Revisiting Zehra Nigah’s ode to Dr Ruth Pfau on her third death anniversary

Today marks the third anniversary of the death of Dr Ruth Pfau, the great Pakistani-German nun and physician who devoted more than fifty years of her life to curing leprosy in Pakistan. Arriving in Karachi in Pakistan accidentally on March 8, 1960, sixty years ago this year, on her way to India, she decided to stay on in the country and contribute in the battle against leprosy; she never returned to her native Germany. Her enduring legacy is the Marie Adelaide Leprosy Centre which she and her diligent team set up in Karachi in 1963, and which graduated to being a large hospital within three years. It was largely due to her heroic efforts that the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared Pakistan as a leprosy-free country in 1996. Dr Pfau was given Pakistani citizenship in 1998, in addition to some of the highest Pakistani civilian honours. Even Google joined in by honouring her with a Google Doodle on her 90^th birthday last year.

She was also the author of nine books in the German language. She often used to say that if she was reborn, she would again come to Pakistan. When she passed away in 2017, she was the first Christian and non-Muslim person to be given a state funeral in Pakistan, something which needs to be emphasised as we are close to celebrating Pakistan’s 73^rd independence day later this week.

As such I am offering here an original translation of a rare poem from one of Urdu’s towering contemporary poets Zehra Nigah celebrating the life and legacy of Dr Pfau. The poem, simply titled Ruth Pfau Ke Naam (To Ruth Pfau), is from Nigah’s latest, award-winning collection Gul Chandni (Sang-e-Meel Publications, Lahore, 2018). The poem compares Pfau to a blue-eyed sparrow arriving in a veritable desert before proceeding to the final stanza, whose final couplet memorably compares Pfau to Jesus Christ:

‘Sunte hen har raat vahaan par

Baadal ka tukra aata hai

Aur voh barish barsaata hai

Voh barish jo sadiyon pehle

Aik payambar ki sooli par

Aasmaan se baras chuki thi’

‘From a land far away

Came flying

A sparrow with blue eyes

Landing in a deserted garden

The injured flowers were scattered

The branches were napping

With their dry arms on their heads

The yellow leaves hugging the grass

Were gasping

The sparrow asked the flowers

How did this happen?

The flowers narrated their condition

“We are lepers

Before you, no bird

Had ever come to this garden

Everyone is afraid to come and go

The seasons go farther away

The gusts of wind

Trembling

Pull away”

The blue-eyed sparrow

The diligently-inclined sparrow

Said I will stay here now.

It is said every night over there

A piece of cloud arrives

And it pours rain

The rain which centuries ago

Had poured from the heavens

On the gallows of a prophet’