I decided in '96 to dedicate my life to mostly promoting literacy and education for girls in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I want poverty to end in tomorrow's Pakistan. I want every girl in Pakistan to go to school.
My aim is to change the social norms of Pakistan; women here look up to me. I started very early, worked on myself, and the effect is for all to see.
Growing up in Pakistan in the 1980s, I lived in the shadow of a tyrannical state.
I wanted to start a proper academy and recruit juniors from all over Pakistan following my retirement after the World Open in 1993 but there was no support.
I sat down in 1989 and I made up my mind at that point that I was going to spend the rest of my life assisting women and youth to gain social and political empowerment through business and education. I convinced myself economic empowerment of women was going to be key, especially in a country like this where most women didn't go to school.
I come from the small town of Sialkot in Pakistan. During pre-Partition, this town had the highest literacy rate among women.
I wanted to become a writer. I enjoyed reading as a child.
My dad was in the Indian Army. He died in a terrorist attack in Kashmir in 1994. After that, my mum and I settled in Noida. I went to Delhi Public School in Noida and then to Shri Ram College of Commerce in Delhi University. It was in college that I realised I wanted to be on the stage and in front of the camera.
I went to India, lived, and studied.
When the Nobel award came my way, it also gave me an opportunity to do something immediate and practical about my old obsessions, including literacy, basic health care and gender equity, aimed specifically at India and Bangladesh.