Filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and Senator Sherry Rehman are representing Pakistan at the Women in the World (WITW) summit, taking place at Delhi’s Taj Hotel today.
The annual summit, where leaders from all over the globe converge to talk about improving the lives of the world’s women, will also host international stars like Cate Blanchett, alongside the local luminaries like Madhuri Dixit, Nandita Das and Soha Ali Khan.
While Sharmeen will be moderating a session featuring an Israeli and a Palestinian mother working together to find peace, Robi Damelin and Bushra Awad; Sherry Rehman is speaking at a session titled ‘Pakistan’s defiant patriot’, which is dedicated to her life “at the centre of influence and debate in Pakistan”. Rehman will be interviewed by WITW founder Tina Brown herself!
Since the day-long summit’s kick-off at 10am, many fascinating sessions have taken place.
Director Deepa Mehta and actors Nandita Das and Shabana Azmi talked about their 1996 film Fire, which explored lesbian relationships – a taboo subject in India.
“It was very important to me that I explore women in situations that might not have been known to the world,” explained Deepa Mehta about the motive behind her controversial film. “While some organizations tried to ban Fire, one group did a candlelight march saying, ‘We are Indians, and we are lesbians.’”
A panel, consisting of filmmaker R. Balki, actor Soha Ali Khan, model Lakhshmi Memon and Vogue fashion director and celebrity stylist Anaita Shroff Adajania, discussed the evolution of beauty ideals in India. A variety of views came forth.
Madhuri Dixit retold her journey as a megastar.
She attributed her success in pushing the envelope for female characters in Bollywood to a strong mother and good parenting.
“I want to live my life the way I want to die: serving my country with my comfortable pumps on,” she said gleefully as she sat across from WITW founder Tina Brown. In her interview, she spoke about Pakistan and the privileges one is born with.
“In my case it is the privilege of education” she said. “When it comes to South Asia, privilege makes it essential that whatever opportunities one receives and whatever choices are made, they be used for the vulnerable and those who don’t know about rights.”
She stressed that a “little bit of power” could change lives and help people, which was evident from the “incredible women” who shared their experiences at the summit.
“These are people who understand the power of chip-¬chip¬-chipping away at the obstacles in their path,” she said. “Chipping away,” she added, “could be an interesting turn of phrase to describe the incredible work the Jinnah Institute is doing to work on the tumultuous Pakistan-India relationship.”
The Pakistani senator described South Asia as the Jurassic Park of the world: “What age are we living in?”
“We can’t change our geography. We aren’t big islands like the UK or USA, separated by an ocean. We are connected not just by stories, but also our geography, so work with what we have. We are neighbours, we can’t instantly love thy neighbour, but [can] dial down the hate,” she remarked.
“Not just Pakistan. I want to tell this empowered audience that it is a dangerous world, the world my daughter grows up in is very different from the one I grew up in, but our challenges are connected so let’s focus on finding common grounds. Global leadership has to be clear that we have to identify a common enemy — we, you may have done that but the world has to acknowledge the freight train heading our way.”
Sharmeen Obaid was invited as a moderator to a session featuring an Israeli mother, Robi Damelin, and a Palestinian mother, Bushra Awad, working together to find peace:
Other leaders at the event include Iranian female race car driver Laleh Seddigh and the founder of Nigeria’s “Bring Back Our Girls” campaign, former World Bank Vice President for Africa Obiageli Ezekwesili.
