Sunday, February 26, 2017

The Exodus Kenya 1968



Nairobi Airport 1968 The Asian Exodus


  Exodus is a new word in our vocabulary. The insidious word has crept into conversations and into my dreams. It’s the word in English that carries foreboding pictures. Pictures that alarm and terrify us. Pictures that assault families viewing the nine o’clock news on the TV before they go to bed. Pictures that they see again in newspapers when they wake up the next morning.  Pictures that one would think are deliberately put there to cause panic in the community. Pictures that demand we leave quickly. Exodus is like the other word called emergency full of images that swell fear in the heart and the fear eats into words. Emergency was less than a decade ago when the Mau Mau roamed the night.

         Because I do not read English, I look deep for a long time into pictures of the Asian exodus out of Kenya. I try to understand. The luggage they carry is in all sorts of makeshift packages and suitcases. One old woman is even carrying her kitchen pot with her. It’s probably her favourite utensil without which her pilau would not be the same. She is like me who measures the recipes by how the ingredients spread in the pot. So it has to be the same pot. The expressions of their faces and gestures are all the same – they exude anxiety. A collective community apprehension – Gujaratis in saris, Punjabis in long tunic-shirts over loose pants, Goans wearing short dresses, pervades the airport departure hall like a colossal aura as it does in our homes. I also look at the five p.m. Swahili news on the TV and listen to the follow up commentary on the exodus before going to khane. The airport faces haunt me. They are my people. I think I could be that woman in the sari sitting on her suitcase holding her son and daughter in each arm at the airport lounge. A tin of travel food sits by her foot. I am that mother of children. I could be that woman in a sari pressed in among the tired mob at the British High Commission. They have been standing for weeks at the door waiting to present their papers and secure the visa before the deadline to enter Great Britain clamps down on them. What used to be a single tidy line has swelled into a mob of desperate and nervous families. Their mood aggravates as days go by. The new legislation now requires a voucher over the visa to enter Great Britain. The process is tedious and slow. 




1968 The Asian Exodus


        The British High Commission people are suspicious of every Indian as if she were a criminal. They even stopped the flights. Some sleep there on the pavements in the rain and the cold highland night air of Nairobi harassed by the police. 



Patrick Shaw, ex-British now Kenyatta’s most feared police henchman, patrols the pavements with a baton in his hand and a gun at his waist, pushing the crowds back as if expecting a riot to flare up at any moment. In the scuffle that he creates, he thrusts at a defiant woman. She does not move. He shoves her with force this time tearing her sari blouse. She is a small built Gujarati woman and he, a Goliath of a white man in khaki police uniform. She is shamed. Next day her picture appears in The Nation newspaper. She has filed a court case against Mr Shaw. She demands her right. I am her.






Tuesday, February 7, 2017

About the Kanga and Writing on the front cover



KILA  NDEGE  HURUKA  NA  MBAWA  ZAKE
                                        EVERY  BIRD  FLIES  ON  ITS  OWN  WINGS


KILA NDEGE HURUKA NA MBAWA ZAKE is a kanga mithali or proverb that literally translates as EVERY BIRD FLIES ON ITS OWN WINGS in Swahili.  It’s a mithali that implies a journey. People translate this proverb in many ways depending on the context and situation at the particular time in their life’s journey. Birds appear in Quranic verses giving metaphorical meaning in stories about Islam’s prophets: Abraham, Solomon, Moses, Jesus, Joseph and David. The Swahili society is rooted in Arabic and African cultures over centuries of mixing and travelling. In fact, the Swahili word mithali comes from Arabic mithal meaning an example or a model that can also be a person’s name.

Some would say the kanga proverb about the bird means that one makes one’s life according to one’s ability or with what one has in terms of material possession. It simply means you accept life with what’s yours or what’s given to you by God. Others relate the proverb to mean life is a destiny and that’s where life’s journey will take you like saying: ‘You are what you have’ or that ‘You’ll get what’s yours’. A teacher or parent would counsel children using this proverb: ‘You have potential to overcome (or succeed) with what you have’. Or it can mean the opposite: ‘Realize that you have limitations’ depending on the context.

Every bird flies on its own wings also means that what one does in life is within oneself or that actions are one’s own responsibility. Then there are other people who think in collective ways. They would say the proverb tells you that one has one’s own family, home, country and culture to carry one along life’s journey.

Philosophers will tell you KILA NDEGE HURUKA NA MBAWA ZAKE actually means that each human being is an individual. He/she alone makes his/her journey through life like a bird on wings making its own path.

A bird flying on its wings intones imagery of the sky above and the land below. A mortal’s walk through life is like the flight of a bird between the earth and the sky. 

Sultan Somjee
Autumn, 2016

~~~

I Love  my Khanga
by Shariffa Keshavjee 

The paisley design
The khorosho design 
Reminiscent of the nut
Nature made it all
Before you and I 


The intricate mandalas 
Like the galaxy above 
Planets and myriad stars 
In orbit by the Divine 
Before you and I 


The joy of a dancing step
Sets off the colour divine 
I am the Lord of the dance 
The dance of angels divine 
His grace thought it all 
Before you and I 


I beckon to My Lord 
In humble appeal 
To bless my heart 
With infinite patience 
That was there always
Before you and I 


Magenta and pink meld 
In Bandhani harmony
Fine feathers maketh
Not a beautiful bird 
All praise is due to Him
Before you and I 


Foliage circles 
Circles and squares 


Foliage and bird combine 
Centre adorned by borders
Where the bird lands
Is it's chosen place
Before you and I