Haji Sheikh Manzoor in Bhairokhara. Picture by Deepak Kumar

Bhairokhara (Samastipur), May 20: Hai kitna bad nasiib Zafar dafn ke liye; Do gaz zamiin bhii na milii ku-ye yaar mein.

That’s what India’s last Mughal emperor had written. A rough translation would be: how unlucky is Zafar. For burial, even two yards of land were not to be had in the land of the beloved.

Haji Sheikh Manzoor is no Bahadur Shah Zafar but recites the epitaph the emperor wrote while in Yangon, where the British had banished him to after the failed uprising of 1857.

Manzoor, who was thought to have died 29 years ago, is also no Rip Van Winkle who has just woken up in a real world.

The 81-year-old has survived it all: the brunt of Partition, losing touch with his roots in Bihar and, finally, a new nationality.

From a nondescript village in Bihar to the port city of Karachi in Pakistan — Manzoor’s journey has indeed been painful.

Today, he has only one plea to the Indian government: “Mujhe mere bachchon se alag nahi karo, maine saari jindagi inke bina raha. Ab to bas yahi marne do (Don’t separate me from my sons for I have spent my life without them. Now I want to die here). I was dying in Karachi despite having a big family here.”

The state home department has asked Manzoor — who can barely hear and walk — to leave the country as his visa (P615076) expired on April 30 or face action under the Foreigners’ Act for overstaying.

Manzoor, who was brought to his place of birth here — 85 km from Patna — in July last year, lost his wife last week. The octogenarian sounds hopeless even with the rest of his family of 25 — running into the fourth generation — around him.

His family has requested Samastipur police chief S.L. Das to allow him to spend his last days at Bhairokhara.

“It all depends on the external affairs ministry to allow him any relaxation on health grounds,” said home secretary Afzal Amanullah.

“The file, which will be routed through us to the Centre, has not come before me so far. The report of the superintendent of police will be very important.”

Das said he would “soon” send his report to the state home department.

Born on January 1, 1926, Manzoor was a Grade IV employee with the post and telegraph department at Kidderpore in Bengal.

In 1946, he was transferred to Sylhet in East Pakistan, as Bangladesh was called then.

In 1971, Manzoor was transferred to Karachi. He became a Pakistani citizen but his wife and two sons, Hayat Mohammed and Amin Ahmed, remained here.

After that, for several years, his family didn’t hear from him. Thinking him to be dead, Manzoor’s family performed his last rites in 1978.

Two years later, the family got a letter from him.

“All of a sudden we got a letter in 1980 from him saying he was fine,” said Hayat, now a 64-year-old farmer.

“I brought him here last July,” added Amin.