"I was only 10 years old when I started accompanying my two older sisters to the club for table tennis. And they used to make me carry their heavy bags,” reminisces Nazo Shakoor about her playing days with sisters Rubina and Seema.

From 1973 to 1997, the Shakoor sisters made a name for the themselves and their country in table tennis. There have been others before them and there have been others after them as well, but somehow the only names that one remembers when talking about women table tennis champions are the name of Rubina, Seema and Nazo Shakoor.

Being the youngest of the three didn’t stop Nazo from being the better player. “I beat Rubina seven times in the finals and Seema once while they won four times and one time, respectively, from me,” she says.

The three Shakoor sisters — Rubina, Seema and Nazo — ruled Pakistan’s table tennis scene for three decades. They share with Eos their personal and professional life trajectories

“Had Rubina not taken the individual title from me four times, and Seema not done it the one time that she did in the nationals, I would have won it a dozen times,” laughs Nazo, who has seven individual titles under her belt.

But no, she is not bitter about anything. On the contrary, she has fond memories from those days. “It is very difficult to explain to you that feeling of making it to a final, being on the brink of victory and having your sister as your opponent,” she says. “I can understand how Venus and Serena Williams must feel when playing for any of the Grand Slam titles and facing their own sister in a final,” she adds.

The eldest of the three, Rubina, is married to another table tennis great of the country, Arif Nakhuda. “And sometimes Arif’s father and my sister’s father-in-law used to try and jokingly bribe me with a box of gulab jamun before the match so that I let my sister take the trophy. Of course, as players we were loyal to our sport and would never throw a match that way,” she smiles.

The sport or rather ‘sports’ ran in the sisters’ blood. Their father, Syed Shakoor Ahmed, used to play hockey for India before independence. And their mother played basketball, though her association with the game was to the extent of her school and college only.

“Our father used to really encourage us and we always looked up to him, but he passed away quite early, in 1986. Still, our mother’s support has been there with us all along. She doesn’t see who won how many medals or trophies. Our collective achievements are her pride even today,” says Rubina.

Apart from table tennis, Rubina used to play hockey, cricket, football and tennis. “I also indulged in some amateur sports such as gili-danda and kite flying. Sports were like an obsession with me,” she says.

Of all these sports, she was drawn more to table tennis. “There was always a ping pong table at home and its being an indoor game kind of suited me more,” she says.

“Then the game also carried scope for women back in those days. We used to represent Pakistan at international tournaments. And we also got jobs,” says Rubina, who used to play for Habib Bank Limited (HBL).

She also found her life partner through table tennis. Rubina smiles before nodding slowly. “Yes, I met Arif at the Sharfabad Club, where we both used to come for practice,” she says.

Coming back to her playing for the bank, she says that she was offered a job rather early in her career, in 1975. “Now sadly there are hardly any departments hiring players, other than Wapda of course. HBL has even disbanded its cricket team,” she says.

Nazo cuts in by telling that she bagged her first job with the United Bank Limited at age 11. “They had a junior team with Farjad Saif, Javed Chotani, Shamim Nazli, Tahir Lone etc. And I was part of that team in 1977. I also got paid a neat little salary of Rs275,” she says.

But then when HBL also offered her a job in 1980, she accepted. “At first I signed on as a contractual employee for a salary of 100 rupees. Then the money got better after I was confirmed as a permanent employee. By that time I was getting offers from other banks as well, but I stuck with HBL as my sisters were there too and I didn’t want to cause trouble for them by rocking the boat,” Nazo says.

Over the years, the sisters always had each other to fall back upon. “When Rubina had her baby, I covered for her by playing extra matches. Similarly, when I had my daughter, Kulsum Miandad [daughter of first-class cricketer Anwer Miandad], my sisters covered for me as I took a break for a year. That way we always kept HBL on top in the table tennis team events.

“And then when I returned I won back all my other titles — ladies individuals, ladies doubles and mixed doubles — too. And this despite Lahore having the upper hand over Karachi players,” she says.

For her outstanding game, Nazo was also decorated with the President’s Pride of Performance award in 1991. “Poet Parveen Shakir, actor Nadeem and Dr Adeebul Hasan Rizvi were the other recipients of the award along with me that year,” she says. “I still remember that moment as if it were yesterday. I was also fasting on that March 23 as it was the month of Ramazan,” says Nazo, who has become very religious after her retirement.

The middle sister Seema then points out how she juggled sport with her job, marriage and kids along the years. She also mentions another three sisters. “Though Rubina, Nazo and myself found acclaim in the game, it is not that there were just the three because we are six sisters and two brothers in all. Three more sisters, Talat, Nasreen and Samina, who are older than us, also played table tennis though they didn’t play on the national or international levels,” she says.

She says when the ping pong table at home was not available to her while her sisters were playing, she would play against the wall like squash or get busy in shadow practice. “We also went to play at the St John’s Club or Sharfabad Club. “Girls were not allowed at the Sharfabad Club but our coach Zamir Mirza got us in because he believed in us. Coach and player Saeed Akhtar also supported us a lot during those early years,” she says.

Seema got picked by HBL in 1976, one year after her older sister Rubina. She says that the years all three sisters were playing was a golden era for the bank too. “They still have a room full of our trophies,” she says.

All three sisters left their job with the bank in 1997 when they were offered a golden handshake with several other employees.

Seema, who is married to the former Pakistan hockey captain Kaleemullah, has two daughters. She says with pride that she married the winning goal-scorer of the 1984 hockey Olympics final.

Nazo’s marriage to the cricketer didn’t last but she remarried and has a teenage son from her second marriage to a senior journalist. None of the sisters’ children have ventured into sports though.

Today their homes are located within the same neighborhood in close proximity to each other. The old ping pong table at their mother’s place often beckons them for a quick game amid plenty of laughter as they share moments of days gone by.

The writer is a member of staff
She tweets @HasanShazia

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 5th, 2019