From the late 1970s, when my mother, a reporter in India, first interviewed him, to well into the 1990s, when he led the Pakistan team to a World Cup victory against England, he towered over the landscape of practically all those nations where the Union Jack had ever flown. Khan was, if not a living saint, then certainly a living god. Millions of people, particularly in rural areas of the country, follow them, consulting them on everything from religious matters to sickness and family problems.'
'Spiritual guides, or pirs,' Khan writes in his autobiography, 'are quite common in Pakistan. In 2015, Maneka had added to her growing list of clients the man who was the object of her prophetic dream: Imran Khan, the legendary cricketer and most famous Pakistani alive. Known as Pinky Peerni to her admirers, Maneka's gift of clairvoyance had earned her a following well beyond her hometown of Pakpattan, a celebrated spiritual center 115 miles southwest of Lahore.
Visions and prophecies were Bushra Maneka's stock and trade, for she was a female pir, or living saint. One night the future first lady of Pakistan had a dream.