Her name in a list of '100 women who can shake Pakistan' has created ripples there and in India too.
HYDERABAD: She is married to a Pakistani, lives in Dubai and quite clear in her mind that she will remain an Indian. Yet, Sania Mirza has made it to an elite list of Pakistani women, thanks to an overzealous magazine.
Pakistan Newsweek has named Sania Mirza in a list of '100 women who can shake Pakistan,' prompting people on either side of Wagah to question her claim to fame. Pakistani women are forthright on equating Sania with such luminaries as former federal minister Sherry Rehman, women's rights champion Mukhtaran Mai and Um-e-Hassan, wife of hardline Lal Masjid cleric.
In what sums up the reaction of most Pakistani women, a housewife who blogs by the same name (Sania Mirza) posted thus on her website: "One conflicting lady is Sania Mirza, who I think, cannot and should not be included in this list unless she becomes a Pakistani citizen." Another wrote: "Last I saw her she was winning games for India. Don't mean to be harsh or anything, but isn't this thread about proud Pakistani women?"
Back home in Hyderabad, many seemed amused as to how Pakistanis could stake claim to an Indian whose association with that country is just through marriage and also when she herself is proud of her heritage. "Oh God! How silly," was how Arshia, wife of former India off-spinner Arshad Ayub, reacted. "Instead of calling her a woman who can shake Pakistan, it would have been better if they had said she has a face that is influential or someone who has saleability," she said.
Arshia also felt it is unfair to those who are on the list because they may have done something for the society. "It would have been perhaps acceptable if Jemima Imran Khan made it to such a list, for she was more popular than Imran Khan himself during the years she lived in Pakistan, working for her husband's cancer hospital project ", she added.
Will this cause any trouble for Sania even as she and her husband Shoaib Malik live in a neutral country Dubai? Abid Rasool Khan, who played a key role in seeing them through the turmoil leading to their marriage, said: "The magazine got it all wrong. Of course, she had created a stir when she landed in Pakistan, but to be considered a woman who can shake that country is ridiculous. But it is not her mistake and there is no way she would court
trouble."
Pakistan Newsweek has named Sania Mirza in a list of '100 women who can shake Pakistan,' prompting people on either side of Wagah to question her claim to fame. Pakistani women are forthright on equating Sania with such luminaries as former federal minister Sherry Rehman, women's rights champion Mukhtaran Mai and Um-e-Hassan, wife of hardline Lal Masjid cleric.
In what sums up the reaction of most Pakistani women, a housewife who blogs by the same name (Sania Mirza) posted thus on her website: "One conflicting lady is Sania Mirza, who I think, cannot and should not be included in this list unless she becomes a Pakistani citizen." Another wrote: "Last I saw her she was winning games for India. Don't mean to be harsh or anything, but isn't this thread about proud Pakistani women?"
Back home in Hyderabad, many seemed amused as to how Pakistanis could stake claim to an Indian whose association with that country is just through marriage and also when she herself is proud of her heritage. "Oh God! How silly," was how Arshia, wife of former India off-spinner Arshad Ayub, reacted. "Instead of calling her a woman who can shake Pakistan, it would have been better if they had said she has a face that is influential or someone who has saleability," she said.
Arshia also felt it is unfair to those who are on the list because they may have done something for the society. "It would have been perhaps acceptable if Jemima Imran Khan made it to such a list, for she was more popular than Imran Khan himself during the years she lived in Pakistan, working for her husband's cancer hospital project ", she added.
Will this cause any trouble for Sania even as she and her husband Shoaib Malik live in a neutral country Dubai? Abid Rasool Khan, who played a key role in seeing them through the turmoil leading to their marriage, said: "The magazine got it all wrong. Of course, she had created a stir when she landed in Pakistan, but to be considered a woman who can shake that country is ridiculous. But it is not her mistake and there is no way she would court
trouble."
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