In a large box in Bariz Shah’s Sandringham house were the contents of his life. When we spoke, he had yet to open it. It is, or parts of it are, like the mythical Pandora’s box. Open the lid and out will fly bad and harrowing things.
There will be evil in there. He believes in evil. There is “the Whisper”, which is the devil and which gets inside your head and “if you’re not careful we will end up in the depths of hell by indulging ourselves to that Whisper.” He grew up believing that he carried the evil that is the Whisper within him. But like Pandora’s box, his also contains hope.
Lots of it. Hope, and love, and Allah triumphs over evil, he believes. He should know.
But the real reason he hadn’t opened his box is that he was waiting for the return of his wife and their two young boys from a family trip to Australia. He wanted to make a video of their faces when he opened the box and, voilà, out into the world arrived his memoir: His face is on the cover. His boys, 3 and 1, pointed and said, “Daddy!” His wife, Saba, cried tears of joy. You can see why she might have. Inside that box of
