  The metastable behaviour of two dimensional anisotropic Blume-Capel
ferromagnet, under the influence of graded and stepped like variations of
magnetic field, has been investigated by extensive Monte Carlo simulation using
Metropolis single spin flip algorithm. Starting from the initial perfectly
ordered state, reversal of magnetisation has been studied in presence of the
field. Metastable lifetime or the reversal time of magnetisation for the system
having uniform anisotropy and in the presence of both graded and stepped field
has been studied. Also the same has been explored for a {\it graded and stepped
anisotropic system} in presence of a uniform field. Finite size effect is
analyzed for the variation of reversal time with gradient of field ($G_h$) and
a scaling relation $\langle \tau \rangle \sim L^{-\beta} f(G_h L^\alpha)$ is
proposed. Spatial variation of density profile for the projection states (i.e.,
+1, 0 and -1) has also been studied at the moment of reversal of magnetisation.
The spatial variation of the number of spin flips per site is studied. Motion
of the interface (or domain wall) with the gradient of field and gradient of
anisotropy are investigated and are found to follow the hyperbolic tangent like
behaviours in both cases. Since, both the anisotropy and the applied field have
significant impact on the metastable lifetime, an interesting competitive
scenario is observed for a {\it graded anisotropic system in graded field} and
a {\it stepped anisotropic system in stepped field}. A line of marginal
competition has been found out for both the cases separating the regions of
field dominated reversal and anisotropy dominated reversal. The decay of the
metastable volume fraction was found to follow the Avrami's law. The mean
reversal time was observed to decrease monotonically across the phase boundary
of the ferro-para transition.
