Pakistan

This article was originally published on July 8, 2016. Abdul Sattar Edhi collects donations at a roadside in Peshawar. — AP Photo Here is a tribute one always expected to write. Dreaded, but expected. Because one knew nobody, not even Edhi sahib, the one true permanent fixture of life in Karachi, can live forever. And yet, where does one begin? How does one write about true greatness? When it seems everyone already has remarkable stories to share about Abdul Sattar Edhi. In my lifetime, I have not come across anyone who touched so many lives in so many different ways. What can then one say that does not sound trite and predictable? In the face of a persona that is as much of a Colossus — straddling ethnic, class and religious divides — one is forced to fall back on personal recollections of a personality that was the opposite: humble, supremely matter-of-fact, ordinary, very, very human. Also read: Edhi’s eyes become source of vision for two blind persons I became aware of the man at quite a young age. My mot...

Raza Kazim is a lawyer, philosopher and political activist. He is also the inventor of a musical instrument called Saagar Veena and a photographer of international standards. He is a lapsed Marxist — he prefers to call himself a post-Marxist. One of the top lawyers in the country, Kazim has handled many seminal cases in his long legal career. Most importantly, perhaps, Kazim is a witness. He is a witness to the history of this country — its political and social history. His political career started when he organised a protest in his school during the Quit India Movement in 1942. He later joined the Communist Party of Pakistan but left it soon. He went to prison several times for opposing the government of the day, most famously on the allegations of trying to overthrow General Ziaul Haq’s military regime. Kazim divides his time between his legal practice, supervising Sanjan Nagar Institute of Philosophy and Arts, which he has set up in his home in Lahore, developing his philosophy of “mentology” and doing man...