ALUMS Chat is an informal, one-on-one virtual conversation with an alum where we ask the questions that are on everyone’s mind and hear unique, personal stories about their journey. Each episode features a guest from the alumni community, who will share their story. Join us for an exciting chat with Saba Karim Khan (BSc 2006).
Facebook Live
With this exciting new series comes an opportunity for our community to hear firsthand the authentic and remarkable stories of our accomplished alumni across Pakistan and around the world. Learn from the real stories behind the successes and failures of LUMS alumni as they navigate different paths, and garner candid insights from these inspirational stories.
Tune in for Episode 3 – Saba Karim Khan (BSc 2006): On Storytelling and Finding Your ‘Song’ on Facebook Live. This episode will be moderated by Dr. Ali Khan, Dean, Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani School of Humanities and Social Sciences (MGSHSS).
About Saba Karim Khan
Saba Karim Khan is an author, award-winning filmmaker and educator, whose writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Independent, Wasafiri, Huff Post, Verso, Think Progress, DAWN, The Friday Times and Express Tribune. Her debut novel, Skyfall, was published by Bloomsbury and her documentary film, Concrete Dreams: Some Roads Lead Home, produced by the Doha Film Institute (DFI), has been officially selected and won awards at global film festivals in NYC, Paris, Berlin, Toronto, USA, Sweden and India.
She has read Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford and works at the New York University Abu Dhabi’s Social Research and Public Policy department within the Social Science Division. Before joining the Academy, she worked as Country Marketing and Public Affairs Head at Citigroup.
One winter, a guest speaker at NYU, the Headmaster from a school in England, quoted something jaw-dropping for Saba, and it stopped her in her tracks: ‘Most men and women lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them,’ he said. ‘What is your song?’ He asked everyone to take five minutes and scribble their song on a piece of paper, before sharing it with the person sitting next to them.
“I can’t say it was simple, conjuring up something that felt so important, right there, on the spot, especially because in addition to my pipedreams, I had a one-year old and a three-week-old, vying for their mother. Still, the Headmaster’s words shifted something fundamentally within me and the seeds of storytelling – including Skyfall – were probably sown that morning.”
Join the chat with Saba as she walks us through her journey from the corporate life to academia and then storytelling, the challenges and triumphs along the way, and what she’s discovered about herself.