Actor Shafi Muhammad Shah left us around 15 years ago, on November 17, 2007. His demise was sudden, for no news of the actor’s deteriorating health had been making rounds. Instead, what is even more surprising is that Shafi Muhammad passed away while a popular soap of his was running on GEO TV, called Meri Adhoori Mohabbat. The soap was written by the famous Sindhi screenwriter Noor-ul-Huda Shah and directed by Yasir Nawaz.
Dealing with how love as a universal emotion cuts across borders, the soap showed both Muslim and Hindu characters forced to let go of their beloveds in the wake of the heart-wrenching partition that took place in 1947. Meri Adhoori Mohabbat starred Humayun Saeed, Adnan Siddiqui, Ayesha Khan, Sabreen Hisbani, Jamal Shah, Mehmood Aslam, Hina Dilpazir, Shameem Hilali, Ismat Zaidi, Shahood Alvi, Nausheen Shah, Tariq Jamil, Parveen Akbar and the late Shafi Muhammad Shah, who was playing the role of a caring guardian addressed as Baba Jaani by Parizeh, a character played by Ayesha Khan.
It was while this project was on air and Shafi Muhammad’s sequences were quite frequent that the death of the actor took the entire industry by storm. Since the plot of the soap still had a long way to go, changes in the script were instantly made in accordance with what had happened, and therefore Shafi Muhammad Shah’s character in Meri Adhoori Mohabbat was also made to meet an unforeseen sudden death.
It can be said with certainty that Shafi Muhammad, who already had popular dramatic projects to his name such as Teesra Kinara and Aanch, also had his last drama serial making it to the top of drama charts back in 2007. Meri Adhoori Mohabbat, to date, stands out as one of the best soaps to have been produced by GEO TV, helmed by greats like Noor-ul-Huda Shah and Yasir Nawaz.
