On a December morning 20 years ago, I awoke in a bed in Karachi. The air was damp and sticky and I breathed in the headachy smell of jasmine. I opened the curtains and blinked at the yellow morning sun. It was day three of the wedding celebrations of Benazir Bhutto.

A few months earlier, the foreign editor of the Financial Times had been unable to attend a lunch of south Asian politicians. Instead he sent me, a foreign desk intern. I sat next to a gentle-voiced man from the Pakistan People’s party, Benazir Bhutto’s party, who asked if I would like to interview her.

Of course I said yes – and now I was a guest at her wedding.

Weddings are a matter of face in Pakistan, and families will spend much of their lives in debt to give their daughters a good send-off. Benazir’s landed family was far from poor, and her husband-to-be, Asif Ali Zardari, was from one of the 22 families that once owned two-thirds of Pakistan.

He had already given her a heartshaped ring of diamonds and sapphires and sent her roses every day. But Benazir was locked in a battle with an array of aunties dismayed at her refusal to accept the traditional trousseau from the groom’s family. Instead of the 21 to 51 sets of clothes usually presented to the bride, she had set the limit at two, protesting: “I am a leader, I must set an example to my people.”

Every few minutes another group of cousins arrived from New York, Tehran, London or Bombay, prompting hysterical scenes. Every so often the merrymaking was stopped abruptly by a power cut, prompting speculation that General Zia ul-Haq, the military dictator who hanged Benazir’s father, was reasserting his authority.

The morning before the main celebrations was devoted to beautification. Groups of brightly swathed girls sat chattering for hours while intricate henna designs were painstakingly etched on their hands and feet.

Upstairs Benazir was undergoing the painful process of having all her body hair removed, but there were no screams to be heard above the din down below. This was, after all, a bride who had endured years in detention by a military regime, including 10 months in solitary confinement in Sukkur jail.

Next day, in a colourful marquee erected in the garden between the palms and mango trees, Benazir sat on a mother-of-pearl bench beside Asif and said “yes” three times to become a married woman. A mirror was then held in front of them, so they could see each other as a married couple for the first time, while sugar was ground over their heads so their lives would be sweet.

It was an arranged marriage. Benazir’s press statement announcing her engagement had begun less than enthusiastically: “Conscious of my religious obligations and duty to my family, I am pleased to proceed with the marriage proposal accepted by my mother.” But everyone said that in arranged marriages you learn to love each other and all her aunties said how pleased they were that “Bibi” was finally settling down.

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