From our teens, Shafiq was a most dear friend, a brother. We bonded well, played together, fooled together, and laughed along our path together: a true bosom friend! In the late 1940’s we grew up as neighbours in the Nsambya Landis, the Railways staff quarters in Kampala. We would trek daily down the beautiful valleys of Kampala and up the hills to cross over the Museum Hill in old Kampala to reach our co-ed secondary school at the foot of Mengo hill. Here Leana was also my classmate from 1946 to 1951. Leana & Shafiq’s wedding in 1966 was a memorable occasion with Mzee Serwano Kulubya and Mzee Obote as witnesses. Shafiq was a well turned out, tall handsome youth neatly clad with a fresh clean handkerchief everyday! He would disdain any of our school mates who turned up in crumpled clothes. A good student, excellent at English with an amiable smile, he easily won you over. An ace sportsman: Uganda table tennis champion, a century making opening batsman of the national cricket team, a first eleven Uganda Hockey forward and good at football as well. In the early 1950’s we were together as students in England: he was a secular, left leaning activist. In 1956 we marched along with thousands down the Whitehall protesting Anthony Eden’s misadventures of the Anglo-French-Israeli onslaught on Egypt’s Suez Canal. Shafiq, unfortunately, got seriously hurt when the mounted police charged on the protestors on Whitehall. On return to Uganda in the late 1950’s, Shafiq rented a house on Mbuya Hill and later on at Kololo Hill. Both these residences became an open house for aspiring Ugandan politicians and activists especially from up-country. When in 1960 the Prime Minister, the late Hon’ble Harold Macmillan sensed the ‘wind of change’ in Africa’s political make-up, Uganda was excited at the prospect of freedom. This however, lead to a scramble within the country where entrenched groups such as various kingdoms, religious and minority groups sought protected niche in an independent Uganda by lobbying for separate electoral rolls and reserved seats in Parliament, etc. To counter this mischief, Shafiq along with like minded young people, mostly Asians, launched the Uganda Action Group (UAG) a dynamic, vocal, progressive, left orientated political movement dedicated to promote one nation, one people independent Uganda. The Uganda Action Group sought inspiration from the founding fathers of the Uganda National Congress such as the much respected I.K. Musazi, Enoch Mulira, Jolly Joe Kiwanuka and the up-coming stars on the political horizon such as Apolo Milton Obote, Abu Mayanja, Benedicto Kiwanuka, and Godfrey Binaisa. The Uganda Action Group was well represented at the founding meeting of the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) in early 1960 at the Indian Women’s Association hall on Nakasero hill. Most Uganda Action Group members in due course joined the UPC. In May 1962, on the way to independence, the UPC won the parliamentary elections and Shafiq became a member of the national Parliament. He was a core group member of the UPC and a close confidant of the President. He was actively involved in the Party organization including the concept of the party associated Trust - The Milton Obote Foundation (MOF). MOF gave us two new newspapers, a publishing house in joint venture with Macmillan’s of the UK, a cultural and heritage centre, a multipurpose high-rise in the city centre to house, interalia, the UPC headquarters. In the mid 1960’s, Shafiq became a member of the East African Community Legislative Assembly at Arusha in Tanzania and a Minister thereof in-charge, among others, of the East African Railways where his father, as mine, were middle level cadres in the racially segregated staffing of the railways in the colonial days. A glorious climb by the boy from the railway Landis to the helm! In exile from 1971-79 during Idi Amin’s tyranny, Shafiq played an active part in the fight against Amin. A Cabinet Minister and High Commissioner to the Court of St. James in London in the post Amin era, Shafiq contributed very substantially to undo Amin’s wrongs and in rebuilding a multi-party democracy in the resurrected Uganda. Tyrannical ambitions brought the second democratic UPC government down in 1985. Shafiq, as indeed other concerned Ugandans, have ever since fought relentlessly for a multi party democracy to be restored. They, as did Shafiq, want a Uganda that does not inflict pain and agony on its neighbours, as at present, merely to satiate the lust of the select of the ruling elite for the gold dust and stones of its neighbours. Shafiq got called away suddenly, mercifully painlessly and peacefully, leaving a lot of us rudderless. He was always an innovator, an inspirer, a concerned person. He helped countless Ugandans in their plight, especially students away from home. He will be greatly missed but will always remain an inspiration to us. Farewell, dear brother! Gurdial Singh 28/04/05