'I love vanity'
In an interview with Ahmad Ali Butt, Nabila Maqsood shared how her upbringing influenced her career as a renowned beautician. Nabila, who has primarily lived in Karachi, began by speaking about her mixed descent. "My mother is from an Afghan-Persian background, and those people are very vain. They may not have money to eat, but they must have Yardley soap. That's the kind of background it was," she said.
Nabila grew up surrounded by up-do hair wigs, hooded hair dryers, and the smell of product mixed with the breeze of the air conditioner. She recalled that she frequented a Chinese beauty salon called Moon Palace in Karachi's Tariq Road during the 1970s. "As a kid, I remember going there on the weekends," she added. "I used to love the smell of hair spray. Even though the haircuts would be terrible, I'd still visit to take in the mixed aromas."
Making tough calls
The stylist was 11 years old when she got the chance to use a pair of scissors on someone else's hair. "The first haircut I did was for my mother's friend, though I had been cutting my own hair ever since I was a child," she shared, expressing surprise over the fact that the lady trusted a little girl with a task as delicate as a trim.
That led to a flourishing pursuit of haircutting, which Nabila did for friends, relatives, neighbours, and more. But it wasn't until she had become a mother of two that she realised she had a knack for the craft. Only 21 years old then, she invested her personal property to move to London and receive professional training at Vidal Sassoon's salon. Setting up shop sometime later, she began her business with a 75 rupees haircut in 1986.
But given social and cultural constraints, Nabila's journey wasn't easy. "I come from very humble and conservative backgrounds, so my family and in-laws both said that I had lost my mind," she said.
She shared that, naturally, her loved ones opposed her decision to sell off her jewellery and leave her kids behind for this new endeavour. "They all thought that this was a temporary hobby that I would soon lose interest in. But that hasn't happened yet, and it's been 40 years."
The stylist added that she went through phases of self-exploration before eventually finding her calling. "I knew that I wanted to do something. I dabbled in graphics, art, fashion and clothes, and then I realised hair is my métier because that's something I love. That's something I always had bad and had to fix it myself, and I thought I could do it better than others. So now there's no looking back."
Meeting the Queen of Melody
What began as a risky venture took Nabila and her styling business to great heights, earning her recognition from showbiz legends like Noor Jehan. "When she was in the hospital, I think Dilip Kumar was coming to Karachi. So at that time, she expressed her wish to her daughters that she wanted a haircut done from Nabila."
The beautician added that her close friend Hina linked the two up. "I don't do home visits, but you know, I was totally in awe. Out of respect, I went to Aga Khan Hospital at that age. And we hit it off so well because she was so vain, and I love vanity. I love people who are aware of hair, makeup, and fashion."
Nabila gushed over the actor-singer's passion for beauty, which helped make the visit an enjoyable experience for her. "She told me that she went to Paris, where someone bleached her hair before dyeing it again. Since she had very silky hair, that added volume to the texture. So they lightened it and brought it back to a darker shade."
Moving with the times
While Nabila can't speak for others in the game, she feels that she's still learning, and a part of that is keeping up with current business practices. "As we speak, I've hired someone who's going to groom me through AI because I feel that I should 100 per cent know what's happening in current times, whether it's developing products, trends, architecture, ingredients, or fabrics. I need to be up to date on what is happening."
This curiosity comes from the fact that the beautician doesn't believe in sticking to her forte. "Someone once asked me, 'You've done everything now, so what is left to do?' But I feel that I've just gotten started because now is when I'm bottling myself. Literally. Now with my 40 years of experience, you don't need to come to me. I'll be the one to send you my packages."
But Nabila's journey is proof that even the biggest success stories aren't free of past regrets. "Since my business was my priority, I think my kids didn't get the time and attention that they should've gotten then. When I realised this by the age of 35, they had already gone to boarding schools. Since then, I've been trying to mend what I lost in those years."
However, she's been putting her heart and soul into that part of her life as well. "I can happily say that for the past 15 years or so, my relationship with my family has been really good," she shared. "It's not easy to balance everything, so there's always a price to pay."
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Express Tribune
2 hours ago
- Express Tribune
China shoppers swap luxury for pre-loved
Chinese energy sector worker Mandy Li likes to treat herself to a luxury brand handbag once in a while. But since her state-owned employer cut her wage by 10 per cent and the properties her family owns lost half their value, she only buys second-hand ones. "I'm cutting down on large expenditures. The economy is definitely in a downturn," said 28-year-old Li, adding her family's wealth has shrunk due to the property crisis in China since 2021. As deflationary pressures mount in the world's second-largest economy, consumer behaviour is changing in ways that could lead to further downward pressure on prices, raising concerns that deflation could become entrenched, posing more headaches for China's policymakers. Data showed on Monday that consumer prices fell 0.1 per cent in May from a year earlier, with price wars raging in a number of sectors, from autos to e-commerce to coffee amid concerns about oversupply and sluggish household demand. New businesses are seeking success by targeting penny-pinchers. But this trend is worrying economists who see price wars as ultimately unsustainable as losing firms may have to close and people may lose their jobs, fuelling further deflation. Consumer price sensitivities have accelerated growth in the Chinese second-hand luxury market since the pandemic, with annual growth rates surpassing 20% in 2023, according to an industry report by Zhiyan Consulting from last year. But that growth has also led to a spike in the volumes of such items, which is noticeable in the level of discounts on offer – up to 90 per cent. "In the current economic environment we are seeing more existing luxury consumers shifting to the second-hand market," said Lisa Zhang, an expert with Daxue Consulting, a market research and strategy firm focusing on China. "The middle class – their salary has really decreased. The economy is the number one reason we're seeing these trends."
Express Tribune
3 hours ago
- Express Tribune
The corridor that redrew the map
Listen to article Power, once loud and territorial, now moves silently. It flows through undersea cables, over smart rail, beneath oil pipelines, and into the bloodstream of emerging economies. It wears no uniform, flies no flag. And today, it speaks Mandarin. The latest flashpoint between India and Pakistan carried the weight of a message far beyond a routine skirmish; it signaled a shift. Because the real confrontation unfolded on a deeper plane, where commerce, infrastructure and digital routes now redraw the map of influence. And at the centre of that new cartography stands China. When Indian Rafales took to the skies over contested territory, Pakistan answered with something unfamiliar: Chinese-made J-10Cs, armed with PL-15E missiles, long-range, radar-guided, and built for reach. Pakistan returned fire with precision, moving in concert with China, whose exported military ecosystem entered the arena, marking its arrival as a force rewriting the rules of engagement. Precision. Deterrence. Performance under pressure. Analysts worldwide watched for what worked. The J-10C, long dismissed as a second-tier platform in defence circles, performed with surgical accuracy. Beijing's quiet confidence in its defence hardware was suddenly matched by proof. Pakistan had emerged as China's strategic partner as well as its showroom. Yet this confrontation in the clouds was only the surface of something deeper. The real battleground lies underfoot. Beneath the dust of Balochistan and the waves off Gwadar, China is etching a new route into global power. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) begins as a network of roads and ports, yet unfolds as China's bold reply to Western naval dominance. It provides Beijing direct access to the Arabian Sea, bypassing US-patrolled chokepoints. It allows Chinese goods to flow south through the Karakoram instead of east through contested straits. It is Beijing's pivot from containment to connectivity. And for India, this is the real incursion. CPEC undermines New Delhi's vision of South Asia as its backyard. It rearranges the chessboard. And more dangerously, it proposes an alternative architecture, where power comes through partnership, not subjugation; through trade, not tanks. This is the rise of China as a civilisational strategist. Just as the West once built empires on railroads and gunboats, China builds corridors of steel, fiber, and credit. Where others sow dependence, it offers interdependence. Where others export chaos, it brings roads and routers. To many, especially those weary of IMF prescriptions, this is a different kind of proposition, one that doesn't ask for regime change, only right-of-way. So when the Indian attacks came wrapped in counter-terror narratives, their true purpose was to stall this momentum. Disrupt logistics. Spook investors. Cloud the promise of a Pakistan aligned with China, rather than circling in the margins of colonial memory. Rahul Gandhi said the quiet part aloud: that Pakistan-China alignment is a "crime" against India. But beneath the bluster was the real fear - that CPEC could work; that it could anchor Pakistan's economic autonomy; that it could succeed where Western partnerships had mostly produced crisis. This is China's most subversive act: offering peace as power. It doesn't march into capitals. It funds metros, ports, power plants. It embeds supply chains. Its method is quiet, its scale planetary. CPEC is where that vision takes form. China's imprint achieved through connection rather than conquest. It signals Pakistan's shift toward Beijing's multipolar world. In this alignment, Pakistan emerges as a sovereign bridge between regions, no longer defined by subservience but by strategic geography, activated with intent and positioned for relevance. And that logic is difficult to ignore. China builds with choreography, each project a move in a larger, deliberate design. Its vision for Pakistan reaches beyond asphalt and steel. CPEC has already delivered energy projects that lit up once-dark cities, coal plants in Sahiwal and Port Qasim, hydropower stations in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, and solar fields in Bahawalpur. It connects Hazara through the Havelian-Thakot motorway, threads rail from Karachi to Peshawar, and transforms Gwadar with a deep-sea port, international airport and free trade zone. Plans include special economic zones in Rashakai and Dhabeji, industrial hubs meant to attract regional manufacturing. With fiber-optic cables stretching from Khunjerab to Rawalpindi, and a digital corridor in the making, China envisions a Pakistan that shapes flows of data, power, and influence. China needs stable partners. And Pakistan, if it plays its cards right, can transform from periphery to pivot, so long as it chooses coherence over crisis. But that choice demands a shift within. Pakistan faces a reckoning with its addiction to short-termism. The time has come to align policy with vision, and governance with lasting continuity. Curricula need to evolve from rote memorisation to bold innovation. Universities should forge ties with Central Asian peers, creating networks of shared ambition. Trade diplomacy deserves its rightful place, as the spearhead of a new foreign policy. And youth must become more than an audience. They must be equipped as agents. This is where China's model speaks loudest: think in decades, plan in corridors, build for permanence. If Pakistan mirrors that thinking, offering venture capital for student start-ups, technical training in forgotten districts, fellowships in trade and climate, it builds more than infrastructure. It builds belief. Of course, none of this will be smooth. Global volatility will test resolve. Delays will tempt despair. China's rise emerged through turbulence, carved in resilience, shaped by strategy, and driven with unrelenting purpose. Pakistan, too, can choose that arc. The old order will resist. It always does. CPEC moves cargo, and with it, ideas. It suggests that autonomy isn't the privilege of the powerful, but the prize of the prepared. It declares that smaller states can shape maps if they hold their course. Today's sharpest borders are etched not in terrain, but in worldview. On one side: collaboration, connectivity, self-determined futures. On the other: coercion, chaos and manufactured instability. Pakistan now stands at that border. And how it steps forward will shape far more than its own map.
Business Recorder
12 hours ago
- Business Recorder
Late profit-taking wipes out intra-day gains at KSE-100 Index
The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) saw volatile trading on Thursday, with its benchmark KSE-100 Index swaying in both directions before closing the day lower by 260 points. The KSE-100 starting the session positive, hitting an intra-day high of 126,718.28. However, the index witnessed selling pressure in the second half, which pushed it to the negative territory. At close, the benchmark index settled at 124,093.12, down by 259.56 points or 0.21%. 'The Pakistan stock market ended the session on a negative note, weighed down by cautious investor sentiment and profit-taking activity. The benchmark index moved within range, recording an intraday high of 2,365 points and a low of 501 points, before closing at 124,093 — down 260 points or 0.21%,' brokerage house Topline Securities said in its post-market report. Downward pressure was largely attributed to declines in ENGROH, FFC, PPL, OGDC, and BAFL, which collectively eroded 401 points from the index. In contrast, support came from PKGP, UBL, BAHL, LUCK, and DGKC, which together added 347 points, Topline said. Addressing the post-budget conference, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb on Wednesday warned that additional revenue measures of up to Rs500 billion would be taken next fiscal year, if enabling amendments and legislation on enforcement were not passed by parliament, adding that all the budget figures were locked with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Aurangzeb presented the federal budget 2025-26 to the parliament on Tuesday, with a total outlay of Rs17.573 trillion, targeting a GDP growth rate of 4.2% against 2.7 per cent in the outgoing year. On Wednesday, the PSX extended its rally as key indices posted strong gains, fueled by robust investor participation and improved sentiment following the positive announcements in the federal budget. The benchmark KSE-100 Index rose by 2,328 points, or 1.91%, to close at 124,352.68 points, up from 122,024.44 points in the previous session. Internationally, global stocks and the dollar slipped on Thursday as investors assessed a benign U.S. inflation report and the fragile trade truce between Washington and Beijing, while rising tensions in the Middle East and lingering tariff anxiety dampened risk sentiment. Attention in financial markets this week has been focused on the US-China trade talks, which culminated in a framework agreement that would remove Chinese export restrictions on rare earth minerals and allow Chinese students to access US universities. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was 0.3% lower in early trading after hitting a three-year high on Wednesday. Japan's Nikkei slipped 0.7%, while U.S. and European stock futures fell. China's blue-chip stock index fell 0.37%, moving off the near three-week top it touched in the previous session. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index was down 0.74%, also inching away from Wednesday's three-month high. Trump's erratic tariff policies have roiled global markets this year, prompting hordes of investors to exit US assets, especially the dollar, as they worried about rising prices and slowing economic growth. Meanwhile, the Pakistani rupee weakened against the US dollar, depreciating 0.07% on Thursday. At close, the local currency settled at 282.67, a loss of Re0.2 against the greenback. Volume on the all-share index decreased to 1,024.63 million from 1,041.13 million recorded in the previous close. The value of shares rose to Rs50.54 billion from Rs46.71 billion in the previous session. Sui South Gas was the volume leader with 55.90 million shares, followed by Fauji Cement with 50.60 million shares, and WorldCall Telecom with 49.33 million shares. Shares of 474 companies were traded on Thursday, of which 170 registered an increase, 270 recorded a fall, while 34 remained unchanged.
