NCERT Book Class 11 English (Snapshots) Chapter 4 The Ghat of the Only World

38 Snapshots

4
The Ghat of the Only World
Amitav Ghosh

A dying man, an expatriate from Kashmir, asks the author to write something
about him after he is gone. The following piece is what Amitav Ghosh wrote
to keep his promise.

THE first time that Agha Shahid Ali spoke to me about his
approaching death was on 25 April 2001. The conversation
began routinely. I had telephoned to remind him that we had
been invited to a friend’s house for lunch and that I was going
to come by his apartment to pick him up. Although he had
been under treatment for cancer for some fourteen months,
Shahid was still on his feet and perfectly lucid, except for
occasional lapses of memory. I heard him thumbing through
his engagement book and then suddenly he said: ‘ Oh dear. I
can’t see a thing.’ There was a brief pause and then he added:
‘I hope this doesn’t mean that I’m dying...’
Although Shahid and I had talked a great deal over the last
many weeks, I had never before heard him touch on the subject
of death. I did not know how to respond: his voice was
completely at odds with the content of what he had just said,
light to the point of jocularity. I mumbled something innocuous:
‘No Shahid — of course not. You’ll be fine.’ He cut me short. In
a tone of voice that was at once quizzical and direct, he said:
‘When it happens I hope you’ll write something about me.’