A MIRROR TO THE BLIND

An autobiography of Abdul Sattar Edhi by Tehmina Durrani.

A mirror to the blind was an insight in the life of the most dedicated social
worker of Pakistan Mr. Abdul Sattar Edhi. Ms Tehmina Durrani wrote this
book with the help of over 40 hours of recordings and after two years of
effort this book was finaly published in 1998.

Edhi belonged to a middle class bantva Memon family. His father was
twice and his mother once widowed before they married each other.
Edhi’s mother was a very generous and a kind hearted woman who
always gave the less privileged a very high priority and distributed all
the surplus food among them and during these acts of charity she kept
Edhi actively involved so that the habit of charity is firmly inculcated in
him. It was her remarkable brought up that after growing up Edhi
turned out to be such a divine and dedicated social worker. As stated
by Edhi himself "the priority she gave to social work was to be the
foundation of my future"

Edhi was never interested in formal education so he left school after 3rd
grade and started working. At the time of partition Edhi’s family, along
with other bantava Memons, migrated to Pakistan. Here the rich and
powerful memon seths opened the 1st charitable organization known as
Bantva Memon dispensary. Edhi voluntarily joined in but after some
time when he observed the discrimination that non-Memon people had
to face for acquiring free medicine he couldn’t help but resist. He
voiced his opinion saying “humanitarian work loses its significance
when you discriminate between the needy” his opinion was met by
hostile reactions from the elite. He left the dispensary and opened his
own dispensary “Memon voluntary corps” in 1951. This was only a
small beginning of the enormous mission ahead. He bought his 1st
ambulance in 1957 and at that time there were only 5 ambulances in
the whole province and one actually had to take appointment for their
services. He married Bilquise in April 1966 and she turned out to be his
true soul mate as she supported him immensely throughout. As Edhi
himself said ”who more than me knew the asset she was for me”.

Edhi kept working for human welfare, he collected donation by literally

begging for them, he expended that small dispensary slowly and
systematically, providing help and relief to epidemic, earthquake, flood
or accident victims, in 1974 Edhi registered the Abdul Sattar Edhi trust
and established the edhi foundation and by 1988 , 240 Edhi centers
were operating throughout the country and by 1994 Edhi international
foundations had become operative in countries like USA and Japan.
During all this time Edhi had to face a lot of challenges like the
baseless allegation from Memon Seths and the reactions of people
around him as even after being committed to social work his workers
couldn’t help but cringe at the sight of a dead body moreover as he
expended his work he had to invigilate so that everything was as he
wanted it to be.

This book revolves around Edhi, his work and his family. After reading
it I was amazed at the strength passion and commitment of this man,
he is barely educated and in this era where education’s known to be
the one way to succeed , he achieved so much just via his dedication
and hard work. I can say this without a doubt that a person like him is
born once in a thousand years.

Favorite lines:
Well my favorite line was not an easy one to decide upon as I kept
marveling upon the wisdom of Edhi, despite being uneducated most of
the things he said were good enough to be quotes but I liked these
lines which he said when he was convincing Bilquise not to be upset
upon the death of ten people of the same family, he said “you cannot
afford to wound your heart. It will disturb you psychologically. Convert
your pain into practical energy and use it my way.” This line is
significant because after reading all about his work one wonders how
can he be so strong at all times and this line indicates his source of
strength that he converted his pain into practical energy as he firmly
believed that “work is accomplished by doing it, not by talking about
it”