DAWN Metro South carries a report (June 25) on Governor Ishratul Ebad’s call on ailing Abdul Sattar Edhi under the care of Dr Adeebul Hasan Rizvi at Karachi’s Civil Hospital. Thus in one visit he paid tribute to two men most distinguished in the service of humanity.

My first contact with an obscure Edhi was at a bombing site during the 1965 war where he carried food for the survivors and shrouds for the dead.

He beat me, for as district magistrate and controller of civil defence I should have been there first. At the end of the war I gave him a ‘sanad’, then in vogue, which I would like to imagine was the very first recognition of his service to humanity. Now he is a legend.

Some years later I took an ailing uncle to Dr Rizvi’s department of urology which was then a part of the Civil Hospital. There the uncle had to lie in a ward with scores of other patients.

Later when I visited him he liked being in their company rather than confined to a private room. Dr Rizvi had no room to himself nor was there any for the VIP or paying patients.

Under him every one, high or low, was just a patient. Now he manages a urology institute of high repute.

It often occurs to me that Pakistan does not need leaders and bureaucrats but sincere servants of humanity like these two. It is heartening to see that Edhi’s, by some accounts, is the largest charity in the world, and Rizvi’s institute has also gained wide reputation. In both the high and the low are treated alike.

Kunwar Idris

Karachi

Published in Dawn, June 30th, 2016