Srinagar, July 28 -- False rumours of his death were swirling online. People were already posting tributes. But Bashir, ever the showman, responded the only way he knew how - with a line sharp enough to pierce grief and absurd enough to go viral. "Don't bury me before my time," he said, wrapped in loose clothes, his smile worn but intact.

That was his final performance.

On Monday morning, in his modest home in Hanji Gund, Budgam, Bashir Ahmad Bhat, better known across Kashmir as Bashir Kotur, passed away. He was 65.

His death marks the end of an era, not just for Kashmiri comedy, but for a way of telling truth through laughter, a way of resisting despair with disguise.

For nearly two decades, Kotur's face flickered across local cable ...