this way for them. Bilawal doesn’t wants his parents to strike a deal with the government that will bring his father out of jail or his mother back to Pakistan. He is quoted as saying that he would rather his father came out of jail with honour than through a deal.

Like his father, Bilawal likes horses and enjoys horse riding. His hobby of target shooting can easily be linked to the passion for hunting that the Bhutto and Zardari clan has. Physical fitness is also an aspect that this young lad is very conscious of and he is already a black belt in Taekwondo.

Still a few years away from making a career choice, Bilawal has not yet disclosed any political aspirations but it is not difficult to see him following this predetermined path because of family traditions. It is also not difficult to see his cousins, the children of Murtaza Bhutto with whom he has no contacts, as his political rivals if Bilawal decides to follow in the footsteps of his patents and grandfather. As another generation of the Zardari and Bhutto clan grows up, politics in Pakistan will find them striving for a role in it. — S. Arshad Kamal