Single mother in Lahore dresses like a man to make ends meet
Farheen has a tuck shop in Anarkali Bazaar to take care of her daughter
She’s 41 and a single mum in Pakistan. Every morning Farheen Ishtiaq dresses up like a man to run a small corner shop on a busy street in Lahore. Why? To avoid unwanted stares and catcalls that a woman would get in Anarkali Bazaar, a congested marketplace in the heart of the city.
On February 11, Ishtiaq and her little shop became famous on social media.
Ishtiaq, who belongs to Karachi, has no family except a nine-year-old daughter. She looks after her child singlehandedly. Ishtiaq told Gulf News her story about how a decision to marry someone her parents did not approve of, changed the course of her life.
“In 2010, I chose to get married to someone who was not the same ethnicity as me as and my parents did not accept it. It was an extremely difficult time,” she said.
Soon after, she got pregnant. As if things were not hard enough, Ishtiaq’s husband left her while she was pregnant. After her daughter Rida Zahra was born, Ishtiaq decided to let go of the past and focus on raising her as a single parent.
“My only focus was to provide for her and give her a better life than what I had,” she said.
More than 850km away from Karachi, Ishtiaq had a friend in Multan, Punjab. She decided to give Zahra to her, who took care of her newborn for a year and a half. Ishtiaq was working as a waitress at the time.
From Karachi to Lahore
When her friend could no longer take care of Zahra, Ishtiaq found herself back at her parent’s doorstep.
“I told them that if they no longer want me as a daughter it is fine but they should not cut connections with their granddaughter and they kept her for four years,” she said.
“Someone told me that there is a girl’s hostel in Lahore
where I could safely live with my daughter and work at the same time and I decided to go there,” she added. “I decided to pack everything and take my daughter to live with her in Lahore,” she said.
Ishtiaq was faced with more difficulties in the new city. “The city was new and I found it difficult to adjust. I was also living and working around Anarkali Bazaar,” she said. Women working in male centred fields can constantly get harassed with gazes, cat calls and in more extreme instances, physical and sexual abuse.
Wardrobe change
Ishtiaq started preparing snacks such as samosas and chips and selling them on a hawker basket around the busy streets but invariably got harassed.
“She [daughter Zahra] has never questioned why I dress this way. She knows exactly why.”
Farheen Ishtiaq | Single mother
She decided to start dressing as man to avoid unwanted stares and cat calls. “People couldn’t figure out that I was a woman besides those who knew me in the bazaar,” she said. She started operating on the streets of Lahore with the pseudonym, Ali.
After making some money from selling items on foot, she opened a tuck shop (a small corner shop).
“She [daughter Zahra] has never questioned why I dress this way. She knows exactly why,” she said.
In her spare time, before the shop opens in the mornings, Ishtiaq drives an Uber using her bike, giving rides to women.
Social media reaction
Ishtiaq’s story was recently shared online as she is still struggling with debt.
A student, Zain ul Hassan, belonging to Sheikhupura, saw one such post on Facebook and decided to share it on his Twitter account.