Anil Esmail

Dr Anil Karmali Esmail was born in Kampala, Uganda on 30 September 1943. His parents were Sherbanu and Karmali Esmail. He had 5 brothers: Bahadur, Badru, Sadru, Hassan and Mahmood. He also had 6 sisters: Malek, Gulshan, Roshan, Firdos, Razia and Laila.

The family were manufacturers of footwear and they also farmed sugar and dealt in real estate. They lived on a lush and large estate on Ismael Road, Mbuya Hill, Kampala. There, the Esmail family had built a house for each brother and his family. Growing up in Kampala was pretty idyllic for the young Anil. It was a comfortable life chasing lizards and picking fruit from the neighbour's mango trees. As a teen, he climbed Kilimanjaro with the Outward Bound.

Anil studied medicine at Dow Medical College in Karachi. Whilst a student at Dow, one of Anil's trips from East Africa to Karachi was by way of a cruise ship that was sailing around the East Coast of Africa to India. He boarded at Mombasa and spent most of the first few days in his cabin being sick. A glamorous and effervescent young woman called Lulu Bibi Bham then joined the ship at Cape Town. Anil (thankfully having found his sea legs) discovered Lulu Bibi to be a charming and delightful table tennis companion. Seemingly the feeling was mutual as Lulu (who had been on her way to India to study there) decided to disembark instead at Karachi where she married Anil. At the time of their marriage, Lulu changed her name to Laila.

Both Laila and Anil loved Karachi but when Anil finished his studies there, he returned to Kampala to live. Laila travelled to Cape Town for a brief period, intending to meet Anil in Kampala once he was settled there. But in 1972, Idi Amin gave around 60,000 non Ugandan Asians 90 days to leave the country. As it turned out, Anil and his family were given an even shorter deadline after they had somehow attracted the ire of the Ugandan authorities. Leaving what they couldn't carry, Anil and his family arrived in the UK as refugees. Laila met him there. As refugees in the UK, the Esmail family were visited by a doctor. He was clearly a lovely soul as he helped secure Anil a job as a doctor in Newmarket, West Suffolk. He worked there happily and he and Laila had two daughters Shani and Anisha. Work later took Anil to Stracathro and then Dundee where he practiced first as a trauma doctor in Accident and Emergency and later as a GP. Anil worked for the NHS for approximately 40 years retiring at 70.

Sadly Anil lost his beloved Laila in 2015. Another Laila - just as sparkling and cheeky as the first - was born in 2016. Little Laila, Anil's granddaughter, became one of his new best friends. They played, chatted and enjoyed forest walks together.

Anil has always loved tech, gadgets, hi-fi's and cars. He was a great connoisseur of food, feeding his family and friends his amazing creations. He loved to visit his siblings who settled from coast to coast of Canada and he loved to share happy memories of barbecues with them. 

Anil will forever be sadly missed. He was the kindest of souls. We were so lucky to have him in our lives.