Mohsin Ali - warm, generous and forever interesting

No, no, no, no, no, Mohsin would say as he looked over our shoulders during a visit for a European meeting in Bonn in the early 1970s. The British will never agree to that, he said, and everyone stopped writing. Lionel Walsh, the bureau chief, argued and read quotes (in Viennese English) from Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky. Then Peter Rehak, the AP bureau chief, wandered over to our office after he had filed, knowing that Mohsin would make us late. But in the end Mohsin made his point.

He was one of the kindest colleagues I knew and we kept in touch after he retired in North Carolina. He e-mailed me several times, very religious missives, after he found out I knew his neighbours, the Magee family. My colleague and friend at the UN, journalist Seana Magee’s father Jim, had retired to the same town. I had met Jim several times before he died and he updated us on Mohsin’s beautiful house before he moved to an assisted living complex. Jim Magee’s widow Ann visited him frequently. Seana reports that the day before he died he asked Ann for a rice and lentil dish. By the time she brought it to him, it was too late. We spoke of him today as a warm, generous and forever interesting man. ■