C OVER STORY
Edhi: the man, the legacy
F
or the last few days I have been struggling for
words. So much has been written about Abdul Sattar Edhi, the enormity of his mission, his endless
struggle to alleviate the sufferings of the downtrodden,
the sick and the neglected segments of our society.
Words simply fail me, what do you write about a legend, an institution? Where do I begin and where should
I end? But perhaps I am wrong in my quest for words,
because there can be no adjectives fit enough to describe the extent of the work Edhi started and kept on
doing until his health failed him. How can I pay a tribute
to the man who unflinchingly bathed and enshrouded
burnt and decomposed corpses, neither the acrid smell
of burnt flesh nor the sickening stench of rotting bodies stopping him from his dedicated work? started and
kept on doing until his health failed him. How can I pay
a tribute to the man who unflinchingly bathed and enshrouded burnt and decomposed corpses, neither the
acrid smell of burnt flesh nor the sickening stench of
rotting bodies stopping him from his dedicated work? I
cannot find words fit enough to describe a man of Edhi’s
stature. But the writer in me is restless and wants to try,
although nothing I can write could be worthy enough for
him. I also want my young readers to know more about
Edhi and his mission. Beginning from the scratch, Edhi
Sahab created a charitable empire and his foundation is
Pakistan’s largest welfare organisation, filling in the gap
which the state should have covered. But the remarkable fact about our national hero is that he never gave
up his simple lifestyle till his very end. Although he got
millions of rupees in donations, he was content with only
two sets of clothes of coarse cotton and he was never
uncomfortable in meeting dignitaries and high officials in
these clothes. The two room apartment above the office
of Edhi Foundation in Kharadar was his humble home
for decades. He felt no shame in calling himself poor
when he would get millions in donations. His ego was
not hurt when he begged on the streets for charity. We
all should pay due respect to Edhi Sahab’s mother who
instilled in him the habit of helping the needy since his
early childhood. She would give him two paisa daily and
make sure that he gave away one paisa in charity. In
1947 when the family moved to Pakistan, Edhi idealised
the newly formed country to be a Muslim welfare state.
But his dreams were shattered as he helplessly watched
his paralysed and mentally disabled mother die, with no
support from the state for the struggling family. The passion of serving the downtrodden ran in Edhi’s blood like
a fire which kept him restless and unable to concentrate
on anything else. In 1951, full of idealism and hope, he
stood on the streets of Karachi and asked for donations
to buy an ambulance and a small space to set up a dispensary to aid the poor. He managed to collect enough
funds to buy an old Hillman van and an eight feet dis-
10 | BOOM