Veteran journalist and academic unveils her astounding life in autobiography

In an epoch when journalism in Pakistan used to be a no-entry field for women, Prof Shahida Kazi became one of the first female reporters of the print media starting her career from Dawn in 1960s. She was also the first and only female student who completed masters in journalism from the University of Karachi.

“I was also the first female news producer and news editor in Pakistan Television (PTV),” said Prof Shahida at the launch ceremony of her autobiography held at the Karachi Press Club on Friday. The event was attended by a large number of her students who are now working in various media outlets, faculty members of different varsities that teach journalism and mass communication, human rights activists and veteran journalists.

The autobiography, titled Sweet, Sour & Bitter: A life well lived, is a brief account of her life condensed in around 100 pages. “I deliberately wrote a short autobiography Sweet, Sour & Bitter: A life well lived because people generally avoid reading heavy volumes. I wrote a few experiences and not the whole story,” she said.

The veteran journalist and teacher remarked that she had thoroughly enjoyed every phase of her career be it working as a journalist for media organisations or being part of a varsity’s faculty. “I would like to suggest working with passion and enjoying it. I adopted this rule in my life and hopefully, it would work for others too,” she maintained.

After her retirement as a professor, she continued teaching at different universities. However, the Covid-19 pandemic put a brake to her profession. “When Covid-19 emerged, I decided to stay at home and enjoy the rest of my life, and started writing memories of the past and the era of my struggle. I lived a very satisfied my life and achieved what I wanted to be.”

Former senator and federal minister Javed Jabbar said Prof Shahida had written her autobiography in a precise manner. “I read the entire book on one night and also enjoyed talking to my family about it.”

Commenting on the book, Jabbar said the author had courageously exposed and written about some incidents. He termed the book a story of a remarkable struggle. The speaker was of the view that the book was about Karachi, its culture, women’s struggle and women in journalism. The journalist of today’s era must read the autobiography of Prof Shahida to know the struggle of women for ethical journalism, Jabbar remarked.

Prof Dr Nisar Zuberi said that he had been Prof Shahida’s colleague. He said the book was too short to cover the entire struggle and career of the author. “I would like to suggest to Prof Shahida to rewrite her autobiography and republish it. The women whom we see in today’s media industry have started careers after Prof Shahida Kazi,” he said.

Prof Dr Tauseef Ahmed Khan said it was honour for him to be a student of Prof Shahida. “We learnt real history from our teacher and she taught us how to write facts and real stories. She was an amazing teacher and is a living legend among us,” he added.

Prof Dr Tahir Masood said Prof Shahida knew how to live a happy and successful life and she wanted others to live a similar life. He called the author a simple woman who prepared thousands of students that were currently in top positions in different news organisations.

The book

“In the eighties, I was faced with the task of transforming the two year MA journalism course to a four-year BA/MA Mass Communication degree. I needed trained faculty. I immediately thought of Shahida with her experience of English daily journalism and electronic TV news. I persuaded her to join the department, which she did, to my delight. However, this was not without a period of hesitation and soul searching as it meant ending an illustrious and well-paying career at PTV. The rest, as they say, is history. Now Professor Shahida Kazi has a story to tell,” wrote Professor Zakariyya Sajid in the preface to the book.

In the introduction of the autobiography, the author writes, “every person's life is a novel, I always say. At the age of 75, newly retired from work, I am lying in bed thinking these thoughts. Could I have known 70 years ago, 60 years ago, even 50 years ago. Everyone around me is telling me to write my memoirs. Many call me a role model, a trend setter, an inspiration to others. Am I?”

She then answers: “I think of myself as a failure; someone who could have accomplished much more, if I had put in more effort, if I had been more ambitious. I am thinking of my family, of my teachers, friends, students, various colleagues. People who have played a part in my life and helped me reach where I am. A humanist, a Marxist, a socialist, a Sufi, a secular liberal, a feminist, I can be called several other names. But what am I really, and how did I become what I am today? So, I am thinking. Thinking of the past, the time I was born three quarters of a century ago”.

The author has frankly admitted that she was born in an affluent family and was privileged to have a car along with a chauffeur, cook and other servants, and a refrigerator at her home — things that were not very common at the time. She explains that she belongs to a highly distinguished family of village Paat Sharif in District Dadu.

About Karachi’s culture, she writes that Karachi before Partition was a highly tolerant place where people belonging to different religious communities lived in harmony with their mosques, temples, and churches located near each other.

The rest of the book is a brief but interesting description of her journalistic career, her unhappy marriage that culminated in a divorce after her own son recommended it to her, and her teaching job that earned her respect even from those students who were ideologically opposed to her.