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Noor ul Huda 27 Years, Awan Bride

Ayesha is a development economist working with the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund in Islamabad on rural household income analysis. She graduated from LUMS with a distinction in Economics and won a competitive fellowship to complete a master’s at the University of Edinburgh. She returned to Pakistan on purpose her thesis was on agricultural income diversification in southern Punjab and she wanted to do the policy work that came after the research, not just write about it from abroad. She is from Narowal originally, comes from a conservative but educated family, and wears hijab by choice rather than family pressure. She is intensely analytical about almost everything once, apparently, she built a spreadsheet to evaluate holiday routes — but she is also warm, prone to laughing at herself, and genuinely interested in people. She is learning to cook properly (with moderate success), runs 5km three times a week, and is re-reading the complete works of Intizar Husain.

Imran Shahzad 37 Years, Warraich Groom

Imran is a retired army captain (served 12 years, left as Captain due to a knee injury sustained during a training exercise) who now runs a successful security consultancy firm in Lahore. He lost his wife to breast cancer four years ago; they had two children together — a daughter aged 11 and a son aged 8. He has been raising them with the help of his mother and two sisters and describes the last four years as the hardest and most clarifying of his life. He is not looking for someone to replace their mother, he is honest about that with anyone he speaks to but he believes his children deserve a complete family again, and he deserves companionship and partnership. He is structured, disciplined, and deeply protective, but those who know him well describe him as the kind of man who cries at his daughter’s school play and stays up all night when either child is unwell. He is financially very stable, owns his home, and has set up education funds for both children. He still exercises daily, though the knee limits him to cycling and swimming.

Babar Nawaz 34 Years, Mengal Groom

Babar is a senior advocate at the Balochistan High Court specialising in constitutional law and human rights litigation. He completed his LLB from University of Balochistan and LLM from SOAS London on a Chevening Scholarship. He returned to Quetta to practise because he believed the law was needed most where institutions were weakest. His separation two years ago was painful but ultimately mutual — he has no children from the marriage and has processed it with the same analytical honesty he brings to his courtroom arguments. He is articulate, precise in language, and has a stillness about him that comes from years of learning to remain calm under pressure. Away from the court he is surprisingly domestic — he bakes his own bread, maintains a small terrace garden of herbs and roses, and plays chess online at a rating that would embarrass most casual players. He is financially secure, politically aware without being party-affiliated, and has a deep respect for women in professional life.

Rida Qamar 35 Years, Khokhar Bride

Rida is a social entrepreneur who founded a women’s vocational training NGO in Multan six years ago it now operates three training centres, has certified over 800 women in tailoring, digital literacy and beauty therapy, and placed 60% of graduates in employment or self-employment. She was married at 24 and divorced at 28 after a relationship that was fundamentally incompatible at a values level; she has a daughter aged 6 who lives with her and is, in her words, ‘the funniest, most opinionated person she has ever met.’ Rida herself is all of those things. She holds an MBA from IBA Karachi, speaks confidently in front of government ministers and equally confidently in Saraiki with the women she trains. She is observant — hijab, five prayers, halal — and has a particular dislike of people who confuse performance of religion with its substance. She is not bitter about her divorce; she is simply clearer now about what she needs and what she will not accept.

Waqar Ahmed 36 Years, Bhatti Profile

Waqar has spent the last eleven years working in international development and humanitarian relief — first with UN-HABITAT on housing reconstruction after the 2010 floods, then with UNHCR on Afghan refugee documentation in KPK, and currently as a senior programme manager with a UK-based INGO running education access projects in southern Punjab and Sindh. He has worked in nine of Pakistan’s provinces and has a ground-level understanding of this country that most people in his income bracket simply do not have. He is one of the most well-travelled Pakistanis without ever having needed to leave the country though he has worked in Jordan and Kenya briefly. He is fluent in Urdu, Punjabi, Saraiki and working Sindhi. Despite years of exposure to the worst of human circumstance, he is not cynical, he calls it ‘maintained optimism through action.’ He lives simply, owns very little, and gives generously. He prays regularly, reads widely, and makes decisions slowly but with complete conviction.

Hassan Imran 33 Years, Cheema Groom

CSS officer currently posted in Punjab. Disciplined, intellectually curious, and looking to build a home rooted in Islamic values and intellectual growth.