#meesha shafi
I’ve done the thing I feared and I’ve taken the leap of faith - Meesha Shafi
“The first time it happened, I didn’t react and just left,” Meesha recalls in an interview with Instep. “I told my husband but also asked him to not react; I’m a public figure and so is he (Ali Zafar). My thought process was who I am and who he is and what that’s going to lead to. Being ready to talk was far off because it had just happened. I buried it.”
It happened for the second time, Meesha tells Instep, late last year or last quarter of last year. And in both instances, they were not alone. The second time it happened in a jam room.
“I got booked for a concert,” she says. She and Ali Zafar were billed to perform on the same concert. Why did she say yes to the gig in the first place, I ask her, playing devil’s advocate? “It is my bread and butter, it was work coming my way,” she notes.
It eventually resulted in them preparing a song that they could perform together. “I was jamming with my band in Lahore and the organisers insisted that he was trying to get in touch. It started turning into a thing, and I was being seen as difficult or a diva, I got such feelers. I was avoiding him. I was asked to jam, figure out songs, scale and it happened while we were jamming.”
There are images of you and Ali together, I ask her. “I have run into him, our pictures have been taken, at social gatherings etc because it’s easier to to tell yourself to move on in whatever way you can, you try.”
What pushed you to say something and to speak now?
“The first and foremost reason is that I’m ready. I have started talking to people and divulging my experience. I’m finding it hard on my conscious to stay silent any longer than this because I’m seeing such brave girls and women speaking up – not just around the world – but here as well.
I have to say, by the way, I salute these girls,” she adds, referring to the girls who spoke about former Patari CEO Khalid Bajwa. “It’s not easy. They are not public figures and I think it can be harder for me, in a way, but it’s hard for everyone. The more I think about it, the more I realise that if I don’t go public, nothing will change. It was eating away at me.”
“I am telling my children how important it is to speak up, so it was getting difficult for me to stay silent knowing that it was not accidental or subtle.”
For Meesha, since going public with her story, a burden has been lifted. “It is liberating, it’s empowering and it’s not the end of the world. I only felt hesitant as long as I hadn’t told anyone. The more people I tell, the more power I feel. I do. That has been my direct experience in the case. I’ve done the thing I feared and I’ve taken the leap of faith. And you know what, it’s okay.”
Source - Instep
