Comedian Habeeb Khan dies

Last Updated on Tuesday, 22 July 2014, 23:18 by GxMedia

Veteran Guyanese comedian, Habeeb Khan died early Tuesday morning at his East Bank Demerara home after a prolonged illness.

He was 78.

Khan’s close friend and broadcaster, Merano Isaacs, confirmed that the comedian died at his home at Friendship with his wife , Doris, by his bedside shortly after midnight Monday.

He recalled that Khan was in recent years very sick with emphysema and eventually became inactive.

Although Khan starred in a decades-old Guyanese movie, “If Wishes Were Horses,” and held several comedy shows, Isaacs believed that he was not given due recognition in Guyana. “As a cultural ambassador it is great loss and we hope that the others will carry on. I don’t think he was given much recognition at home sometimes,” Isaacs told Demerara Waves Online News.

He said Guyana has lost someone who has “made us happy” here and abroad. “A lot of people in the Diaspora loved him a lot but I don’t think we recognised and celebrated him,” he said.

Isaacs remembered hearing sections of the arts refusing to include him in their shows because he was “vulgar”.

Khan’s age old silent joke is that his yard is not fenced but has a padlocked gate.