“Early from my childhood, I always wanted to have a guitar. But my parents wouldn’t let me. They wanted me to become a doctor. It was only after I enrolled at the medical college, I got my first guitar. After that, I was very into music but I couldn’t play because I had no teacher. Then I started learning from YouTube. When I played the guitar for the first time, it was in front of 50 people but they really demoralized me. They said, “You should never play guitar. You should never sing. You are horrible at it.” You see, art only flourishes with appreciation and encouragement but dies if there are none. The artist become nothing. Even though I had ambitions, I gave up guitar for almost one year. One day, I just picked it up and started tuning it and I felt a strong determination to prove those who spoke against me wrong. I never looked back after that day. Today, I am the only female guitarist in my college and today girls come to me and say, ‘I want to learn guitar from you.’ ” (Faisalabad, Pakistan)