The problem with being asked to describe two hours with the greatest man in Pakistan is that it is a bit impossible to do justice to. I was initially excited about the prospect of writing about my interview with Abdul Sattar Edhi.During our session, I made mental notes of all his inspiring quotes and decided I would focus on those alone. About ten minutes in I realised that picking just a few inspiring things he said would be even more difficult than describing him. So here is my sloppy attempt to explain what happened that day
Nation unites in grief for Edhi
We just walked into the Edhi office in Mithadar. We had no precise address and no phone number we could reach easily, but this didn’t turn out to be a problem at all. Every single person we stopped in the congested streets knew where Edhi sahib’s office was and they were able to direct us so accurately that we arrived twenty minutes earlier for the interview. Nobody asked us why we were early or how long we planned to stay.
We were ushered into a room decorated with posters from campaigns for a drug free Pakistan, a tolerant Pakistan and a compassionate Pakistan. Several honorary degrees were displayed under the glass top of a table we sat at (a table we later learned was “older than this country”). A large red sticker was on the door behind me. ‘LOVE HUMANITY’, it proclaimed in gaudy yellow lettering. I wondered at the man who had stuffed honorary PhDs under a glass top and chosen to frame and display a sticker like that. That’s all you can do with Edhi. Wonder.
I was nervous about meeting him. I’ve wanted to meet him since I was eight years old. I doubt there is a single man alive who commands as much respect, trust and gratitude as Abdul Sattar Edhi. Beggars, dacoits, philanthropists and society aunties alike feel safe depositing their zakat, their sadqas, their khairat, their earnings,
their bread into his fund, knowing that it will reach whoever needs it most. Personally, I am not an especially spiritual person, but when I think of prayer I recall being nine years old and trying very hard to send blessings to the mysterious Edhi who seems to be keeping our country afloat singlehandedly. I don’t know
what I expected of him on this day, but I did not expect him to walk into the room while we were all setting up our equipment and hearing him say “Assalam Alaikum” unassumingly, as if he wasn’t Edhi himself but simply a random person strolling into the room.
