Mushtaq Ahmed Yousufi is one of the most famous humorist and a humanist from Pakistan. The subtlety of his satire laced with an unlaboured and chaste Urdu idiom is his speciality that distinguishes him from others in the field.
A couple of months ago, he was in New York. He was invited as the keynote speaker in an event organized by Aligarh Alumni, USA. Since I have been an avid reader of his books therefore I always had this image of him in my mind that he must be a very talkative and witty person. Somebody, who could never be forced to keep quite. But when I met him that evening , my first impression of him was of extreme modesty. He came across as a very sober person to me. When he started his talk, there were a number of moments where his humor did its usual cut and the audience were split into smiles and laughter. I observed that whenever his humor got closer to crossing the thin line of vulgarity, Yousufi saheb masterfully dusguised it with his choice of literary words such that the meaning stayed intact but created huge giggles among the audience.
I first saw Bashir Ahmed on UK’s Pakistani channel (Pakistani channel was a result of the split between Pakistani TV Asia and Zee TV Europe). Second time I saw Bashir Ahmed was on BBC Parliament channel giving a speech to Scottish Parliament about Pakistan and its economy. A few days ago, I saw his Picture on a News website with notice of his death and the news item that his seat in parliament has been filled by female deputy from his party SNP. Bashir Ahmad MSP, politician and businessman, born 12 February 1940; died 6 February 2009 of a sudden heart failure.
Just this very minute in the T20 World Cup being played in Nottingham, the Pakistan (149-4) team has beaten South Africa (142-5) by 7 runs to reach the Finals of the Twenty-20 World Cup. Congratulations Pakistan.
