I was raised in an inimitable family milieu; where we lived in a joint family system of 36, my father is the eldest in his 14 married siblings (9 brothers and 5 sisters). All families were dependent on grandfather’s crockery shop as single source of income. We are 4 siblings and it was unmanageable for me to continue education, as my father was already having tough time paying tuition fees of my 2 brothers for their MBA’s from IBA and PAF kiet Karachi. So, I learned to survive in an unusual way, where my hardships became my inspirations and my sufferings fueled my fire to become something.
I started to search for scholarships for my higher education, as I had already done my FSC on scholarship from HEC, awarded for acquiring distinction in Sukkur board matriculation. I found out about LUMS NOP program on DAWN newspaper and headed to summer coaching session at LUMS. Soon I was inspired by the edifying utopia and realized that this could be a life changer.
At LUMS I was introduced to a whole new kind of life, I explored my strengths and worked on my weaknesses. I learned to balance between social and academic life, met deadlines, did multitasking, explored Pakistan with LUMS adventure society; have had life experiences of skiing and glacier hiking, organized events, managed sponsors, did humanitarian work. But, I think what makes LUMS most distinct is its rich, vast and diverse experiences which teaches you different perceptions and introduces multi-cultural believes, and its emphasis on research and writing. While I was conducting interviews for my assistant, I realized that because of this stress on writing and research by LUMS, LUMS graduates were the only perfect fits for the job.
After graduation, everyone is supposed to experience a rough ride and first few months were the toughest for me. As I had to find a job, manage a transport and residence, because home town Sukkur had limitation on my career goals. But eventually, I managed to find handsome job at HQM Law firm Lahore and handled big cases of corporate sector, which includes Hashoo groups’ PC, Marriot and Petroleum and gases. Alhamdullillah, Not a year after graduation I am a Senior Associate at Qureshi Law associates in Islamabad. Earning more than I ever thought I could, taking care of my family at Sukkur and planning to do my LLM by coming fall, on scholarship from Australia.