Profile of Anita Shah

Profile
Rebecca Ursani
BS-III  Roll number: 2K14/MC/81

I like to fight than flight: Anita Shah

People often look for inspiration to work hard in their life. Some make progress by following the people who they are attracted to with their personality, with their art, with their writing or with any other aspect. Anita Shah, mother of two, a writer and a working woman is one of the many exemplary characters for most of the women.

 Anita Shah Lakyary was born on 15th of November, 1974. She has done her matriculation from Himayat ul Islam Girls High School in Hyderabad. She passed Intermediate from Nazreth College. Further, she did her BSC from Zubaida College and MBA from University of Sindh. Her versatility is proved by the degrees of LLB, MA in Sociology and did course of Post Graduate Diploma Certificate from Institute of Women's Studies, Lahore. Afterwards, as a visiting scholar she went for British council fellowship. She is also a Fulbright Scholar from a Hubert Humphrey fellowship. She says 'As all the women are multi-taskers, I have also been a multi-tasker all my life, simultaneously I managed my career'. Currently she is working in Government for which she passed Provincial Secretariat Service (PSS) examination of Sindh Government in 2001. Before that she was assigned as Research Associate in University of Sindh and taught there for less than two years.

 When asked about her inspirations, she says, 'since childhood we had observed our parents only. They were very fond of reading and were extremely hard working. They used to tell us stories at night. When I became capable of learning in first or second standard, I used to buy short stories and read them. I have always tried to make the most of my time. There have been many inspirations for me and one of them was my mother. She never let us skip our school ever. Besides that, Benazir Bhutto, as a personality, she has been my inspiration and ofcourse she is adored in the whole world'.  Anita Shah loves reading biographies, autobiographies as well as fiction stories. According to Anita, her parents belonged to rural areas so they did not live their whole life in Hyderabad only. She has experienced the village life as well and she makes sure that her children also experience the life outside the cities and make them realize that the life is not only limited to Hyderabad and Karachi.

In the beggining when she went abroad to study she faced many challenges in personal as well as on professional ground. Beacuse her career as a journalist was different than an ordinary doctor or an engineer. It was difficult time for her to hear all the criticism from the society but she never gave up because she was supported by her parents. Gradually, the society also accepted her as a working lady because they felt her sincerity and enthusiasm towards her career.

This charming lady, dressed gracefully with her hair nicely tied and glasses put on is a very humble lady in speaking. Her office was a quite big room with the walls painted yellow and black table set in the half left portion of the room. The table was arranged with a pile of papers, pen holders, a paper weight and a telephone. The windows were exposing bright sunlight in the room and her certifactes of journalism were hung on the wall in front of her table. There were about ten chairs in her office, arranged in a line set against the walls. According to her friend, Sindhiya Ursani, Anita Shah has a humble nature and is a very cooperative lady and an example for all the women. Parallel to that, the views of Parwez Bughio about her are that she is one dynamic personality with huge experience and knowledge.  She is one of the leading intellectual women in Sindh.

Anita is very much concerned regarding our educational system. She believes students should get a proper education in a proper way without any disturbances and boycotts that she faced in her life when she was studying in University of Sindh. Her articles are published in Kawish mostly because that is the mostly read newspaper. She writes in Dawn newspaper too.

Her advice for our nation is that we should stop blaming others for any kind of loss. Everybody should play their own role in society and the society will progress itself. Therefore, every individual should work on improving their own character, excellence and position.