Mohamedhussein G. Visram

OBITUARY – Mr. M. G. Visram

In January this year, I saw the loss of a good friend in Mombasa; a friend I had made not too long ago.

He is M.G. Visram, businessman, writer and a man of many other great talents. His first name was Mohamedhussein, but friends fondly called him simply “Mamdu”. In his lifetime, he wrote three books that became very popular in East Africa. The first being, RED SOILS OF TSAVO (first published as “On a Plantation in Kenya”). The second book was ALIDINA VISRAM – THE TRAIL BLAZER, and the third and last, BEYOND THE BAOBAB TREE.

M.G. Visram was born on 9th October, 1937 in Bukoba, Tanzania (Tanganyika, in those days) on the shores of Lake Victoria. His son, Shakil, who holds a PhD from the UK in Coral Science, tells me his Dad was quite mischievous at School, as most boys normally are at that age. One day, the Headmaster caught him spraying ink with a syringe through a hole he had made in the wall between a boys’ and a girls’ classroom. And he was the Head Student!

He was keen in music and played the Harmonica (mouth organ) in schooldays.

How I met him: I was browsing in a Nairobi bookshop one day some years back, and I saw the book, RED SOILS OF TSAVO by an M. G. Visram. A tiny bell rang as I seemed to have come across the title and author from a previous browsing. The cover with a beautiful sunset over a semi-desert expanse, and the silhouette of a lone, Baobab tree beckoning, and the title itself, attracted me and I bought the book. I was so entranced after reading it, that I next came looking for the other two titles. I read and re-read the three books at least twice in six months.

Since I was born and bred in East Africa, I thoroughly enjoyed the journeys that the three books took me on. Next, I thought of meeting the man behind the books. I found a Mombasa post box number on the inside of his books and dropped him a letter asking him if I could see him on my next trip to Mombasa. There was no email address inside. And then, I forgot all about it. About a month after writing to him, an email from him popped up onto my screen. On my next trip to Mombasa, M. G. Visram came in his 4-wheel drive, to pick me up from a convenient spot in Tudor, Mombasa. And that was our first of several meetings we had thereafter, until he passed away in January this year.

One question I had asked him early on was, “why don’t you continue writing? You’ve penned three beautiful books”. He replied nonchalantly, “What I’ve wanted to ever say, I have said it in these three books. I have nothing else to say. No more”. I thought that was a philosophical response; that became a “quotable quote” in my diary.

In our first meeting, I was surprised to learn that M.G. Visram came from the same School that I went to in Kampala; Kololo Secondary School. But he was a few years my senior. We talked about books, authors, Literature, music, 19th century explorers in Africa, and many other topics.

Mr. Visram and his elder brother, Rustam ran a 5000-acre farm in Voi, a hundred miles west of Mombasa. They had started young, in their late teens or early twenties until their retirement. They farmed sisal, coffee, oranges, bananas, tomatoes, ghalia melons and many other crops. It is from the experiences at this farm that the book, RED SOILS OF TSAVO was born.

The two brothers had started their business partnership early in life. They had begun in Tanzania, managing a coffee farm in Arusha and a sisal estate at Himo. Later, they moved to Voi where they gradually purchased the majority of shares in the farm that their father had purchased in partnership with others.

Mamdu had a strong inclination towards engineering, and when he was once ill in 2013, he was in the process of designing an internal combustion engine that resembled a modified rotary engine but different in design in some fundamental ways. He had a very good understanding of Law, and had a passion for music and Urdu Poetry.

He was fond of sport fishing for Red Snapper and Barracuda at their small island plot in South Coast, Mombasa.

He died on 10th January 2017 after a short illness. He was 79.

I shall miss “Mamdu bhai” (as I used to address him) with nostalgia when I pick up RED SOILS OF TSAVO, or BEYOND THE BAOBAB TREE again to undertake that enchanting journey of the halcyon days. Farewell, my dear friend!

By Ahmed Virjee (ahmed@regentbooksupplies.com)