Jaane Kahaa Gayee Woh Din - Revisited

Mumbai is sizzling; the heat is on. Mangoes, jammun, fannesi...and all the other summer fruits are ripening and will be ready to devour in about four – six weeks. But in my hotel room, away from the heat and pollution and flies and toxic mix of humanity just about 500 meters away, it is cool and comfortable as I work on ever expanding, tedious and critical IRS compliance issues for CAI projects. 

CNN is reporting on the exceptionally entertaining baboonery of US presidential election this year. To me, it is both, funny and sad. Amusing because of the clowning personalities involved and sad because I cannot believe that such a blessed country as the USA has a sizable minority (not a majority, I hope, I fervently pray) who condone and root for some of the jesters trying to preside over my fine adopted country. I switch channels, but there is nothing but the misery of the world on display. Bombs kill and maim scores in Brussels, the Syrian massacre has eased, but the refugee wretchedness continues, Yazeedi girls cry and lament their rape and trade as a commodity by ISIS... Anger and melancholy sets in and I feel like weeping out of sheer frustration. When will there be laughter and carefree innocence in my world again?

I turn the TV off and switch on the radio – FM92.70; the station is in the middle of Aksar Koi Larki, the 1973 superhit song from the movie, Bobby. My thoughts drift to the time I was sixteen, in a world of sublime innocence. I feel like weeping again. Sigh…

The following Blog was published by me some five years ago, about my carefree upbringing in Tanzania. A worthy reread, then? To bring back the nostalgia, innocence and yearning, once again, for innocence lost. Albeit fleetingly.

Jaane Kahaa Gayee Woh Din…

The earliest childhood memories I have are of my eldest sister Marhooma Kaneez Zehra (Bai), who was by then already a divorced single mother of two. She was not allowed to take her elder with her when her husband’s family earlier kicked her out pregnant. Bai was the pillar of our family after her return home; she was the one who (mainly) raised her son Mohammed, five months younger to me, and I. Those formative years were happy, carefree days of frolic and play. Although we struggled as a family, economically, I do not remember a single day we went hungry, not one. There was plenty of food, healthy, wholesome and delicious that Bai and Mama toiled over charcoal stoves, cooking kebabs, samosas et al., catering for a majlis fateha or a marriage waleemo; their labors (mostly) ran our household.

The bond I shared with my siblings was (nearly) as strong; we were a total of eight in the family, excluding my father who passed away when I was a toddler and sister Nazma who was married off much too early. We shared everything; joys, sorrows, successes, disappointments, worry. One person affected, others felt, like organs of one body. We shared a two-bedroom home and a downstairs toilet that was also shared with neighbors living there; this gives you an idea of bladder / rectum control powers we possessed in those days. Interestingly, this arrangement got us Razia Bhabhi, for it was calls of nature that fated my eldest brother Marhoom Mohammedreza (Bha) to see and propose for her hand in marriage later on.

Naturally, I did not expect this bond to last and follow us all into adulthood. There was naturally some slippage as childhood turned into puberty, adulthood and separation, as we married and sought our livelihood. We tragically lost Bai when she was merely 36, felled by ravaging cancer, her young life relentlessly mired in pain and heartache; I don’t believe I have been more devastated ever since. She was a person entirely resigned to the will of Allah (S), steadfast in her faith, selfless in sacrifice and someone the entire Yusufali / Mawji clan could always go for solace and advice. I am convinced my personal life would have been positively different had she been alive today.

Growing up in Tanga, Tanzania was, oh, so extraordinary. In the sixties and seventies, when sisal prices were at a premium, Tanga was a boomtown. Bha and my cousin Habib Yusufali were managers on two sisal estates of Tongoni and Maroongu, not too far from Tanga town, but way out in the boonies nevertheless. Their more modern homes (leftovers from the Wazungu managers that preceded them) offered picnic sanctuary for us Yusufalis / Mawjis and the clans would gather there on holidays for a family get-together and feasting blasts.

The premium elementary school was Saint Anthony’s Catholic School. Students, irrespective of religion, attended church; I learned a great deal about Catholicism and was amazed how much common Islam had with it, in principal. Our daily assembly / class prayer began with Our Father, Who Art In Heaven… The Sisters, some of them however, were another matter, probably sexually deprived, one even artfully molested me. It was years later I figured out reasons for her labored breathing as she sat me on her lap; I have never been rewarded with so many (wet) kisses for simply getting two plus two right. Except for Sister Mary Fabian, the dour-looking Headmistress with an ever-ready bamboo cane, she applied quite liberally. The first whack was always the most painful; it took all my willpower not to bawl in front of all the pretty girls. I would run to the stinking bathrooms and moan my ache away.

We Shia Muslims had a budding community, full of traditions and petty rivalry; everybody was nosy about everybody else. A neighbor would probably know what was to be served for dinner at home that night, even before the menu was decided. The mosque has nylon mats for carpets; they would hurt and leave furrows on knees and ankles after salaat; not that we cared, of course. Muharram and Ramadhan were favorite times with so much activity and so, so much more food. I bet no Jamaat can now match the pulau or kalyo-pau or kitchro coming out from Tanga mosque of those days. We reigned supreme during Aashoora and Arbaeen, our Juloos unmatched, with almost the whole town gaping at our beautiful taboot and tazeeyas.

I acquired elementary religious education through fear and discipline at the then dreaded madressa, where fooling around and or indiscipline were dealt with an iron fist. During Quraan classes, the Aagha whipped our feet with the mimbar microphone iron bar for not remembering homework sooras; in dinyaat class, some kids wet their pajamas if the teacher as much as raised his voice in anger or frustration. I realize some of you will suppose this to be an exaggeration and if true, child abuse by Western standards. Perhaps. However, I can honestly say I have achieved life discipline, good living etiquettes and whatever I know and respect of my religion as a direct result of these madressa years. So may Allah bless you, my then hated teachers.

Secondary education at Popatlal Secondary School was blissful, even though Ujamaa policies of Julius Nyerere were grinding the country to bottomless ruin and abyss. Instead of studying, we were given a hoe and required to till the shamba at the back of the school. I had to attend multiple practice sessions of traditional dance performance for Saba Saba day, in front of the dreaded Area Commissioner, because my grim-faced Political Science teacher decreed I shook my behind suitably, like a proper African, better than any other Asian. Asians had to be integrated, and dance was one avenue I guess. I failed Political Science miserably.

But it was also a time when impressing girls was suddenly paramount; so smart ironed clothes, gleaming shoes, a slick bicycle, the right haircut (I did have abundant hair then!) and a macha attitude took on much weight. A trip to Raskazone seafront in fine attire on Sunday evenings could not be missed, nor a newly released movie at the Majestic or Novelty.

I fell in and out of love with any girl who dared set eyes on me. Mister Ismail, my brilliant Form Three English teacher, to whom I confided in about everything, always struggled with my overactive imaginations, sarcastically suggesting they were way beyond vivid. Unfortunately, Hindi movies shaped our perception to a great extent; how we interacted with the opposite sex, what we wore and how we emoted, even. I, I cried my eyes silly, together with Sharmila Tagore after Rajesh Khanna died in Aradhna, laughed like a lunatic when Mehmood went Gantia Kha Ghantia and tried to imitate Jitendra’s every jumping moves of Humjoli. And I imagined myself besides every heroine, of course. Ha! You should have seen the Sharmila Tagore / Aasha Parekh beehive hairstyles on some of our ladies. Ha!

Cricket was a passion, of course; I captained the Popatlal School squad and opened medium pace bowling for the team. So was volleyball, where Tanga Jamaat were champions for some years. Swimming at Tanga Swimming Club every Sunday morning rounded off my sports exposure. Tanga Swimming Club still had some snobbish, colonial mentality White customers; it was fun to use their towels hurriedly after our swim and delight at their disgust when they discovered them damp. They complained, but no meaningful punishment ensued; the Goan Manager, poor fellow, was caught in the middle of trying to pacify his dwindling White and please non-White customers. We were more in numbers; we won. I lost my dear friend Jaffer at a very tender age, who drowned swimming high tides one morning at that Club.

Upon completion of high school, it was decided I would go to Dubai where brother Marhom Husseinali was already somewhat established. Foreign exchange was very hard to get those days and Asians used (still do) every conceivable, bizarre, illegal way to get hold of some. An arranged telex was sent to my attention advising my son had committed suicide, and for me to rush to Pakistan urgently. An Indian clerk at National Bank of Tanzania looked me up and down, all eighteen years old, shook his head in disgust but processed British Pounds 150, the maximum Tanzania government would allow to be converted for attending to such a calamity.

Two days later, I took my first ever flight from Dar es Salaam to Karachi and then to Dubai. The rest is all history…

A Blast In Tucson

CAI gives me repeated opportunities and the good fortune of knowing and interacting with an overwhelming number of people I have never met! Some through CAI’s activity updates and many others through the Blogs I author.

One such person is Farookh Khambathy, who lives in Tucson, AZ with his family. I did not know this man from Adam, until he contacts me one fine day and we meet for dinner when he visits Orlando last year. Farookh is a revert from the 21 Imami sect of Islam (commonly know as the Dawoodi Bohris), a down to earth, humble, kind human and a wicked cook. Then last month, he insists I visit him in Tucson, promising an intense loving relationship with Mother Nature. So I check my available free miles, book the flight and hop from Orlando to Dallas and on to Tucson, where I arrive late in the day. Farookh lives with his wife Zahra, originally from Zanzibar, and his two daughters, Sophia and Marziyya. 

The next day, Friday, Sajjad Khalfan, a twenty-year plus resident of Tucson and an avid trekking enthusiast, picks me up, and we go trekking up the Finger Rock Trail in the Cantilena Mountain Range. Tucson is entirely different from what I thought Arizona would be. Instead of the Gringo type desert depicted in Western movies I expect, the landscape is surprisingly green, with various cacti in abundance. Sajjad owns a top-down BMW convertible and both of us possess abundant flowing hair (visible to very pious eyes only), so we go flying down Tucson roads and let our hair down. Oh, what a blast in Tucson!

The first approximate two thousand feet of the trek is pretty relatively tame, where I get a chance observe the fabulous nature that Allah has made so abundant for us. Then unexpectedly, the terrain becomes challenging and ugly. Keeping my eyes firmly down and paying very close attention to the ragged, menacing rocks becomes paramount; least I sprain an ankle or worse. The air thins and cools but I still sweat buckets from the toll. Sajjad is a seasoned trekker and the six thousand feet climb, for him, seems a piece of a favorite cake. The vista from the top is worth the effort. If the climb is a dare, the decent is wicked, with every limb muscle of mine working overtime to maintain the dance of balance; the toll on my knees is grating. It takes us ninety minutes to go up and sixty to come down.  I thoroughly enjoy the torture, however. Go figure.

Being Jooma, prayers are at a locally diverse community mosque; there are about four hundred people in attendance, overwhelmingly men. After a workout at a local gym where Farookh has gotten me a week’s pass, it is a meeting at a local the Husseini Center of Tucson where a varied group of people meets for Dua e Komail every Friday. I give a brief presentation on CAI activities and feel blessed and welcomed by the community. Farookh has worked tirelessly to unite and make the Friday meetings possible and interesting, single-handedly acquiring 501(c)(3) status for the Center, a major accomplishment indeed. The community will be at a significant loss when he moves to Greenville, North Carolina in May where his wife, Zahra, an MD, who has accepted a new appointment with the East Carolina University.

Saturday and Sunday are spent in the company of Farookh and family, who treat me no less than royalty, with Farookh indulging me with above average cooking delights; man, I have not been so pampered! I also spend time with Sajjad Khalfan and his lovely wife Ashraf, both former E. Africans. Sajjad is retired from work but very active with outdoor sports and nature. He takes me to another mountain trek on Mount Lemon Saturday but alas, the hike, at 9,000 plus feet, is still covered with snow and ice, so we cover less than a mile.

Tucson is an interesting city, with abundant outdoor activities to keep anybody occupied and healthy. It has mountains and valleys, a hot but dry summer and mild winters. Skiing in winter is an hour or less away. The cost of living (food and housing) is reasonable; gas retails at $1.16! Perhaps there is a Khoja business willing to expand their horizons and repeat the Orlando success?

I am supposed to return home Monday, much refreshed and loved, but American Airlines, the incompetent airline that it is, cancels the flight from Dallas after a two hours delay, when all are boarded. The reason? No pilots to fly the aircraft. One of the biggest airlines in the US, with all modern technology at its disposal and they can’t plan their pilot schedule. Go figure again. So I spend a restless night in a dingy hotel room and now waiting for a flight at Dallas airport, finishing this Blog, to take me home.

I am off to India, Afghanistan, Senegal and Pakistan soon insha’Allah. A two and a half month stint that will force me to be in Afghanistan for six weeks as CAI counts down to the grand opening of Sakina Girls School in Kabul on May 6 insha’Allah. This school will be our most important and ambitious project, empowering the lives of three hundred girls; sixty of them very deprived orphans.

I seek your usual duas and good wishes, for CAI and my health.