Close Call In Karachi

     The terrible news out of Pakistan, Thursday brings to our concern instantly people we met on a trip we took visiting family in Karachi in 2005.
     Within the circle are teachers, doctors, scientists, lawyers, students and housewives.
     They are a wonderful, hard-working family, living their lives through a tough situation, always with dignity and hope.
     We were thinking yesterday of Dr. Imtiaz Khan.
     Dr. Khan walks the tough, hardscrabble streets of Karachi everyday, making his way through neighborhoods that would make the South Bronx look like a summer day in Central Park.
     Dr. Khan foregoes the danger for the sake of a small clinic, where he administers help to the poor.
     On occasion he has even become benefactor to those he has attended.
     Recently, while administering medicines, he was mugged for his cell phone.
     Yesterday as Benazir Bhutto lay dying at the hand of assassins, Dr. Khan had left his wife and two girls and sister and was at the hospital.
     Just outside the hospital gates were rioters that looted his small car for his medicine kit and wallet, smashed the windows but somehow through a miracle he made it into the hospital where he is right now as you read this, administering to the needy.
     We decided a long time ago that this guy might be the greatest person we have ever met.
     We want to go with him and roll up our sleeves.
     We want doctor’s hands, the kind that will massage away the pain and heal the suffering.
     We want hands that can carry hope safely through the most dangerous of terrain.
     This time of year, in the world despite differences, we can all feel that family is the stuff of life.
     Rooted deeply in history, with branches that reach towards the heavens, Dr. Khan is hope in Pakistan, and in any country in the world today, for that matter.
     Humble, decent and devoted to his country he has stayed in this place while many others have fled.
     A letter just received from Imtiaz’s 14-year old daughter Irum who I am so proud to report is also my beloved niece, says it all, about being young and on the ground in Pakistan right now.

“At a time like this, one feels totally hopeless, but we kept our hopes high and waited anxiously for my father to come home.      Thankfully, he was perfectly fine, but his car has been damaged badly.      The protestors broke the windows of his car and stole most of the things inside it.      It seemed like a nightmare to us.      But it was good luck that his car was the only one that had not been burnt.      Those people had put the rest of them on fire.      He came home around 7 in the morning. We all stayed awake at night, hoping for the situation in the city to become better so that he could come home safely.      There has been a great loss to the country by the protestors as they caused a lot of damage, a lot.      Still, we were happy that my dad was perfectly all right and no harm had been caused to him.      I remember, he usually keeps on teasing me about leaving this country and going abroad to seek better opportunities, and I always used to tell him that I love my country and would never leave it.      Now today, he asked me, that do you still want to stay in this country?      I was totally speechless. What could I say?      Our family is our strength, and if any sort of harm is caused to our family, we feel like getting away from the cause of it.      I shall definitely write a story on PIA for you as soon as the conditions get better.      It’s weird that even after living in this country, we are sometimes totally unaware of what is exactly going on around us.      Should I be happy that maybe our school would give us more holidays after the current situation?      I guess that would be quite selfish to do so.      I just hope that everything gets fine and our country does prosper, just like our founder, Quaid, had hoped.      Hope is what keeps this world moving on.      Inshallah, everything will be fine.”

     The words still fresh in my mind come back to me recalling the sway of Dr. Khan’s medicine bag as he walks the streets of life.
     Some lives that by some sheer thread of fate have been allowed to continue.
     And hope.
Geoffrey