Flashback: A writer, a patriot, a diplomat’s wife

My mother the writer, patriot and diplomat’s wife, Ruhafza Hyder, giving an interview in 1949 to NBC Radio in Washington DC. She talked about the new state of Pakistan and its unique identity, separate from that of India, which was better known to the American public at the time. Next to her is her son Tariq Osman who went on to become a diplomat and ambassador himself. My mother had been educated at Lahore College for Women and had a keen interest in writing, encouraged by her mother. She won a writing prize from Phool magazine for children at the age of six. She was one of the earliest Muslim women to get both a BA in Urdu and a Munshi Fazal degree in Persian. My father Sajjad was posted as second secretary in Washington from 1949 to 1951, after serving as staff officer to our first Foreign Secretary Mohammad Ikramullah in the Foreign Office, then located in Mohatta Palace in Clifton, Karachi.

PHOTO & TEXT: REHANA HYDER

CONCEPT: SANAM MAHER


DESIGN: SAMRA AMIR

This August, The Express Tribune will feature photographs from contributions to an open call for images from the struggle for independence and Pakistan’s formative years.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 30^th, 2014.