Bilquis Edhi and the power of humility

“Sab kam kar rahi hu lekin roshni khatam hogai hai, ronak khatam hogai hai. Jab who aatey they toh shor aisey machta tha keh awaz sher ki tarah gonjti thi. (I am still working and doing everything but it seems like the shine has gone, the spark has gone away. When he used to come his voice used to boom and echo like that of a lion’s).” I still remember her saying those words as she sat on her single bed with her legs folded underneath her. Dressed in a simple kameez shalwar with a dupatta wrapped around her head and a light shade of paan on her lips.

She was speaking of her late husband Abdul Sattar Edhi, who had passed away in June 2016 and whose loss she was still mourning.

“Mujhe lagta hai ma adhi hogayi hu, mera saathi nahi hai. Ab koi ‘Bilqees’ bolne wala hi nahi hai, koi ‘Hajiyani’ bolne wala hi nahi hai.” (I feel like I have been torn into half, my partner is no longer there. There is no one here to call me ‘Bilqees’ now, no one to call me ‘Hajiyani’).

These were some of her thoughts that she shared with me the last time I met her in 2020. Bilqees was camera shy and avoided giving interviews for the most part. Since her health had deteriorated in the last few years, she had been meeting fewer and fewer people. However, when I approached Edhi’s spokesperson about interviewing her for a documentary, he and confirmed on her behalf. Nevertheless, the morning of the interview, she cancelled the interview.

However, I had already reached their centre in Kharadar by the time I got the call and not in her nature to refuse someone, she relented and let me interview her nonetheless.

“I don’t want to meet anyone nor do I want to give interviews. I even turn down interviews from American journalists,” she said to me.

The famous philanthropist’s wife was more commonly referred to as Bilqees Aapa or ‘Mummy’ and in her own right, was known for having helped hundreds of thousands of people. However, she still recalled her husband’s selfless nature and missed him dearly. “Pata nahi kis mitti key banay hue they. (I don’t know what he was made of),” she said. Bilqees and her husband used to drive along the city taking dead bodies to their loved ones. “Standing beside dead bodies, which were weeks or months old and had worms coming out of them never bothered Edhi sb. He never covered his nose, even when the smell of those rotting bodies was particularly bad,” she said. It was only in the last few years of his life that Edhi and his wife stopped due to his health, and the deteriorating crime and security situation in the city.

During one such drive, when they were carrying the corpse of a 20-year-old girl who had died in Civil hospital from Tuberculosis to Sakrand, they got into collision accident and as a result, the tire of the broke and fell into a pothole. “Six relatives of the girl, the dead body, myself and my child everyone came out safe without even so much as a scratch but Edhi sahab was severely injured and had to undergo treatment for two years,” she said. “He had rods in hands, his nose, teeth, forehead and even all his fingers broke.”

During those times, telephone facilities were not always available everywhere and through the help of a passerby who took them to the nearby post office, did Bilqees call someone to help come to their aid. Bilqees took Edhi to a nearby hospital for treatment in Rahim Yar Khan and also had to hand over the dead body to they had to the relatives as well as get a certificate made for it. “Edhi sahab was injured so badly that his face started swelling and was filled with blood. I was worried he was not going to survive but he but he did by the grace of Allah,” she added.

After the accident the then Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto dispatched a plane to get them picked up from Rahim Yar Khan so that Edhi could receive better health care in Karachi. There was no airport there and the plane landed in a farm and seeing how difficult it was for people to fly from such cities, Edhi said he would buy a plane to help patients who need emergency care. “I taunted him that you don’t have a penny in your pocket how will you buy a plane to which he replied that he will find a way and now we have four air ambulances,” she said.

Bilqees herself was a mother of thousands and welcomed everyone in her house with open arms and a wide smile. In the house where Edhi opened his first dispensary in Kharadar, I had the good luck to meet Mummy three times. Passing through narrow streets, congested market roads, and no parking space, the hassle was worth it when because soon as Mummy would see you, she would shower you with wishes of good health, wealth and prosperity.

The last time when I went to meet her, she didn’t look like her usual happy and warm self but rather looked sad and forlorn from grieving the loss of her departed husband.

Edhi was dedicated to doing everything he could to ease the problems of others. From providing shelter to food, from education to land.

Sharing about the famous incident where they were held hostage by thieves near Dadu she shared how proud she felt of the work they had been doing in Pakistan. “The thieves who were on horses holding axes kept circling around our ambulance but they when realized it was Edhi sahad inside, they knelt down and kissed his hands. They even asked us to bless them and gave us a 100 rupees,” she said. “Hum jab marenge to hamare maa baap nahi ayengey hamein leney key liye, aap [Edhi] humein matti mein dalo gey. (When we die it won’t be our parents who will come to take us but rather you, who will bury us),” the robbers said to them.

Remembering her social work and the happiness it brought in her life while working for others with Edhi, she recalled how they buried a 20-year-old boy named Babar who died in jail and was buried at the Edhi Graveyard where unidentified bodies are often buried. “After a month his parents came looking for him and wanted to see his grave, but later they insisted to on getting the grave exhumed,” she said. Remembering the incident a broad smile came to her face as when the graved. “When it was exhumed, the corpse looked fresh and there was fragrance coming from his grave,” she said. Bilqees felt she had witnessed a miracle.

Bilqees felt that they city needed her the most when the Muttahida Qaumi Movement held a tight grip over the city had dozens of people died every day. “Edhi was a straightforward man who used to say what he felt and never hesitated from sharing his views even with influential people,” she said. “He told Altaf Hussain that he should do good for people so they will respect you and bury you with Quaid-e-Azam or else people will never accept you.”

Recalling the incident and the bravery of her ‘Sher’ again brought a brief smile to her face.

Sharing another such incident, she narrated how they were invited by the then President Pervez Musharraf to Islamabad when the American President George Bush came for a visit. “Edhi sahab somehow managed to learn just enough English just to communicate to Bush that they should not be fighting a war in Afghanistan but do welfare for them. He said to him, ‘[this way] they will regard you or you can never win them,’” she said, “Now see they won but only devastation happened there.”

Visits from the other side

Bilqees felt the kind of work that Edhi did and because of how passionate he was about humanity, was a gift from God himself because now everyone could do what he did. “He was the chosen one. Allah chose him for this because you know he kept teaching us all over his life in everything he made us learn something,” she said explaining the lessons, “Simplicity, contentment, forgiveness, and believe in Allah”.

“He always followed a simple life by just keeping his goal in mind to serve the people. I used to tell him to respond to people who keep saying wrong things about him but he used to say that opposition is necessary for life. ‘If there is no opposition people won’t work, they will be lazy and proud about themselves,’ he used to say,” she said.

“I used to get irritated when Edhi sahab used to take us along on roads for donations but he made us learn how such acts bring in humility in a person,” she said. “Every word he said had wisdom, every work he did had a lesson to learn and every step he took in his life had a path to follow.”

After Edhi sahab’s death, Bilqees Edhi always felt his presence. She used to dream about him a lot, of the memories they shared together and time they had spent as a couple. “Yaad aatay hain, bohat yaad aati hai unki. (I miss him, I think of him a lot),” she said.

Edhi had a habit of writing down everything. Sometimes late at night, if he thought of something, he would get up to write it down. Thus, disturbing and annoying his wife in the process. She recalled this at the time fondly, recalling his dedication because his intention was to ensure he wouldn’t forget anything the next day.

“He even went against his community to work for people as he aimed to serve humanity only and I followed the same,” she said. “He was asked to work only for our community but he was adamant to help everyone, which is why he was kicked out of our community as he was stubborn with his decisions and goals but his stubbornness came from a place of goodness,” she sai