Mardan’s ‘only’ female photographer and studio owner

Madiha Chaudhry, a resident of Mardan, is a radio broadcaster who has been associated with radio for 18 consecutive years despite difficult circumstances and is the only woman who also runs a studio for wedding recordings and photoshoots.

Madiha Chaudhry while talking to Independent Urdu said that ‘I have been associated with radio for the last 18 years and when I started there was no female broadcaster. Now many women have come this way.’

He said that ‘I do a morning show on the radio and apart from that I have done all kinds of programs on the radio.’

Madiha said that right now I am associated with Pakhtunkhwa Radio 92.6 Mardan and do Urdu programs with my real name Madiha Chaudhry.

How to become a radio broadcaster?

Madiha Chaudhry said that in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, women do radio programs but in Mardan district there was no woman on air.

It was 2003 in the month of June that one day the radio was tuned in, then an ad radio was broadcast, and there was a need for a radio broadcaster. At that time I and my cousin Nazish went along. So we auditioned and the first voice in Mardan went on air on the radio.

Did you encounter any difficulties while broadcasting?

Madiha Chaudhry said that she is a filmmaker as well as a radio broadcaster and has also made documentaries. Madiha said that he started camera work and radio together when he was around 18 to 19.

“At that time there was no woman doing camera work in KP and in Mardan and I used to take a regular camera to the local Jirgas and also in cinema halls for recording.”

Madiha also records in Shaadi Biya with Radio Broadcasting and now runs her own studio.

‘I do wedding work by going to the wedding hall and covering the whole event and apart from that I do couple shoots in the paler and if one of us comes to the studio, I also shoot them.’

Madiha said that women are the ones running the studios in the entire district, while if someone needs a female photographer or videographer for a wedding, they have to get one from Peshawar.

Madiha wants more and more girls to enter this field as most of the girls go either into teaching or become doctors, engineers or nursing.