NAME: Shahbaz Sharif and Tahmina Durrani

AGE: Young at heart

NATIONALITY: Pakistani, presumably

CLAIM TO FAME: The much-married marry again

STRANGE are the ways of the heart and stranger still are the choices it makes. Who would have thought that the elegant authoress Tahmina Durrani will find the charms of chotay mian Shahbaz Sharif just too hard to resist?

The two recently tied the knot in Dubai, apparently without too much fanfare. As the dulha is not allowed to come to Pakistan, the dulhan went to him, and soon afterwards they were reported to be in New York — presumably on their honeymoon! As this is the third marriage for them both, one hopes that this time they will be lucky and find reasons to live happily ever after.

However, anytime the marriage runs into troubled waters, Tahmina is sure to find her creative juices overflowing and will get down to writing a novel about it. For some people, their best always comes out under adverse circumstances. Who knows she may already have started taking notes and no matter which way the marriage goes, she will still give us an account of her experience of turning into a ‘Sharif’ (no pun intended). The title of her next novel will not be difficult to guess — My Politician Lord. What else?

Nevertheless, the rest of the Sharif family too must already be on their guard in case they become the focus of her narrative plot.

Both have a number of children from their previous marriages and Shahbaz is reported to have divorced his second wife Aalia. With a new lady in his life, Lady Luck too is turning to smile on chotay Sharif on the political front as there are strong rumours that the government is in secret talks with him and his party about a possible future for him in Pakistani politics. He has been given the green signal by older brother and former PM and chief of PML-N, Mian Nawaz Sharif, to accept the reconciliatory initiatives taken by the government. Realizing he still needs to stay in the background, at least to conform to the deal that set him free, Nawaz Sharif is willing to let younger brother take the front seat, something he didn’t allow earlier.

In the next few months Shahbaz is all set to return home and this time he will not have to go through the humiliation of deportation like his previous attempt as the General himself is in favour of it this time round. It is said that Mian Shahbaz Sharif’s return to Pakistan will not be a part of any deal, rather an outcome of the government’s initiatives for reconciliation with all opposition political parties. There are also chances that his main task will be to revitalize the party and prepare it for the next general elections, scheduled to be held in 2007.

Shahbaz Sharif is sure to find that his new bride will come handy in his political aspirations, at least with Tahmina around, he will not need any English speech writers. She may already have started working on improving his English language skills, something that really needs working on. — Ambreen Arshad