Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's days in politics were numbered from the very beginning. But being the sort of feudal leader that he was, his story was inevitably told in epic proportions. When he was a child, his mother had taken the young Bhutto to a palm reader who predicted that the young feudal would blaze a trail of fire on the political landscape of his country.

The child was destined to leave a mark on the nation's psyche, claimed the fortune teller - but he could not (or would not) say what was in store for Bhutto after his fiftieth birthday.

As Bhutto reached the fateful date in his life, he grew ever more erratic and controversial in his thoughts and deeds. The man managed to inspire an entire generation of Pakistanis with his calls for rapid development and an end to the bad old days of the past.

His nationalisation scheme had uprooted the traditional ruling elites and turned the economy on its head. His violently patriotic rhetoric of national dignity and self-determination provoked a hostile response from the United States as well as Pakistan's more powerful neighbour, India.