African safari

By Omar Kureishi

IN 1956 the Cricket Writers Club toured what was then called East Africa. I do not want to write about that tour but about some of the characters who were on that tour. Hamid Jalal was the manager and he deserves a column by itself. Kardar was the captain and I have already written about him. About our hosts, I best remember the brothers, Bashir and Iqbal Mauladad. Bashir was very prim and proper, the Rotary Club type and snobbish in an upper middle-class way, yet he was an impeccable host.

Iqbal or Bali as he was better known was roly-poly, portly rather than fat. He was a white hunter and took tourists on safaris to shoot lions and rhinos. He was also into motor-racing driver. He had been a consultant to MGM when they were shooting films in East Africa and claimed to have known Ava Gardner. Years later I met Ava Gardner in Paris and asked if she recalled Bali? Click to read the Full Article