Diary of Reham Khan
It’s another lovely day in the life of Reham Khan, sunny with no chance of rain. Temperatures were rising a few days ago but are expected to cool down now that the election is over. The day’s forecast is pleasant, although, considering what Imran had for breakfast, warm winds are expected at around noon.
What can I say about my marriage that hasn’t already been retweeted hundreds of times? Ever since Imran made it public, it’s either been #SelfieWithBhabi or #RehamTheEvil. His female fan base has been sending me hate messages for two months now. I wonder if this is what it was like for Jemima, or was it the other way around and British men sent hate mail to Imran?
Our heady affair started when he saw me on television interviewing a politician. “Who is this incredible moron?” he asked of the politician. “That’s you, sir,” his security detail told him. “And who is this beautiful woman? I must meet her. Can we arrange another interview?”
The rest as they say is history. At first, he’d told me this dharna would last a couple of weeks and when he’d be prime minister, we would get married. Then, he told me it might last a month and he wasn’t sure if he would be prime minister when we got married. Then, he asked me if he could sell our engagement ring as the dharna had gone on for two months and somebody had to pay for all that awful music being played.
We knew when we announced our marriage that people would be shocked: after all, I was a successful television anchor marrying a washed-up cricketer. We expected public scrutiny but maybe not making the 9 o’clock news by eating a kulfi.
Life as Mrs Khan can be tough. He wakes me up early in the mornings while he’s practising the day’s speech in front of the mirror. He sometimes gets stuck on three-syllable words and needs my help. I tell him he should keep it simple, things he can easily pronounce like
oye and
dhandli. Then, we go downstairs and there’s already 50 people waiting to talk to him – who I have to listen to – while he runs around the house without his shirt.
For lunch, we decide the party’s policy. His children usually come up to him to ask for help with homework and then he comes to me to ask for help with that homework. Over evening tea, we discard what we had decided about party policy and, by dinner, we have a new party policy ready to be discarded later. He often sits and pretends to read under lamplight but I know he’s not really reading as he never turns a page and is often holding the book upside down — it’s adorable.
He needs lots of love and support from his family. The other day, we sat down and held hands while he repeated, “I will not say anything stupid today”. But then, he went and said he’s half Muhajir. Oh well, you can’t win them all.
The best thing about this marriage is that we never have arguments: to have an argument, you need someone to listen to what you’re saying long enough to become offended. Imran doesn’t listen to anyone else.
When he’s watching a cricket match, he does not want to be disturbed. He often says, “If I were the captain of Australia right now, this is what I’d do”, then the captain of Australia does something completely different and wins the match. He was upset the other day that China’s president didn’t come to meet us at Bani Gala. He’d even ordered Kim Mun and was going to tell the president how he was also half Chinese. He also explained to me yesterday how, even though MQM had won the NA-246 election, they had actually lost the NA-246 election — because they weren’t as inspirational.
Imran is inspirational. You see, he’s very good at waving to people; he says it’s just like setting a field. I asked him yesterday, “What idiot writes your speeches? I can do a better job.” He shrugged his shoulders and said he writes them himself. I told him he should let me take care of these things; I’m trained in public speaking and know how to handle myself in front of cameras.
