THE STORY OF SAMINA MAZHER

“Love my love, where are you?" was my biggest flop speech. The audience understood all other aspect of the speech except the aspect that I wanted them to understand. The central character of the speech is a lady in “VEIL”. The veil in the speech epitomizes separation of two personalities. Close on the heels of an apparent personality there exists a hidden personality which goes unnoticed. More often, there is more than what appears to the eyes; it may be appealing, interesting and appreciable.

While the periodic table was being worked upon and elements were being randomly discovered; at times a gap between two elements would predict a missing element.

My flop speech too; was a prediction, which rose from the depth of my belief and Samina comes in as a befitting example to it. Far from being a woman entrepreneur, a teacher, a mother of a collegian son and a schooling daughter, the student in her is still alive.

2011, Area 63 contest provided an opportunity to work together; I was the chief judge and she the contest chair. It was a last minute assignment but she was not deterred instead committed to work it out and give her best. At the contest she performed flawlessly and the contest ended hassle free.

All around us we have deserving and nearly deserving persons; slight boosting, a bit of motivation, an ounce of encouragement aided with an opportunity would set them rolling on their path of success and progress. I am always on the hunt for such people and never miss an opportunity to offer an assignment and in line with this, once I offered to help her complete her communication manual.

Unaware of her priorities I kept on pursuing from time to time. It was only around Nov 2013 that she was comfortable setting out time for herself to the extent of 06 hours per week. I too, was hard pressed with time. We both were optimistic and we started with CC-04, developing the speech in line with the objectives of the project and then rehearsing on it. She mused working with words, feeling the spirit behind the words and expressing her feelings.  As the project neared perfection of delivery I would start looking for speech slots in different clubs. Along with working on the project she had also to simultaneously be focused on the UCMAS ABACUS classes and the flow of events there. The preparation for those events would demand time, attentions, and energy on personal level and leadership skills while guiding her class instructors at the team level. Justice to the quantum of work that she dealt with would not have been possible without the caring and tireless support of her husband Mazher Hussain.

We were able to complete three projects, the fourth project was ready but work at the UCMAS ABACUS again demanded her attention. Practice sessions were yet to happen. Life is so; we strive to progress, life strives to regress; in time we experience a tug of war, sometimes a push and sometimes a pull. A series of such pushes and pulls makes what we call life. All such pushes and pulls provide us lessons to learn and paths to plan. To me, every click of the clock makes life beautiful and there is something new to learn, The few weeks spend in mentoring  Samina has strengthened my belief and given me joy of having done something constructive.