MUSHARRAF INDIA LINK BURIED IN SILENCE

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MUSHARRAF INDIA LINK BURIED IN SILENCE

 

FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

 

New Delhi, Oct. 5:

The death occurred yesterday of one Khalid Mohammed of Bulbulikhana,

somewhere in the labyrinthine depths of Gali Suiwalan in the

crumbling Walled City of Delhi.

Khalid Mohammed, 75, is survived by his first cousin and military

ruler of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf.

 

Mohammed was a bachelor; he left no immediate heirs behind. General

Musharraf was among the closest he had, and probably even the

farthest.

 

Perhaps the General does not even know of his bereavement. There was

no one to send word out and across when the end came. His cousin died

quite alone in his one-room tenement, of penury and cardiac arrest.

 

Khalid Mohammed led a mostly anonymous life, known to just a handful

of old neighbours in his dark lane, as Khalidbhai, owner of Azad

Kitab Ghar, a bookshop that had few books to sell and fewer buyers.

 

Towards the end of his time he also became known as the first cousin

of the man who brought on the Kargil war and who joined the long line

of Pakistan's military dictators.

 

Khalid Mohammed and Pervez Musharraf had spent their childhood

together in the Walled City, cavorting in the lanes behind what was

then among Delhi's best cinema halls: Golcha. Their fathers were

brothers and together they ran a fairly flourishing retail business.

 

Then came the Partition and Pervez Musharraf's part of the family

decided to live across that greater wall that had come up. Khalidbhai

never saw his cousin again. At least he never spoke of a meeting

since their sundered childhood.

 

What he did say after Pervez Musharraf rose to fame —- or

notoriety,

if you like —- is that the families had often been in touch

through

the mail. Musharraf, according to one statement Khalidbhai made a

little after his cousin had toppled Nawaz Sharif, is a "family

man"

and likes to keep in touch with his scattered cousins, the minefields

between India and Pakistan notwithstanding.

 

But yesterday, as his body was laid to rest on the grounds of the

Delhi Gate graveyard, there wasn't so much as a last word from

the

famous first cousin. Or a last salute carried by a representative of

the Pakistani High Commission here. Mohammed's funeral was

attended

by a dozen-odd neighbours and a clutch of distant relatives, most of

whom had not even met him in years.

 

Perhaps his only consolation was that his grave lay next to that of

another forgotten man who deserved better in his day — M. Farooqi

of

the Communist Party of India, such as it used to be.