KARACHI, Oct 24: Mrs Shehla Shibli, noted writer, journalist and lecturer passed away at her residence here on Sunday. Educated at the Kinnaird and Government colleges in Lahore, she joined the All India Radio during the Second World War. While managing children’s and music programmes for the radio, she strengthened an abiding interest in music and culture and developed friendships with notable music and radio personalities of the subcontinent.
Married in 1946, she moved with her husband to Karachi after witnessing the horrors of partition in Lahore and Delhi. Here she worked as a college lecture, a journalist -— she was a frequent contributor to Dawn in the sixties, seventies and eighties. She wrote a children’s book in Urdu which enjoyed modest but steady sales over almost three decades. She also contributed a section in the book ‘Common Heritage’, written jointly by noted Indian and Pakistani authors to commemorate Pakistan’s 50th Anniversary.
Throughout her life Shehla Shibli maintained the liberal and humanistic values of her generation, and strove to illustrate the absurdities of the human condition through humour and gentle sarcasm in her articles.
