Village lassies have been going to wells to fill their pitchers with water for ages. When Zubaida of Pyaro Goth went to get water, she bent a bit too much while lowering the pitcher and lost her balance. She found herself, all but submerged, at the bottom of the 20-foot well.

She was pulled out with difficulty, and for a whole year, was confined to bed, paralyzed from the waist down owing to the dislocation of her lower vertebrae. During this period her entire universe was a dark hut. Its small entrance was the only source of light and air. The quack, brought from Mauripur by the family to treat her, was honest enough to express his inability to cure Zubaida. The family then gave up any hope of her survival. The idea of taking the girl to a specialist in Karachi, and paying for her hospitalization, was as remote a possibility as an American or British hospital is for the middle-class.

Pyaro Goth lies 20 kilometers inland from the main Hawkesbay road in a trough between hillocks. A small peninsula is formed about 10 kilometers to the west of this village opposite Churna island. This is a favourite fishing site for amateur fishermen. The fun-makers at Hawkesbay are important to the villages in the vicinity only to the extent that camel drivers from there manage to eke out a subsistence by offering them rides. The sea, whose waves can be heard in Pyaro village in the calmness of the night, is a great source of livelihood for the entire population of hundreds of villages which stretch from the west of Karachi to Pasni and Gwadar.

A group of young doctors, having recently finished their house jobs, happened to visit Hawkesbay on a picnic. Wali Muhammad, a camel driver, offered them a ride. While others in the group were more interested in fun and amusement, Fauzia was struck by the pain and suffering writ large on the wrinkled face of this barefoot man. She started talking to him. This man appeared so different from the shallow and unimpressive beings she came across in her professional and daily life in Karachi. Finally, she learned the reason for his agony when he beseeched her to see his daughter who was bedridden after a fall in the well. It was Zubaida. Fauzia's companions preferred to stay on. So, the young doctor herself took the car, and with Wali Muhammad, and drove to the village.

The sight of an approaching car in a whirl of dust made the children assemble at the village entrance. When they saw Wali Muhammad alighting with a lady they immediately ran to inform the elders. When people learned that he had brought a doctor to see Zubaida, they were skeptical and did not show any emotion. Fauzia was dumbstruck when she was introduced into the hovel where Zubaida had been left to die a slow death on a khaat (cot).

Lying on a bedding soiled with excrement, she muttered some words in Sindhi and raised her hands heavenward on being told that a doctor had come to see her. With the help of some Sindhi learnt during her childhood in Hyderabad, Fauzia managed to communicate with Zubaida. She understood that her patient had absolutely no sensation from the waist down and could not feel the calls of nature. Fauzia at once decided to arrange the hospitalization of this girl in Karachi.

It took considerable effort, for Fauzia to persuade the camel driver and his spouse to send their daughter for hospitalization in Karachi. Then Wali Muhammad suggested that perhaps the ambulance of the abandoned government dispensary in the adjacent Hussaini Goth could take his daughter to the hospital. Fauzia drove to the dispensary with him. To her surprise, she came to know that this dispensary had never seen a doctor since its inauguration two years ago by a dignitary.

A chowkidar and an ambulance driver, Abdul Hamid, were the only persons who staffed this desolate building. Abdul Hamid seemed more preoccupied with the explanations he would have to furnish to the inspecting officers who dropped in occasionally, taking time off from a pleasure-trip to Hawkesbay, than with the necessity of transporting a patient to the hospital. The villagers were barely aware that it was the ambulance's function to transport gravely ill persons to hospitals in Karachi.

No instructions had been issued to Abdul Hamid by the authorities in this matter. Fauzia used whatever eloquence she possessed, to impress upon Abdul Hamid the necessity of taking Zubaida to hospital. Finally, Abdul Hamid agreed to use his ambulance to take the poor girl to a hospital the next morning. He felt reassured when Fauzia told him that any objection on the part of the authorities would be taken care of by her. In a few hours, she had learned more about the extent of negligence, on the part of the administration regarding health and social welfare than during her entire student life.

Back in the city, she left no acquaintance unvisited to plead the cause of Zubaida. Senior specialists, who are more attentive to the feel of crisp bank notes in their pockets than to the pulse of the patients, pretended to listen to her but finally, shrugged their inability. However, some people agreed to help. She succeeded in convincing the managing director of a Bunder Road medical complex and an orthopedic surgeon of Hamdard University to hospitalize Zubaida free of charge and to treat her on the plea that she would be an interesting case for medical students.

Once Zubaida had been admitted, Dr. Fauzia saw that apart from medical care, clothes for the village girl and her mother, who was to stay with her daughter in hospital, also had to be provided. She collected many pairs of shalwar kameez from relatives and friends in order to ensure clean clothes for the two women. She felt that after initial inhibition and discouragement, people generally were not averse to helping if the cause was pleaded with due force and a sense of urgency.

The insertion of a catheter, relieved Zubaida of the annoyance of soiling her clothes and bedding every now and then. Proper food and hygienic conditions brought some freshness to Zubaida's face. With the help of regular physiotherapy and a course of neurobene injections, Zubaida was able to sit up on her bed within one week. When doctors recommended Magnetic Resource Imaging (MRI), Dr. Fauzia tapped every possible source to muster the amount required for it. She discovered that she had a great fund-raising talent. Relatives, friends and former teachers were so moved by her mission that most of them contributed to her cause.

When Zubaida returned from the MRI session at Liaquat National Hospital to her room, she likened the MRI unit to a grave, but Dr. Fauzia immediately retorted that the real grave was the hovel to which she was confined prior to her hospitalization. Zubaida smiled and spontaneously kissed the hands of her savior.

News soon spread in Pyaro Goth and the surrounding villages that Zubaida was able to sit up and would soon be standing on her feet again. Those villagers who could afford a trip to Karachi visited Zubaida. When they saw her sitting on her bed in clean clothes, with her freshly-washed hair spread out on her shoulders, they could not believe their eyes. Zubeida was well on the way to recovery. They invited Dr. Fauzia to revisit their goth and treat the sick and the suffering.

One Friday she took a bagful of medicines, some dressing aids etc. and went to Pyaro Goth along with a dispenser who voluntarily accompanied her. Having been provided with a table and a chair, she set up an open-air dispensary. Men, women and children thronged as much to see her as for getting treated for various ailments. Elderly women caressed her head with affection and even requested her to shift to the village. This show of human warmth and gentle words were more rewarding than anything that a doctor can hope for. She experienced such an elation that she felt like shedding all her inhibitions, hug and kiss these women and children, sit on the ground with them and share all their joys and sorrows. She experienced a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction conferred only by dedicated and selfless work.

One has to look not very far, perhaps immediately around oneself, or in the neighborhood, and in fact in the eyes of the passerby, to find a cause to fight for, an injustice to be redressed, some suffering to be alleviated and above all some sense of purpose and meaningfulness in one's own life. The primeval forest of Dr. Albert Schweitzer and the Calcutta of Mother Teresa lie at our doorsteps.