Featuring: (left to right) Natasha Ali Lakhani, Ansab Jahangir,  Samina Humayun Saeed,  Sana Shahnawaz, Kubra Khan, Zoha Shakir & Fatima Hasan
Featuring: (left to right) Natasha Ali Lakhani, Ansab Jahangir, Samina Humayun Saeed, Sana Shahnawaz, Kubra Khan, Zoha Shakir & Fatima Hasan

A few empowered messages, a selection of women gathered together for an appealing photo shoot and a smattering of inspirational anecdotes — whisk them all together and you’ve aptly recognised and commemorated Women’s Day.

These are tropes that surface every March: at corporate events, at brand promotional activities in malls and in cover stories of magazines and newspapers. Stories like this one.

But while the tropes fit into the Women’s Day narrative very well, they’re entirely predictable. And boring.

How does one, then, suitably recognise Women’s Day without being entirely generic? It is a day that is dedicated to celebrating the efforts made by women and how they manage to overcome the obstacles that life constantly throws their way. Within the Pakistani context, the day acknowledges struggles that extend from mastering the work-home balance to battling regressive societal norms and rigid preconceived notions. How can all this be talked about while refraining from spinning a story that has been plastered on the covers of newspapers and magazines time and time again?

For me, what distinguished this particular write-up from many other similar contenders were the stories that the women I talked to had to tell me. I talked to a diverse crew of women, all well-known in their fields: designers Ansab Jahangir and Zoha Danial of Ansab Jahangir Studio, actor Kubra Khan, beautician Natasha Lakhani, model and social media influencer Fatima Hassan and TV producers Samina Humayun Saeed and Sana Shahnawaz.

‘If a woman puts her mind to something, she can achieve anything and everything… the sky’s the limit.’ For the upcoming Women’s Day on March 8, Icon pays homage to the often quiet, career women who have carved spaces for themselves in the entertainment and fashion professions by dint of their resoluteness and hard work…

These were not women who had necessarily been outspoken about women’s rights or spearheaded movements in support of their gender. But in the course of building their careers, they have encountered their fair share of challenges, made observations and become stronger. Their stories and the messages hidden within them are inspirational…

“No one understands a woman’s battles better than a woman herself.” — Natasha Lakhani, beautician at Beyond Beauty Natasha

“No one’s going to pay you money just because you are someone’s granddaughter,” observes beautician Natasha Lakhani, granddaughter of the legendary Madam Noor Jehan. “They may come and meet you, they may show you respect, but they will only invest their money in your work if they believe that you will deliver.

“It’s funny, when I first opened up my salon, people said that I would attract customers easily because of my famous lineage. But for the first seven, eight months, we barely had any clients. Business only picked up once we’d proven our mettle.”

She continues: “People also told me back then that I was too young to launch a salon of my own — I was 25-years-old at the time. They advised me to work within an established salon first, learn the ropes and then start my own business. But I was very passionate and I worked extremely hard. I utilised social media for promotion at a time when very few people understood how it could be a great marketing tool. And business accelerated.”

Her salon business, initially branded as Natasha’s Salon, was renamed Beyond Beauty Natasha some years ago because she felt the need to talk about much more than surface beauty.

“I think my gender has been a huge help in the field that I have chosen,” says Natasha. “I understand the struggles that tend to be part of a woman’s journey, and it has helped me steer my business forwards. When I had a child, I uploaded pictures of my post-partum body on social media because I wanted to connect with other women who may have gone through similar challenges. On my Instagram profile, I talk about everything from mental health to acne and hormonal imbalances. I don’t want to project that things are picture-perfect when they rarely ever are.

“Also, I want to encourage and support my gender. It is a sad reality that, in our society, women often try to pull each other down. It’s something that I have observed and experienced in varied settings — at social dinners, business events and in the way that the customers in my salon sometimes interact with each other.

“Sometimes, I have intervened in the conversations taking place in my salon and advised people to be kinder. No one understands a woman’s battles better than a woman herself, and we need to develop a greater empathy for each other.”

Has she faced difficulties in building her business because of her gender?

“Never,” says Natasha. “I think that women often end up perceiving themselves as damsels in distress because of the way in which they have been raised. I have been fortunate enough to have always been surrounded by very strong women. My grandmother was a powerful woman. She would go visit dignitaries and perform in front of large crowds without a bodyguard by her side. People tell me that when she entered a room, even the men there would quail. She exuded a lot of confidence and this personality trait has carried on in her children. All the women in my family are extremely strong. I have never looked at my khalas [maternal aunts] and thought that they wouldn’t be able to do what a man could do.

Sometimes, I have intervened in the conversations taking place in my salon and advised people to be kinder. No one understands a woman’s battles better than a woman herself and we need to develop a greater empathy for each other.”

“It’s all in your head. You could be feminine and glamorous but, at the same time, you can be aggressive about your goals. You can work hard and, with a bit of luck by your side, you’ll be able to get whatever you want in life!”

“The word bhai [brother] can be a great safety blanket.” — Kubra Khan, actor

“I wish that our seniors had called out bullies and trolls back in the day,” says actress Kubra Khan. “Perhaps, then, many of us wouldn’t have had to bear with similar slander. There are people who think that they can get away with saying anything that they like about a woman believing that she’s too weak to retaliate or rebuke them.”

Anyone who knows Kubra Khan will vouch that she’s hardly the sort of person to invite controversy — but over time, she’s realised the importance of standing up for herself. “For the longest time, I would simply ignore people’s mean comments on social media. But I’ve realised that sometimes it’s important to take a stand. There’s no denying that as actresses, we go through a lot just because of our gender. There have been times when people have tried to involve me in controversies that I have nothing to do with. On multiple occasions, it has been assumed that just because I work in the entertainment industry, I am partying around all the time and don’t have any religious values. And anytime I attend a wedding or an event, pictures of me do get floated about with social media commentators questioning my morality. There are men in the industry who post all sorts of pictures of themselves and no one bats an eyelid. But a woman in a sari is going to aggravate the mass audience to no end!”

Photography & styling: Ali Khurshid | Hair & make-up: Nabila’s Outfits: Ansab Jahangir | Concept & coordination: Umer Mushtaq
Photography & styling: Ali Khurshid | Hair & make-up: Nabila’s Outfits: Ansab Jahangir | Concept & coordination: Umer Mushtaq

In addition, Kubra has had to tolerate more sleazy assumptions simply since she has been raised abroad. “People think that she grew up in a foreign country so she must be a certain way. What do they know about me, my life, my religious beliefs and my code of ethics?”

She surmises, “Eventually, you grow a thick skin. From a spiritual aspect, I also feel that if anyone — even an unknown troll — hurts you to the point that you cry, then he or she has God to answer to. It’s a belief that has helped me cope more easily with the nastiness that is everywhere!”

Beyond social media, are assumptions also made about actresses by the people around them, perhaps by people in the industry who make suggestive comments or passes at them? She laughs. “Yes, that does happen but you need to know where to draw the line. I have been lucky because from the very beginning of my career, I have been working with some very prestigious production companies and directors. They have all been people who have treated me with a lot of respect. I have to point out that not all men in the industry are the same, not all of them try to make a move on the women around them.”

“Just in case, I have discovered that calling a man bhai [brother] can be a good safety blanket. Almost everyone I work with is bhai to me. Desi men tend to really respect that word,” she laughs.

On the professional front, does she try to sift through predominantly regressive drama storylines and sign on to scripts that present women in a more balanced way? “Yes, I am very picky and because of that there have been times when I haven’t worked for years,” she says. “People tell me that I can do this because I can afford it but really, I can’t. There are times when I am completely broke and I still refuse to work on a script that I don’t believe in.”

Kubra continues, “There have been times when I have actually discussed script changes with the director because I didn’t agree with certain aspects of it. I worked in a telefilm last year where in the end, my character defies her parents by running away from home with the boy she loves. I told the producer that I couldn’t stand by a story that supported running away from home. I was told that the plot would be adjusted in the final edit but when, on the last day of the drama shoot, I was supposed to enact the end, I got apprehensive. What if the plot didn’t get changed ultimately?”

“Javed Sheikh was acting in the telefilm with me and I shared my fears with him. He agreed with me and said that he’d stand by me. Then, Samina Ahmed, who was also part of the cast, also decided to join us. We talked to the director and the end was rewritten right there, so that there was no chance of the drama concluding in any other way!”

“It’s very important for the fraternity to stand together in order to bring about change,” Kubra points out. “It’s also important for women in the industry to have empathy for each other. If we simply keep competing and fighting over some script, some show, some event, some guy, then we’ll never become stronger. United, we can have a voice that is very, very powerful.”

“A husband is your golden ticket, unfortunately!” — Fatima Hasan, model and social media influencer

“I have never pretended to be someone I am not on social media,” says Fatima Hasan. Fatima is a very familiar face in top fashion campaigns, where she can be seen wearing everything ranging from three-piece luxury lawn to heavy bridal-wear.

She is also, simultaneously, an avid Instagrammer, chronicling the many details of her life through a daily deluge of Instastories. She wears whatever she wants to, goes wherever she likes and she has no qualms in uploading it all on the internet for the world to see.

“If I am going to a friend’s birthday and wearing a dress, I’ll put those videos out. If I am going to a milad wearing eastern-wear, I’ll upload those pictures too. I want my social media presence to be true to who I am and I think the people who follow me, love me for it. Also, they know my personality because they follow me and, so, they are kind to me.

“People sometimes ask me if I ever get scared because I am revealing so much about my life — what I wear, where I go, who I meet — to the world at large. Honestly, I don’t! My husband works abroad and I live alone and I have never felt insecure. Should something bad ever happen, God forbid, what wonders can a man in the house achieve anyway?”

Do people take her modelling career seriously? Or does she have to deal with snide comments and assumptions made about her lifestyle?

“I have never had to deal with assumptions, maybe because I tend to move amongst a certain crowd,” she muses. “Before I married, though, my father would advise me to opt for what he considered a ‘serious’ career, and not modelling. My family was very open-minded and there were no restrictions imposed upon me, but my father just felt that I had a degree and that I should utilise it to go in a different direction.

“I would get modelling offers — friends and family would sometimes ask me to be part of shoots for them — but I would always refuse and say that I had other ambitions.

“I worked in the development sector for seven years and the modelling offers would still be coming in. I was married by then and my husband knew that I wasn’t very happy with my job. He suggested that I should give modelling a try. When I did, I enjoyed it so much that I kept on working in more and more campaigns! My husband and my in-laws are very supportive of what I do and I think that’s really helped me work on my career and take it forward.”

Are other models that she works with also supported by their families similarly? “Some are, but I do know of girls who defied their families and even left home in order to pursue modelling careers. Ironically, once they became successful and started earning good money, their families began to accept them.”

Is the fashion industry a difficult one to work in, for a model?

“Actually, I think female models have it easier than male models!” Fatima says. “There’s so much work to do and a lot of respect. Also, I haven’t ever had to deal with suggestive comments or passes while I am at work. Just because I am a model and am open to dressing in different clothes doesn’t mean that people can make assumptions about me. It helps that I am married, though. In Pakistan, a husband is a golden ticket to getting accepted and discouraging seedy come-ons. Unfortunately, that’s just the way it is!”

“It took a while for the men that we work with to take us seriously.” — Ansab Jahangir and Zoha Danial, designers at Ansab Jahangir Studio

The Ansab Jahangir Studio has steamrolled into becoming one of Pakistan’s most popular fashion ateliers but, for sisters Ansab Jahangir and Zoha Danial, building the brand has involved plenty of micro-managing and making sure their team knows who’s boss.

“Running any business requires dependency on men as well as women, and this was very challenging when we first started out,” recalls Ansab. “There were times when people wouldn’t take us seriously, from our kaarigars [craftsmen] to people in our HR department to the vendors that we had to be in contact with. It took time for them to realise that we meant business.”

Zoha remembers: “There was this one time, back when the brand was very new, that we had to deliver a customer’s order urgently. I asked our team of kaarigars to work through the night to get the order completed — they would be paid extra for this, of course. When I came to work in the morning, I discovered that they hadn’t worked through the night at all. They had assumed that we wouldn’t say anything and simply hadn’t turned up.

“I flew into a panic, getting more workmen on board so that the order could be ready on time. I was livid at the kaarigars and at that point I didn’t care that I was a female or much younger than them. I just gave them a piece of my mind, and I think they ended up respecting me for it.

“Somehow, I feel that when a man speaks to them, even a very young one, they take him more seriously,” she says. “Also, I’ve noticed the changes in the workmen’s attitudes ever since my husband joined the business last year. Earlier, Ansab, our mother and myself used to manage the brand together, but now my husband is there too and, somehow, they seem to listen to him more. It used to irritate me until I figured that I didn’t care, as long as the work got done.”

Managing the home with the burgeoning demands of their atelier was another challenge that both sisters faced. “I had my first born in 2016 and having a nursery in the office really helped,” says Ansab. “Now, my children go to school and it’s just easier for them to come to my office from school. That way, they’re around me even when I am at work. There are other women in the office who also bring their children to work and leave them in the nursery.”

Similarly, Zoha’s eight-month-old accompanies her to work every day. “It helps that I own the brand. It allows me the luxury to have my child with me constantly. I’ll put him in his bouncer while I am meeting with clients or he’ll be in the nursery connected to my office. Being at work has made him very comfortable around strangers, because he meets new people every day!”

“The pandemic also helped,” Ansab adds. “It taught us how to efficiently work remotely from home. We have online WhatsApp groups that allow us to constantly stay in touch with our staff and make sure that the business runs smoothly, even if we are not at the workshop or in the store premises. Managing home with work can be tough for women, but we’ve fortunately been able to manage a balance, especially because our families have been very supportive.”

“It’s 2023 and the lines between what women can do and can’t do have gotten blurred.” — Samina Humayun Saeed and Sana Shahnawaz, producers at Next Level Entertainment and Epic Entertainment

Samina Humayun Saeed and Sana Shahnawaz, CEO and producers at Next Level Entertainment and Epic Entertainment, have one of the country’s most successful producers and actors, Humayun Saeed, guiding them at home. Both women, however, insist that while his advice and support may be a perk, they only managed to create an identity for themselves through hard work.

“Being related to someone doesn’t guarantee anyone’s success,” says Sana. “If I didn’t know my work well, my career wouldn’t have lasted. A producer doesn’t just have to have business acumen, one needs to have artistic flair and the vision to assemble the right team which includes the writer, director, cast and soundtrack.

“I am completely involved in every one of my drama productions. I’ll know the script by heart and the details of every scene. Then, when I see my vision culminate in a scene on TV which the audience appreciates, I feel elated.”

She adds, “Humayun is, of course, an inspiration. I have observed how he has worked over the past two decades and he has taught me everything that I know.”

Samina says, “A surname can’t further a person’s career. Like in any great partnership, the input, support and encouragement of your spouse matters a lot. Humayun is the last person to ever stop a woman from pursuing her career.”

She continues: “Today, my company has more female employees than males. We produced a project such as Sinf-i-Aahan, inspired by real-life women from the army, following the narrative that women are no less than men in any field. I am so glad that we have come a long way, as Pakistani women, breaking stereotypes.

“When I started my career as a producer about 25 years ago, women such as Sultana Siddiqui and Sahira Kazmi had already achieved many accolades, with a number of memorable projects. They had paved the way for new producers like myself.”

Do Samina and Sana consider themselves to be women trying to make a mark in a man’s world? Their answers are to the contrary.

“It all depends on how a woman conducts herself professionally and personally,” says Samina. “I think women are respected and encouraged to work on an equal footing with their male counterparts.”

Sana adds, “It’s 2023, and the lines between what women can and can’t do have gotten blurred. I believe that if a woman puts her mind to something, she can achieve anything and everything. All she needs is the support of her family, confidence and the ability to work hard and then, the sky’s the limit!”

Published in Dawn, ICON, March 5th, 2023

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