Iftar with Imran Khan

Hello friends,

The traffic to the Shaukat Khanum Hospital (SKH) was so bad, we were late for the iftar despite having left an hour ago from home. We barely made it for the iftar, and entered the awesome canopy tent set-up with round tables. Dad was there already so it was my mom, myself, my sister and my cousin. Dad had reserved a table right at the front of the garden, just before the low built stage.

I saw Imran Khan sitting at the table next to ours. He was discussing politics in his usual manner with the others on the table. I don't know what it is with people, but they just seem to stare in awe at him. Very few muster up the courage to speak back to him, or correct him, or rebuke him. As soon as we broke our fast, and prayed our prayers, we returned to our tables and were handed out brochures from the SKH, detailing all the efforts of the donors, and visible results of all the donations that have been made to the hospital.

Dr. Amir, a Pakistani doctor trained and practiced in the UK, introduced us to the entire hospital set up. It certainly is amazing to see the entire range of facilities and amenities. The capacity for bed space has jumped from 20 to 100. The extensive range of medical equipments has been increased. Truly awesome to see where all the money went. The latest project they have is to construct an 11 storey building for the patient, of which the first four floor will be usable soon, and the rest planned for later stage.

Imran Khan came up on stage later, and shared with his gratitude and thanks, the donors, for continuously supporting his hospital with donations. He placed certain importance on the youth, who he said, donate as much as rupees 500 from their pocket money. "Every single rupees counts towards this project!" Imran also cracked some political jokes as well, talking about the recent deal between Musharaf and Bhutto, and how the money that was made in that deal could have been better spent! The audience laughed at his political jokes, and set the mood for the evening.

The original host returned to the stage, and started reading out the names of the donors and the amount of money they had contributed. My cousin had her cheque donation of 5lakhs rupees and I had my cheque of 3lakh rupees. Soon, i went up on stage and handed in our cheques. The host read out our names and the amount we donated. People were donating anything from 5000 rupees, to 1 lakh 5 lakhs to 10lakhs. Still other people pledged their amount and promised to pay the next day. They set a record for collecting about 2.5 crores (2,000,000 rupees). This was a jump from last year of about .5 crores!

Dinner was served and while we got our dinner, Imran Khan came up to our table and greeted us all and joined us. Since my dad is really close to him, Imran made an effort to speak to my mom, sister and myself. He inquired about my job here, and my sister talked to him about politics, since she is also on a fund raising spree for the NGO she is working at. It was a pleasant evening, no doubt, and certainly a more pleasurable experience to be dining with someone who could one day be the president of Pakistan.

Mansur
PS I didn't take any pictures because I have loads with him and didn't see the need to take more! :-)