When I Met Edhi

The first time I met Edhi sahib was quite random. I was on a flight, heading to Pakistan, sitting by the emergency exit door of a Boeing 777; a seat given to me as a birthday present by the nice boarding attendant, for it came with the extra leg room well needed for my 13 hour connecting flight to Dubai. I decided to enjoy my intercontinental Birthday over the atlantic by binge watching documentaries with my legs stretched out till the emergency exit door. Lazying in the air like I just don’t care, I slouched in a comfy semi-boat-basin-charpaee like position. The gora next to me clearly pretended to ignore my demise from public decency.

I zipped through documentary after documentary, all while unsuccessfully attempting to open a pack of pretzels presumably manufactured for tiny people with scissor-hands. As Carl Sagan explained how light bends around a black hole, I felt my divine privacy bubble disrupted by a couple of rubber chappals chirping up to me sounding like annoying chipmunks. My peripheral vision sensed a man with very oonchay painchay, in a grayish blue shalwar qameez and a long white beard walking up to me and standing right by my unapologetically scattered legs, right next to the emergency exit door. I annoyingly looked up thinking, “who dares disturb my… wait.. why do I know this man?”.

As millions of electromagnetic waves through my neurones turning on every lightbulb through my couch-potato-esque state of mind.. at a speed faster than that, I stood straight up on my feet, giving my salam and offering my seat to this man.

Edhi sahib responded with a pronounced “Walaikum”, smiled and politely declined my offer explaining that he was tired of sitting in his seat and needed to stand. He then looked away, facing the emergency exit on the other side. I pondered if I should switch to my desi mezban: “nahi nahi aap please baithain”, or my walaitee “alrighty then, I’ll sit right back”. I decided to opt for neither. So I just stood there, awkwardly, hands in my pockets, staring deeply into that boring emergency exit he was looking at, right next to the most respected figure for almost everyone I knew. Frankly, just felt wrong sitting while he stood.

The awkwardness was short lived. As if he knew me, Edhi sahib simply turned to me and started telling me about what he had been up to. I guess since everyone talks to him like they know him, he feels comfortable talking to strangers like he already knows them too.

There had been a terrible earthquake in Haiti that year. In Urdu, he spoke about how things there are terrible, and that he was just there supplying ambulances to help victims. He talked about what he needed to do when he got to Karachi. I kept nodding like a nice Karachi boy that I of course am, and indulged him with a few questions.

We chatted for a good 15 mins. Afterwards, Edhi sahib said, “chalain, Allah hafiz” and walked back to his seat. It was a nice little birthday present by the celestial gods of inflight entertainment.

I did not meet Edhi sahib again until a year later. I was working on a short-documentary series project of my own called Seerat, that covered people doing extraordinary work in Pakistan. Not having him in it would have been a sin. He was very easy to arrange an interview with. Very approachable. Maybe too approachable. I simply showed up and walked right in to his small headquarters in the crowded slums of Mithadar, Karachi. No guards, no security, all in the middle of a crowded market, there he was sitting by his desk, with his hands on a newspaper, waiting for someone to read it to him.

In that newspaper, there was an article that he had recently given an interview for. It was on the issue of poor families unable to marry off their daughters. In his usual style, he started talking to me about this, while my crew went about unpacking and setting up the equipment in his office. He seemed weaker. He coughed a lot this time. He could no longer stand up on his own and often needed assistance while walking. He was not as healthy as the man who had walked and stood next to me in the airplane just a year ago.

As he spoke, it that something was tearing him apart. He told me about a very “sakht” interview that he had given to the paper on the issue of poor families unable to marry their daughters, the lack of social welfare, and how he was especially angry about the inconsiderate state of our society. He mentioned how he had even been scolding the poor on their spending on useless obsessions like paan, gutkas and cigarettes instead of saving for their future. He said he had given another angry interview to some other magazine.

Like any good documentary maker, I responded with blatant disbelief. “No Edhi sahib, that’s not possible”, “I don’t believe that you can give a sakht interview”. This exasperated him further as he picked up the newspaper and shook it, asserting that the interview he gave was indeed very “sakht”. I paused, smiled, and shook my head in disbelief, “no no.. janab, you’re mistaken, you only give the most polite of interviews”. Some laughter and banter followed.

See, my main concern going into this interview was Edhi sahib’s “TV mode”. I had gone through all of his video interviews and every single one had this 80s PTV feel to it. They were like the 9 bajay ka khabarnama. A giant mic on the desk, a flat-frontal medium shot, and him going on in the safest formal ways thanking people and talking about his work like it was some official press conference. I knew that he had more to say. I didn’t want him treating us like some “TV Channel Walay”. I wanted him to express what he was feeling openly, as he would to those strangers he met. I wanted him to be him, for the sake of generations to come who ought know what he was like. If he was upset, I wanted him to be upset. If he was concerned, I wanted him to be concerned. I just wanted him out of his “TV mode” and casually be himself.

We filmed the interview, and here is what made the final cut.

If you know me, you’ve heard me say that Pakistan is the world’s documentary goldmine. Not because of the hotchpotch of troubles that infect our society, but the astonishing human resilience that prevails in the face of it. Edhi sahib has been the embodiment of this resilience. He personifies the Pakistani dream. He showed us how we are capable of not just overcoming our own troubles, but can help others overcome theirs.

What I remember the most from interviewing him, was how he was sick, but refused to let us stop. That sort of stuff never stopped him even from his work. Frankly, nothing stopped him. In my interactions with him, I have come to learn that instead of a philanthropist, he was a fighter first. His philanthropy was simply a reflection of his resourceful resilience. He fought his way from nothing, with empty hands in old clothes and rubber slippers, not for himself but for those nobody would fight for.

I personally believe that he knew, very early in his life, that he was stronger than most of us, and felt responsible to put this strength to good use; fighting for what’s right. Today, as we look back, it is apparent that he had been fighting for every single one of us.