people-from-sindh

"Pakistan is where I'm from - it was where I was born, it was where I was brought up. I've got a lot of affection towards Pakistan."

"It is the virtue of God, the Parmatma, the creator to do justice and we as judges merely act as his agents. I always seek guidance from the creator so that we do not make a wrong judgment. We act without favour or fear, ill will or affection. For me it makes no difference."

"I have little interest in cricket. People are crazy about cricket and we feel happy when our country wins. The names of Hanif Mohammad, Imran Khan, Shoaib Akhtar all come to my mind once I think about cricket. These are legends of Pakistani cricket. 2"

"Work hard and you will make it; at the end, it's all about your design philosophy."

"I am individual, stylish, mad and a lot of fun to be with."

"Deepak Perwani doesn't want awards; he wants appreciation - that's all."

"I was never a mainstream bridal designer. I am all about prêt. But over the years, my clients have forced me to do their bridal wear so I said why not."

"Whether people in Pakistan understand fashion or not, it is a true everyday-living history of our times. People judge you by the clothes and shoes that you wear; they are not bothered whether you live in Clifton, Nazimabad, Gulshan or FATA or anywhere. Everything is perceived by what you are wearing."

"I am not Benazir, and I know it. The people respect me only because I spent eleven years in prison."

"What can I do if everyone from the president to a junior bureaucrat is dying to convict me. If I am such a criminal, what was I doing outside jail before my marriage to Benazir?"

"I still don't think like that. Because of Benazir, nobody else [in her party] was thinking about leadership. This position comes about only because of the vacuum that was created with her death."

"Journalists are bigger terrorists than terrorists themselves."

"When the lights on the stage of life go out, those names shine brightly that were dedicated to the people, Gods agents in this world and its true masters. Asifs name will be one of those shining stars while those of his tormentors will fade from history."

"Nawaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari have both been looting Pakistan for the last 30 years, and both are equally responsible for destruction of the country."

"My mother always said democracy is the best revenge."

""Jab Barish Ata hai To Pani Aata hai, Jab Ziada Barish aata hai to Ziada pani aata hai"(in a news conference)"

""Kanpe tang rahi hain"(while addressing a public rally in Islamabad against Imran Khan)"

"The Islamists killed Benazir Bhutto as they killed her father. But they shouldn’t be allowed to kill Pakistan’s hopes for democracy."

"Most Pakistanis had hoped her rise to office would yield a return to normal life, to the pre-Zia era, with no screaming clerics or gangs of armed gunmen—religious or criminal—ruling the streets. They looked forward to a full return of civilian rule. But Pakistan’s army, powerful before, was now so entrenched in politics that they didn’t even need a general in the presidency to rule the country. Bhutto was replaced by a Zia protégé and friend of Saudi Arabia, Nawaz Sharif, a soft-spoken forty-year-old with a round face and a balding head. Sharif appeared bland, a nondescript-looking man, but he was a ruthless, cunning politician who would dominate Pakistani politics for the next three decades, in and out of power, in and out of political exile in Saudi Arabia, yet always pushing to continue Zia’s Islamization and sectarianization of the country."

"It is not a sad day … it is the darkest, gloomiest day in the history of this country."

"It's the vacuum that has been created by the martyrdom of my late wife that has sparked the [new situation] in Pakistan. She said in her book, "My death will be the catalyst of the change.""

"Mrs. Bhutto served her nation twice as Prime Minister and she knew that her return to Pakistan earlier this year put her life at risk. Yet she refused to allow assassins to dictate the course of her country. We stand with the people of Pakistan in their struggle against the forces of terror and extremism. We urge them to honor Benazir Bhutto's memory by continuing with the democratic process for which she so bravely gave her life."

"Benazir Bhutto’s party, the Pakistan Peoples Party, won enough seats to form a government. For five days, there was dancing and music on the streets of Pakistan, a public eruption of joy after years of fear, a celebration of life after everything but religion had been banned. Were people celebrating the first democratic elections in over a decade, or was it a belated celebration of Zia’s demise? Probably both, but another, more amorphous dictatorship was taking hold of the country, born from seeds planted there by Zia, with generous help from Saudi Arabia and the United States."

"Bhutto is a survivor and has an infinite belief in herself and her abilities. Rarely does she reveal even glimpses of her true character or her real thoughts. She may have genuinely not yet decided whether to return. Or she may have accepted that she can never return, but intends to leave the military on tenterhooks for as long as possible. Despite Musharraf's hostility, Bhutto's party is still the strongest political force in Pakistan and she is the only Pakistani politician with any natural charisma."

"The U.S. came to understand that Bhutto was not a threat to stability but was instead the only possible way that we could guarantee stability and keep the presidency of Musharraf intact."

"In her death the subcontinent has lost an outstanding leader who worked for democracy and reconciliation in her country. The manner of her going is a reminder of the common dangers that our region faces from cowardly acts of terrorism and of the need to eradicate this dangerous threat."

"I was brought up to believe that human beings are good, which is why it shocks me to the core when I see human beings behaving badly."

"Bhutto represents everything the fundamentalists hate — a powerful, highly-educated woman operating in a man’s world, seemingly unafraid to voice her independent views and, indeed, seemingly unafraid of anything, including the very real possibility that one day someone might succeed in killing her because of who she is."

"I don’t fear death. I remember my last meeting with my father when he told me, "You know, tonight when I will be killed, my mother and my father will be waiting for me." It makes me weepy … but I don’t think it can happen unless God wants it to happen because so many people have tried to kill me."

"If the people vote for my party and parliament elects me as prime minister, it would be an honour for me to take up that role and General Musharraf would be there as president, so I think that a good working relationship between him and me would be a necessity for Pakistan. … I would have the choice of either respecting the will of the people and making it a success or being short-sighted and putting my personal feelings about past events ahead of the national interest, and what I want more than anything is for Pakistan to prosper as we make a transition to democracy"

"I really do think that there is at least some degree of causality that most major terrorist attacks took place when the extremists did not have to deal with a democratic Pakistani government, when they operated without check and oversight. I believe that if my government had not been destabilised in Pakistan in 1996, the Taleban could not have allowed Osama bin Laden to set up base in Afghanistan, openly recruit and train young men from all over the Muslim world and declare war on America in 1998."

"It was her father who chose to call his first-born daughter Benazir, which means “without comparison”. I think he would feel that she is living up to his name."

"Looting. Rape. Kidnappings. Murder. Where no one had cared about Pakistan when I arrived at Harvard, now everyone did. And the condemnation of my country was universal. At first, I refused to believe the accounts in the Western press of atrocities being committed by our army in what the East Bengal rebels were now calling Bangladesh. According to the government-controlled Pakistani papers my parents sent me every week, the brief rebellion had been quelled. What were these charges then that Dacca had been burned to the ground and firing squads sent into the university to execute students, teachers, poets, novelists, doctors and lawyers? I shook my head in disbelief. Refugees were reportedly fleeing by the thousands, so many of them strafed and killed by Pakistani planes that their bodies were being used to erect road blocks."

"If they only showed this much spunk when it came to containing the terrorists I don't think we would have such a problem."

"I fully understand the men behind Al Qaeda. They have tried to assassinate me twice before. The Pakistan Peoples Party and I represent everything they fear the most — moderation, democracy, equality for women, information, and technology. We represent the future of a modern Pakistan, a future that has no place in it for ignorance, intolerance, and terrorism. The forces of moderation and democracy must, and will, prevail against extremism and dictatorship. I will not be intimidated. I will step out on the tarmac in Karachi not to complete a journey, but to begin one. Despite threats of death, I will not acquiesce to tyranny, but rather lead the fight against it."

"I put my life in danger and came here because I feel this country is in danger. People are worried. We will bring the country out of this crisis."

"No, I am not pregnant. I am fat. And, as the Prime Minister, its my right to be fat if I want to."

"Democracy is the best revenge."

"I was also too young and naive at Harvard to understand that the Pakistani army was capable of committing the same atrocities as any army let loose in a civilian population. The psychology can be deadly as it was when US forces massacred innocent civilians in Mylai in 1968."

"It’s premature to talk about working alongside General Musharraf at this stage, although in the past we have worked jointly on certain issues such as the Women’s Bill. At the same time, I want you to know that we are also partners with Mr Nawaz Sharif in something called the charter for the restoration of democracy, so we are talking about a new democratic process in which the people of Pakistan are allowed to choose their leader and put together a coalition. And for that we are calling for a robust international monitoring team to ensure that these elections are fair and free because obviously if they’re not, the ruling party will still be in the driver’s seat and the creeping Talebanisation of Pakistan will continue."

"My party would not have allowed the Taleban to become such a huge force that they would need to sign a peace treaty."

"My father always would say, "My daughter will go into politics? My daughter will become prime minister", but it’s not what I wanted to do. I would say, "No, Papa, I will never go into politics." As I’ve said before, this is not the life I chose; it chose me … But I accepted the responsibility and I’ve never wavered in my commitment."

"I know death comes. I’ve seen too much death, young death."

"It would be so nice to have the luxury just to laze. So nice not to have to always get up and get dressed for some occasion. Always having to move from here to there, where everything is scheduled and even having lunch with my kids on their Easter break has to be slotted in. Maybe one day..."

"My mother always said democracy is the best revenge."

"Benazir Bhutto was a woman of immense personal courage and bravery. Knowing, as she did, the threats to her life, the previous attempt at assassination, she risked everything in her attempt to win democracy in Pakistan, and she has been assassinated by cowards afraid of democracy. Benazir Bhutto may have been killed by terrorists, but the terrorists must not be allowed to kill democracy in Pakistan. And this atrocity strengthens our resolve that terrorists will not win there, here or anywhere in the world."

"The stories were so extreme I didn't know what to think. The lecture we'd been given about the dangers of rape during freshman orientation week at Radcliffe had initially seemed as unbelievable. I had never even heard of rape until I came to America and the very possibility of it kept me from going out alone at night for the next four years. After the lecture, the possibility of rape at Harvard was real to me. The rape of East Bengal was not. I found security in the official jingoistic line in our part of the world that the reports in the Western press were 'exaggerated' and a 'Zionist plot' against an Islamic state."

"Benazir was now prime minister, the first-ever female Muslim head of government anywhere—and one of the rare women leaders on the world stage, still a small club. But she would never again appear in public—in Pakistan or overseas—without a veil, a loosely wrapped white chiffon scarf that became her trademark. She would try to undo Zia’s Islamization and carry forward her father’s dream of a progressive country where there was no discrimination on the basis of sex, race, or religion. But she would fail, assailed by the now entrenched religious and security establishment bristling at a woman leader and her secular rule. With the encouragement of Saudi clerics, there had even been fatwas against her run for office. She would be removed from power by August 1990, outdone by the military establishment’s maneuvers against her, and plagued by allegations of corruption."

"We in Afghanistan condemn this act of cowardice and immense brutality in the strongest possible terms. She sacrificed her life for the sake of Pakistan and for the sake of this region."

"It is one thing being able to contest an election and to give the people hope that I can be the next prime minister. It is a totally different situation where the people of Pakistan are told that the results are already taken and the leader of your choice is banned."