The Godfather
Long Island and New York are a long way from Raiwind and Lahore but a recent interview with Mian Mohammad Sharif, the father of former PM Mian Nawaz Sharif, “Abbaji” as he is widely known, shows that Godfathers are alive and well, in any country and in any age they remain the same. Mario Puzo’s fictionalized saga of a prominent mafia family had “olive oil” as the core family business, for the Sharifs it is “steel”. The script of “The Godfather” is eerily familiar, the similarities are uncanny. Vito Corleone and the eldest Sharif, both dominant personalities displaced from their roots, rise from humble origins in the new country to control large, powerful “families” comprising blood relations and close associates. One does not see “Abbaji” going around brandishing a pistol knocking off people in his young age as did the elder Corleone but a notorious faction of Kashmiri origin of Lahore, generally believed to be the muscle of the Sharif family, specialized in physically taking over property, helpless widows being a special target of the “Qabza” group. It may be no mean coincidence that their “Capo” is presently residing in New York, what better safe distance from where to fulminate and conspire than the home of the original Godfather?
