Our Self-Written Obituaries – Aftab Yusuf Shaikh, Bombay
The 127th death.
[Text by Aftab Yusuf Shaikh; photo by Shaheer Shaikh]
Last Friday, Bombay-based author and poet Aftab Yusuf Shaikh, died in his sleep in this city. He was staying at his usual hotel while on a visit to Delhi. His works are replete with references to Delhi which as he once confessed, “seduced, baffled and tortured” him and now everybody other than him knows the final purpose for which the city was pulling him towards her.
Mr Shaikh was always afraid of dying in this rotten city because he was afraid of its history and always suggested that her underworld was more horrifying than of any other place.
Mr Shaikh was in the city for the release of his last collection of poems, dedicated to all his lovers and pseudo-lovers. As is well known among his friends and relatives, he was too full of himself and could have conjured up one more fantasy about himself if he were to know he died on the day he was born, his head on the lap of the woman he loved most of his life.
The poet (like most of his kind) is survived by a cabinet of books, a hope for absolute universal peace and some debts which cannot be repaid in any currency.
Our Self-Written Obituaries invites people to write their obituary in 200 words. The idea is to share with the world how you will like to be remembered after you are gone. (May you live a long life, of course!) Please mail me your self-obit at mayankaustensoofi@gmail.com.
baagh-e dilli mein jo ik roz huwa meraa guzaar
na woh gul hi nazar aayaa , na woh gulshan na bahaar