“His dreams were coming true,” a close family member, who asked not to be named, told me.Įverything changed on the evening of Jan.

And in the spring, he was to perform his first international show in Dubai. His YouTube channel had crossed 500,000 subscribers. The 29-year-old stand-up comic from Mumbai was set to complete his first tour of India.

It was going to be the best year of Munawar Iqbal Faruqui’s life.