We are from Bantwa, a village close to Junagadh where I was born on August 14, 1947. My dad was quite affluent, and so he took my mother and me to Mumbai where we stayed for four months, after which we migrated to Pakistan.

Here, my two brothers Iqbal and Mehmood were born. When my younger brother was just 11 months old, our father passed away.

My mother was my best friend. It’s been 18 years since she passed away and I still miss her. After the demise of our father, she took up teaching in order to support us, although my dad had left a lot of money.

Despite pressure from all quarters, she refused to remarry. Those were peaceful times; there was little traffic, very less noise pollution, it wasn’t this crowded, and of course, it was far safer than what it is now.

My school, Ronaq-e-Islam, was in Kharadar, five minutes away from where we used to live. I was never interested in studies and eventually flunked eight, ninth and 10th class.

I was always a backbencher and used to read comics and storybooks during lessons. My headmistress and my mother would often implore to me to pay attention to studies. But that never happened.

I think my biggest problem was Maths, particularly algebra; I could never comprehend its concepts. The other strong deterrent was Persian which was taught in our school and which I hated.

I was quite a bully back then, a total don. I actually took fun in beating up other girls, even those who tried to be nice to me! No surprise then, that few girls ever befriended me.

We even used to play games meant for boys like gilli danda in the streets, and it was not looked down upon. There was a dargah close to our place that we visited primarily for the niaz.

There, we saw women who everyone said were under the spell of jinn. We would observe these women carefully and then ape them at home, swinging our hair wildly and dancing in a weird manner.

The other highlight of my childhood was burying birds. Whenever we found a dead or injured bird, we would wrap it up in a newspaper and give it a proper burial, including agar batti and flower petals, which we used to steal from a flower shop. I think that’s where my training for social service began.

When I finally failed class 10th, I told my mother that I wanted to be a nurse and joined the Edhi centre in 1964. I remember when Pakistan went to war with India a year later, we treated a lot of wounded.

We also had to prepare for last rites of many corpses, some even mutilated, after which the men would take them for burial. At that time, apart from Edhi, there was no other centre providing social service like this.

When I joined the centre, all Edhi centre possessed was an OPD and a maternity home, a tiny office and an old car. I’m told that when Edhi saab wanted to initiate this venture in the 1950s, he had few funds.

Fortunately, a gentleman from the Memon community, Haji Usman Ghani Edhi, gave him half his capital and instructed him to open a dispensary, and the office in Kharadar is where it all began.

Gradually we bought the adjoining buildings for expansion. The real estate wasn’t very expensive then, and Edhi saab saved up a lot as well. Later, we set up a hospital in Lyari which was designed as a proper hospital. This must have been around 25 years ago.

My first meeting with Edhi saab was quite interesting. During my school years, one night, my mother asked me to accompany her in the middle of the night to the Edhi centre where she was escorting my aunt who was experiencing labour pains. There was a man sleeping on a charpai outside the centre.

Assuming that he was a guard, I rudely woke him up and told him to open the gate, “Oye lala, gate kholo,” is how I called out to him. It turned out that the ‘guard’ was Edhi saab.

There was little contact after that until I took up nursing duties. When I was working at the centre, Edhi saab was involved with another nurse and we all thought they would get married. But it did not work out.

So eventually he sent a proposal for me and I accepted. I was in my teens and Edhi saab was much older, at least 20 years older.

When he decided to marry me, people advised him against it, warning him that because of the age difference, the relationship would not last. The girls in our mohalla would tease me as well, and sang, Main kya karoon re, mujhe buddha mil gaya, when they saw me.

This was in 1966. Within three years I had my first kid. I remember living on the roof of the office building with the kids, whereas Edhi saab lived downstairs; he only came upstairs to eat and say his prayers.

He used to drive the only ambulance we had at that time. After my marriage, I continued to fulfil my duties as a nurse.

As nurses, we were all-rounders, and even back then there used to be quite a crowd at the dispensary. In those days, patients would only be satisfied if you give them some injection; similar to how today people want antibiotics, even if there’s no need for it.

I remember how exhausted we would get giving injections to patients. The only thing we backed away from was cleaning wounds like gangrene, and Edhi saab looked after such patients.

Contrary to what the younger lot believes, the girls in the ’60s and ’70s experienced a lot of liberty. We were, of course, required to cover ourselves in chadar and burqas but we were allowed to work.

Some of the women who worked at the hospital came from quite a distance, but we never had to fear eve-teasing or worry about any other security issues.