E X C L U S I V E
Tête-À-Tête With Reel Life Motorcycle Girl
Sohai Ali Abro
Text By Saneela Jawad
A
one of a kind film released across cinemas in Pakistan earlier this year. A biopic on the
first female motorcyclist was made by Adnan Sarwar starring Sohai Ali Abro, Samina
Peerzada, Ali Kazmi to name a few.
The journey of Zenith Irfan was portrayed in the film ‘Motorcycle Girl,’ who biked across
Pakistan all by herself.
In August 2015, she biked 3,200 kilometres from Lahore through North Pakistan up to
the Khunjerab Pass, which borders China.
In earlier interviews, Zenith stated that riding across Pakistan was a spiritual endeavour as this
was a dream her father saw and hoped to ride across the world on a motorcycle. Thus, this was
just one step towards that dream.
In 2013, her younger brother bought a motorcycle and Zenith started taking motorcycle lessons
from him, practising in their hometown. She has taken two trips since 2015, riding into Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit Baltistan, completing 20,000 kilometres on her motorcycle.
She now keeps a photo blog, Zenith Irfan: 1 Girl 2 Wheels, on Facebook to document her journeys.
Just a few days before the release of the movie, GLOSS chatted with the reel life Motorcycle Girl to talk about the game-
changing movie that the entire nation was looking forward to.
How did you prepare for your character? What challenges did From the morning workout routines to motorcycle classes, from
you face during that period?
eating habits to being in that headspace of being alone during
The most important and terrifying thing was learning how to the journey, I was just getting in that zone slowly.
ride a motorcycle.
Having said that, this has got to be the most interesting role that
This is because I have always been scared of riding and I had to I have prepared for.
overcome this fear in order to prepare for the role. Even though
it was challenging, I am glad I was able to do this.
Do you think this movie will change the role of women in the
society?
I started taking my initial bike classes with the ‘Women on We can say that this is definitely a start. It won’t fix everything
Wheels’ initiative by the Punjab government. I learnt the basics at once but will start a dialogue surrounding the issues. We
with them, then a month and a half before the shooting, the live in the 21st century and women across the globe are being
team and I started to actually prepare for the role.
empowered, so why not in our own country as well?
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