Show Biz Pakistan

By Maheen Bashir Adamjee She stares at you from gargantuan billboards on main boulevards, sits pretty on covers of numerous fashion magazines and captures heart s through riveting drama serials. But behind the smokescreen of cameras and make-up is a very simple down-to-earth woman. Barefoot, dressed casually in t-shirt and jeans, hair casually knotted up, Aamina Sheikh greets me with a radiant smile at her house in Defence. How did the daughter of a pharmacist, with a family business in textiles, turn to the big screen? “My dad was also the black sheep of the family,” says Aamina, as she settles down comfortably on a sofa. She explains how her father veered away from the textile career chalked out for him and turned to his passion: chemistry. Admirably fluent in both English and Urdu, Aamina was born in New York City, and spent part of her childhood in Saudi Arabia. “We always called ourselves the naqli Sheikhs, the ones in Saudi being the real ones,” she laughs. After completing her ‘...