As per his wish, Anjum was cremated on August 26 in a non-religious ceremony, with his wife Patcy Nair lighting the pyre.
Anjum was a remarkable human being -- calm, strong and exceptionally composed -- never once letting the Big C get the better of him. Till the very end, he kept fighting the disease. Never once did he lose his sense of humour, battling the disease with courage and a smile on his face. Only last week, as he was taken in a wheelchair to the aircraft en route to Kochi, he managed to flash a V sign.
Even as he was undergoing chemotherapy, despite the physical weakness he continued to write for both Rediff.com and India Abroad.
There was more to Anjum than being a journalist. Involved with the activities of the Students Federation of India right from his college days, he was also involved in the street theatre movement, and was a main part of the theatre group Disha. He wedged in time between long hours at the office to perform in street plays that championed causes dear to him like anti-fundamentalism.
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Anjum was also an avid movies buff, his trenchant reviews of Bollywood fare never off the mark. In his spare time, he also wrote poems, was a poster painter but, above all, he was a great fighter.
The optimist that he always was, in one of his sms messages last week, he wrote: We are still the realists. Aren't we? We will do the impossible -- Anjum
That was what Anjum was and that's how we at rediff.com will remember him.
Read Anjum N on Rediff.com:
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