The message to the great unknown

KARACHI: On air in, “Three, two, one! You’re live!” My producer looked at me in great expectation as I braced to cover one of the strangest assignments I have ever done: sending Eid cards to flood survivors along with Eidi.

Donors were handed a ballpoint pen and asked to write a message to a flood survivor and then attach some Eidi. Volunteers from the Express group distributed the cards at relief camps, such as the one at Makli, which got 600 cards. It seemed as if it was a relatively simple task, until I saw someone try to actually accomplish it.

One woman took the pen with a bewildered look on her face. “I have to write an Eid message to an unknown flood survivor,” she asked. After a moment, she walked away from the counter.

When she found a place to sit, she took a long breath, looked down at the card and then up to gaze at the ceiling as if it held some inspiration. She started chewing on the end of the pen.

Part of the challenge was perhaps to somehow offer some semblance of comfort to someone who has lost everything. Even assuming that a few words can achieve that, even for a moment, seems misplaced. Writing to someone you don’t know is perhaps the ultimate test of, or proof of goodwill - not because it is as such a difficult task - but because it brings us face to face with our condition, which is infinitely better than that of the person on the receiving end. It holds a mirror up to the message writer’s life at that moment in time. It can even be painful because there is no explanation as to why some people are better off than others, why millions of people watched their lives get swept away and others remained untouched.

I wondered who would get her card. Would it be that little boy who lost his mother? How will he feel when he receives the card and 500 rupees? Is he living in a relief camp in Sukkur, or camping out on the roadside in Shikarpur or Jacobabad, on the bunds or at Makli?

I wondered what she had written. “I’m sorry, I took so long.” Or maybe, “Patience my child, we are with you.” Or, “Here’s a little Eidi for you and your family, don’t forget to give the money to a mother who needs it to buy milk for her baby, Love you.”

Just as I mulled over the unknown, she got up with the card held tightly in her hand, walked to the counter and stapled Rs500 to it. The anxiety on her face was replaced with serenity.

She started to leave but hardly 10 steps away from the counter, she paused, looked into her handbag and then turned back to ask for more cards.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 14^th, 2010.