TENNIS: ‘CAVORTING IN SKIRTS’
One day in the summer of 1977, not long after he had deposed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in a military coup, General Ziaul Haq watched a women’s tennis match in Islamabad. The players on show weren’t Martina Navratilova or Chris Evert; they were two teenage girls from London named Mahmuda Jafarey and her sister Rehana Jafarey.
“We came out in our tennis outfits and I can never forget the expression on my khala’s face at what we were wearing,” recalls Mahmuda. “There was a tennis fashion at the time, where the underwear beneath the tennis skirt — for lack of a better word, they are like ‘knickers’ — had this frill with red piping. My khala with whom we were staying thought that people would think that I was on my period! She said people will be horrified at the idea of this girl bleeding while performing.”
Dogged as they were, the two sisters ignored the aunt and went to play before the new military dictator. Despite her aunt’s fears, however, the match was received very well. The sisters were invited to the VIP enclosure after the match, introduced to General Zia, and the winner (Mahmuda in this case) was offered an all-expenses-paid trip to Florida to represent Pakistan in a major international tournament for juniors. Mahmuda went on to play for Pakistan at several other junior tournaments, becoming the first to represent the country in international tennis.
How two sisters overcame family pressure, fatwas and racism to represent Pakistan during Gen Zia’s rule
Without a doubt, Mahmuda and Rehana Jafarey were treading a path not taken before. But today, there are very few women tennis stars to have become household names in Pakistan. Part of the reason is that little is known of the sisters’ journey and how they overcame barriers in both worlds they inhabited: the financial hardship of an immigrant family and xenophobia in England, as well as Pakistani social and cultural conservatism at home.
OUTSIDERS
Mahmuda and Rehana’s parents were first-generation Pakistani immigrants struggling to make a life in Britain. Resources were tight but the girls had passion in abundance.
“We began playing tennis after watching and really enjoying Wimbledon,” says Mahmuda. But since their parents couldn’t afford equipment, club membership fees, travel and other expenses required to play tennis, the two had to look for alternative options. “We were very lucky that in spite of having no money, a coach took us under his wing,” she narrates.
As their interest in the sport grew, the girls found part-time work to finance it. “Rehana must’ve been 15 and I was 12 or 13, and we got jobs as cleaners at a bingo hall. For about four years, three days a week, before school, we would go to this bingo hall and clean it up, until we were old enough to start coaching; that made us better money.
“My sister and I went and played in competitions and we represented Middlesex County. Both of us did quite well. By the time I was 16, I had earned quite a reputation.”
The sisters faced stern opposition from their mother, who viewed their potential tennis careers as an impediment to their marriage prospects. “I remember her saying, ‘No one is going to want to marry a girl who plays tennis or doesn’t know how to make chapatis or is masculine. You will never get married,’” recalls Mahmuda. “That was the future she saw for her daughters, which for us was very limiting and not very fun.”
“It was a cultural thing, because girls from India and Pakistan are meant to be married and be good girls who go to school. Not go to a foreign country and play tennis,” says Rehana. The saving grace for the two “deviant” sisters was their father. “He believed that girls as much as boys were entitled to having the experiences they wanted for themselves.”
While the two sisters fought within their family and community for their right to play, they’d soon realised that racism was a different beast altogether. 1970s’ England was not as socially inclusive then and the sporting authorities did not seem too keen on them.
“We were competing in a tournament that was to lead to selection for Wimbledon Juniors, and the top four were to be selected. I made it to the top three, but was still not selected,” says Mahmuda. “My sister and I felt that we weren’t really taken in to the bosom of the playing community. And it took time before we realised what had happened.”
“We had faced resistance from our mother, our community, but this was a moment of realisation,” chimes in Rehana. “We were entering a dominantly white, upper-middle class environment and playing there, but never really belonging.” She argues that there was a noticeable lack of diversity in the sport in England. “It’s the mindset that we are going to help our own rather than someone else. When I went for the tournaments to Europe after Pakistan, it was always very white. I think I was the only one with dark skin. I knew I was different because I looked different.”
PAKISTAN CALLING
It was at this moment, with the sisters disgruntled about their lack of progression in Britain, that they received an invitation from the All Pakistan Lawn Tennis Association (APTA).
“We had never been to Pakistan,” says Mahmuda. “It was enthralling, the prospect of travelling to Pakistan for the first time, and playing for Pakistan.” The sisters bid farewell to their parents and went to Karachi where they were welcomed by the APTA.
“We played for three or four months in Pakistan. We competed in a Karachi hard court tournament, the clay court national tournament in Islamabad, and the grass tournaments in Lahore,” says Mahmuda. “We were very struck by the interest that locals took in us.”