Zara Suhail Mannan - We deserve to be free here as much as our male counterparts, this is my Pakistan too
Description
Zara Suhail Mannan is Shana’s guest on this week’s episode of Her Kajal Won’t Smudge. Zara studied English at Yale University. After Yale, she could have sought out the best-paying corporate job she could have found, but instead Zara returned to Pakistan to teach at an all-boys underprivileged school. By day, she taught, presenting as a man, and mentored young boys and, by night, she was one-half of a glittery, sparkly, pop band called Mystical Shayari. It all came to a head when Mystical Shayiri did a photoshoot, glammed up, in front of a monument to the founder of Pakistan, Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah.
Next came online trolling, death threats, arrest, TV shaming and more. But what Zara has won in the process is truly a testament to the force that she is. Let’s just say, she set the record straight about what it means to be a Pakistani and she continues to live this activism through Kitab Ghar, a public library truly open to all.
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CREDITS:
Host and Creative Director: Shana
Head of Visual Design: Minal Jadeja
Visual Designers: Akshat Agarwal, Shaumik Kanvinde
This is a Maed in India production
Head of Production: Mae Mariyam Thomas
Project Manager: Shaun Fanthome
Producer: Ruchi Sawardekar
Junior Producer: Quoyina Ghosh
Sound Editor & Mix Engineer: Kartik Kulkarni, Lakshman Parsuram, Nihar Temkar
United States
