Home Between Crossings by Sultan Somjee
ISBN 10: 1508586373
CreateSpace, Charleston SC 29418 USA
(c) Sultan Somjee 2016 - 629 pp
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The `Home`
of the title is Kenya, a longish stop-gap in the even longer journey of the
Ismaili Khoja community from its origins in India to East Africa and then from
there across to Europe and America, during which it has transformed itself into
a very modern social species. In this sequel to Bead Bai (http://opinionmagazine.co.uk/details/1181/--Bead-Bai--ખોટા-મોતી-ના-સાચા-વેપારી--by-Sultan-Somjee), which was about the original
migration and settlement (the first
crossing), the focus is on the Devji family`s locally born off-spring. Here, their story spans virtually the whole of
the twentieth century, against the backdrop of the country`s immense political
and other fundamental changes as they were taking shape. It is a fascinating and absorbing narrative, told
most imaginatively and with great flair and fluency by an accomplished author.
The book
is a work of fiction, but one that is best described as creative fiction, founded on historical
fact and grounded in family and folk lore. And so we again meet Sakina, born in
Nairobi`s Indian Bazaar in 1922 on the day Harry Thuku was arrested by the
colonial government for leading an anti-pass protest, and are drawn into her life
as it unfolds in bits and pieces, some familiar to readers of Bead Bai.
Njugu Lane,
the Merali Bus Stop on River Road, the Kenya Broadcasting Station`s Hindustani
Service, the overflowing flooded Nairobi River - the signposting of these long-forgotten
names and places certainly resonates with this reviewer, who lived through most
of the period in question as a second generation Indo-Kenyan. These early
references morph into other later landmarks as Nairobi developed while at the
same time Sakina`s family grew and her community`s tentacles spread further.
Woven
through the book`s complex structure of her family`s trajectory is a veritable
history lesson, of its Ismaili and Indian cultural heritage and of the making
of Kenya as a nation out of its colonial past.
The chapter headings are grouped in sixteen parts, and under each of
which we get a measure of what they contain. In Part Two: The Keeper of
Stories, for instance, we have `My photo album` and `What love? What India?`
where, while looking at some of the pictures, Zera Bai exclaims: “I wish my
Rhemu would take me to the Taj Mahal for a picture. I want to see India. Kacch and Gujarat”. On this our narrator ruminates:
What Kacch? What Gujarat? What India? … distant pictures … not even mine. Vicarious pictures that stir my heart yet I
have not been there. Pictures like some
witch`s crafted tales imagined from an ancient land. Nor are they tales in my father`s head. Hazy, frightful tales in Dadabapa`s malaria
nightmares. Dark pictures in memory`s pulses of the orphaned child in him. They live in pain of yearning, sighs of loss,
and far away words of an immigrant. Words like dhow, Bombay, Saurashtra,
Haripur, raj, Kala Pani, des, avatar and Taj Mahal. They come from the motherland of Indian Khoja
recalled in dying memories two generations gone by. Yet the emotions live in the mist-like
nostalgia. Now the ancient is
resurrected, made new and modern. Beauty
portrayed in love photos before the Taj Mahal, and in the cinema, the hideout
of Indians of Africa to bond with the origins in half-hearted thoughts.
This neatly
encapsulates the pre-history of the first migration, but Somjee gives us much
more in terms of the detail, the minutiae of relationships and interactions and
of the emotions and practicalities
involved in everyday living, such as in Part Three, under `Freda and
Kamau`:
I hear Kabir`s whispered voice from the washroom
teasing Freda, calling her Farida, lovingly mimicking Ma who could not remember
the name of our house help even after constant right name lessons from
him. During the day, I see how sixteen
year old Freda, the Kamba girl from the Catholic Mission of Nairowua, plays
with my children. How happy they are
when she sings to them while [giving] them a bath and then Looking at Freda, passing barefoot on
the powdery red earth, I would often think of Hawa, our maidservant in Nairobi
when I was little. How she used to take
me around Jugu Bazaar, sometimes on her back in a kanga wrap, sometimes, I
walked by her side with her little finger hooked into my big finger
So reminiscent
of one`s own childhood! In Part Four
(Land is a broken string of beads), there are close-ups on a fast changing
Nairobi: how it `grew bigger and bigger with increasing railway and road
traffic`, stone buildings replacing wooden ones, `as was the trend in the new
elegantly planned capital of British East African Empire`, `Nairobi`s classic
Victorian and Edwardian architecture, brought to perfection by fine Indian
masonry in sand and grey granite stone`: `Law courts, railway headquarters,
financial houses, the city hall, cathedrals, the European market and the post
office … on garden avenues.` And then there was `the imposing Khoja Mosque, the
jamat khana, the heart of Satpanth Khoja life where Government Road, Victoria
Street and the India Bazaar come together … the hub of Indian commerce and
fashion`.
But the
tri-partite racial hierarchy was an embedded reality, with `cinemas, play
houses and international hotels plainly marked EUROPEANS ONLY at the entrances
[while] Oriental temples, mosques, with tall minarets [and] Churches with bell
towers stand in assigned denominational spaces for Roman Catholics and
Anglicans [and the] Europeans only live on high ridges, the browns in-between
like at the malarious swampland of Ngara and not-to-be-seen blacks in the new
stone built kiosk type housing estates on the dry barren plains at outskirts of
Shauri Moyo, Kariobangi and Mbotela`.
Then in
`Who are they, the Mau Mau?` and `Man called Kenyatta, Father of the Nation`:
Every day we listen to the radio and want to know
more about the Mau Mau, the barbaric gang that is terrorizing the country. It is not because we just want to understand
that we ask each other … but because the tone of the newsman on the radio puts
so much alarm in us that we seek comfort speaking out our nervousness to each
other.
While
their menfolk talk of and parrot the negative things they hear the Europeans
say about Kenyatta, the Khoja women react with cries of `kisirani` and
`Misfortune coming`. Sakina is
conflicted: `Where do I belong? Whose
side am I on? A brown person, not white, not black. Not a man`, either. `Something
is changing in Kenya` indeed. And `When elephants fight` (in Part Five) `Africa
is Black and White Brown is invisible`!
She
recalls how the partition of India caused a rift between the Hindus and Muslims
of Kenya, during which her own community became conflicted and became the butt
of mockery as `Khoja Khoja centi moja` - reduced to being only one cent`s worth! But she always remained steadfast in her
reverential regard for Gandhi, even to the point of arguing with Haiderali her
husband about Gandhi`s fight against the British.
Somjee
quotes the African saying `Tembo wavili wapiganapo burusha fumbi`, translated
into English as `When two elephants fight they raise dust`, with its Gujarati
equivalent as જયારે બે હાથી લટે તયારે કીડી કચરાય whose English translation is given as `When two
elephants fight ants get trampled`. The
correct Gujarati version however should surely read as જયારે બે હાથી લડે તયારે કીળી કચરાય? (Incidentally, in the Gujarati/English lullaby at
page 29, the second line should really be પાટલે બેસીને નાય, the
third line પાટલો ખસી જાય and the fourth be હીરો
મારો પળે હસી).
But as for
`On whose side shall we be? White or
Black to escape the fate of ants?` the author is all seeing and objective. He is meticulous and fair in his overview and
deeper analysis of the dynamics of African nationalism. He remembers the part
played by such stalwarts as Ambu Bhai and Makhan Singh, Isher Dass and Jaswant
Singh, and `printer scholar Vidyarthi and grunting journalist Ahmed` in the
struggle for Kenya`s independence.
And yet of
course there is suspicion, fear and hate all around them. These are tricky times. Independence is on the horizon. Kenyatta is all sweetness and welcoming. The chapter `Cowboys and Indians` begins with
`True democracy has no colour. It does
not choose between black and white …`, says he on the radio. He urges his Kikuyu menfolk not to drink if
they want to increase their population and preaches `equal pay for equal work
for all`!
But it is
not all politics that is driving the Devji family. Sakina`s inner musings are a
constant reminder of much else that was going on in their lives. The children`s education, livelihood and
marriage prospects occupy the elders as much as daily business and domestic
concerns. On the cultural front, Gujarati gives way to
English: `Look forward. Get educated`,
but Sakina wonders
… if English would be better than Gujarati for our
sacred texts … what I know is that Gujarati gives Vedanta a memory … Satpanth
the wisdom I need to live through these times of changes when African voices
and violence put fear in the heart [and most] of all, Gujarati gives ginan the
melody … (t)he language that has preserved Saheb for six hundred years in the
hearts of the Satpanthis?
And the
unmentionables also get an airing: for example, Riziki, Shamshu`s `kept`
Swahili woman in Mombasa with whom he
has a son, Issa, and the resulting social complications are explored in `Of
Cross Eyed and Sheep Headed Khojas of Mombasa`!
But change
comes and the mood turns ugly. Part Ten is devoted to the `Era of Great
Propaganda Betrayal of Hate and Humiliation`, with the `Tyranny of Nationalism`
as its centrepiece. It took many shapes
and turns.
In Kenya, interestingly, integration was reasoned
as possible only through blood mixing.
But that was one sided … marriages of Asian girls to African men … the
trump card of male dominated African nationalism that primarily targeted
robbing the Asians of their marriages.
`Asian two-facedness` became the mantra of
political discourse, fuelling popular anger and resentment, most vocally
expressed by Kenyatta himself at his public rallies, denouncing the Asians as `thieves,
looters and whores` – blood sucking bedbugs!
So it was hardly surprising to be called `You Indian … Paper Citizens`,
with threats of Africanisation and worse.
The Asians developed strategies of survival, as do all minorities
everywhere. Some of them worked, while others were denounced as mere `window
dressing`. There was the notorious case
of the young son of a petrol station owner who after personally filling up a
minister`s Mercedes Benz to the full politely asked him for payment, the
reaction to which was a slap on the face and a volley of insults (“You Asian
exploiter! Mhindi. Out of Kenya, you Asian whore. And leave this petrol station to me”!) as the
MP drover off without paying, leaving him to nurse his cheek and feeling
utterly humiliated before all his staff and others who witnessed the
incident. This was something that most
of Nairobi`s Asians got to hear of on the grapevine within days and caused the
Khojas talk of migration to Canada.
In Canada, you can keep your culture and
religion. You do not have to
[intermarry] with the white people or the Aboriginals. Saheb [the Aga Khan] is a friend of the Prime
Minister and visits Canada. They both
like multiculuralism.
Kenyatta`s
time passes, but not before the Asian emigration fever reaches `Exodus` proportions. He is succeeded by Moi. A more favourable climate in terms of
business partnerships and economic expansion ensues and fosters a sense of
complacency until an attempted coup brings back violent outbursts against the
Asians seen by the Kikuyu elite previously powerful as his cronies and so there
is renewed pressure to leave. For Sakina too, Canada beckons and, after getting
immigration clearance and completing all the formalities, the book ends as she
contemplates her departure from the land of her birth, on the second crossing to her new home.
These are
only some of the highlights of narrative.
There is a great deal more packed into it in graphic detail, weaving a
complex web of relationships, interactions and historical happenings as they
impacted upon the lives of the characters and their community at the centre of
the tale. Home Between Crossings however
is more than just a family saga in the classic tradition of, say, The House of the Spirits (Isabel
Allende), One Hundred Years of Solitude
(Gabriel García
Márquez) or The Immigrants (Howard Fast). It is also an epic, albeit a fictional,
account of a people`s passage across the oceans through time and space – that
of the Khojas. But although it presents their
perspective – and Somjee writes as an Ismaili insider - it is also
representative of other Asians in Kenya (and East Africa generally) during the
time-scale in question. The people in the other communities could relate to
everything that happened to the Devji family because they too went through parallel
experiences at all levels and in more or less the same way.
Above all,
Home Between Crossings is not just a
work of fiction, it is a personification of Kenya`s history of the twentieth
century. Somjee has undoubtedly used his
first-hand lived experience to chart every significant turning point in
the march of the country from colony to republic. Together
with Bead Bai, he has created a
literary masterpiece that will also serve as a historical record of our time, of particular interest to those of us in the diaspora who share his Kenyan background, and one that will benefit future
generations of scholars as well. I was privileged to read the manuscript online and must say the published version is an impressive document.
(c) 2017
Surrey, England
