This manipulation of events proves that within the narrative there is an obvious bias towards the things that Tehmina Durrani believed or knew. When Pakistan publishers balked at the controversial nature of her manuscript, she published it herself. This is a story of most of the pakistani women, so she faced nothing extra, And whatever she faced during her marriage with Khar was the result of her own action, She did the same to Mustafa's Ex-wife sherry, which happened to her by her own sister Adila. He is a Barbarian who tries to mingle among the elites of society but always stands out because of his feudal heritage and rural upbringing. It was during this time, with Tehmina frustrated and bored of her first husband, during which she met Mustafa Khar, an upcoming politician who could have walked straight out of one of McNaught’s aforementioned novels, in that all the clichés about heroes seem to have applied to him.

This connection between the Mustafa Khar that other people saw and the reality of who he was—a vicious and cruel person—seemed to be pervasive throughout both his political life as well as his personal. He often interrogates Tehmina about her past marital relationship with Anees, and when she fails to articulate responses acceptable to his verdict, he trashes her with a new vigor, charged by twisted and perverted jealousy. All these things are intense and involve patriarchal notions in all forms, which means it involves a careful untangling of your own horror as a reaction to the story. This book is great if you are interested in Pakistani politics otherwise give it a miss, it really isn't worth it.It shows the claustrophobic feudal colonial mindset which no amount of education, progressive ideas and nurture can ever change. Born into one of Pakistan's most influential families, Tehmina Durrani was raised in the privileged milieu of Lahore high society. This, coupled with the fact that she then married Shahbaz Sharif, (current Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly of Pakistan) thereby jumping back into politics. She wanted to be the part of high society attention of the most powerful man of Punjab and did everything for it. Tehmina's mother, Samina Durrani, is the daughter of Nawab Sir Liaqat Hayat Khan, the prime minister of the former princely state of Patiala.

Durrani's fourth book "Happy Things in Sorrow Times" (2013) is a novel based on the childhood and youth of an Afghan girl Rabia. Most of the beginning of this book feels like a Judith McNaught novel, in that everyone is filthy rich and ridiculously good looking except for our ugly duckling heroine. Mustafa’s divorce with Sherry, when the initial glitter started to worn off, Tehmina began to sense her new husband’s mercurial state of nature.While she claims it was love, I fell it was her desire to be one of the elites and followed her lust. They all indulge in rich people activities and spend their time doing rich people things, with a whole team of servants and guards streaming behind them.

Tehmina Durrani is among Pakistan's English speaking privileged elite, yet even she could not escape getting singed by the overbearing tyranny of Pakistan's tribal/feudal/male chauvinistic culture.Like all women of her rank, she was expected to marry a prosperous Muslim from a respectable family, bear him many children and lead a sheltered life of leisure. Like all women of her rank, she was expected to marry a prosperous Muslim from a respectable family, bear him many children, and lead a sheltered life of air-conditioned leisure. In multiple scenes, the ghastly things that Khar did are presented as an example of his prowess or his thinking abilities rather than as a testament to his foul personality.

His first wife, older than him and handed to him on the authority of his father, he ran off to the city to escape after impregnating. Hypocrisy, egoism, cruelty, nepotism, immorality, tyranny - these are the themes that dominate this book and its characters, the author included.

She was fully involved in the conspiracy to overthrow the government in Pakistan with the help of money and arms from Indian government. She also refuses to accept that she also ruined someone's home, and she also left a husband and a daughter, a daughter who kept coming back to a mother who didn't want her, and instead chooses to victimize herself even when it wasn't needed. But I tried to be as open as possible to my own reaction to the writing, which ended up being an account of one of the most unstable, unhealthy relationships I’ve ever read.