Chapter 19 | Cargo pants and Bikini bottoms

In the year 1999, I was 11.

It was a Sunday and we were in the car on our way home from a picnic at Wammer pan in Rosettenville. I had on a cargo pants and a lilac and white Identity checked shirt (passed on to me by my maternal Aunt).
I was sitting in the front seat with Mama because Rasheed and Zahir had been with us that day and there was not enough space for all of us in the back.

Papa: 'Why are you dressed like that?'

Me: 'Like how?'

Papa: 'So indecently.'

I remained silent.

Papa: 'When you married you can walk around in a Bikini if you want but in my house you dress decently. You heard?'

When Papa asked 'you heard' or 'you understand'  he was never really testing our hearing ability or our command of the english language. He was establishing his authority by insinuating that should we fail to 'understand' he will resort to others forms of punishment to ensure that we eventually do.

I was 11. The concept of marriage was a far off possibility. Yet, I was embarrassed by this remark nonetheless. So much so, that I swore Papa (in my head, I was embarrassed not stupid!).

I hated that Papa had no tact or that he didn't know how to address situations in appropriate timing.

In September that year we had house sat for mutual friends of Mama and Papa who were on holiday for a week. Papa agreed to let us stay there and would come every evening after work to have supper with us and then returned home thereafter.

On one of the evenings Papa had brought for us a chocolate each. Not something he did often. Mama said that we would hug Papa as a gesture of gratitude. So I stepped forward, obligingly, only to be pushed away by Papa.

I still remember the hurt. I cried myself to sleep that night, from a broken heart. I never understood why, I had done nothing out of turn and I racked my brain trying to think of possible reasons for Papa having turned me way. I couldn't conjure an excuse and a single iota of hate starting spurting along the edges of my heart.

I was a child but I had witnessed Papa's aggressive behavior often enough to know that he wasn't to be messed with.

I could never accept Mama's tolerance and her ability to withstand him. I'd seen enough shattered glass to know that, she herself, wasn't free from his 'do you understand me', even as an adult, as his wife, she was one of us.

Chapter 18 | Mental asylums and suppressed farts

I was in hijaab before I was even enrolled into school. Thin cotton fabric that I tied so tightly around my face I'm surprised I hadn't died from asphyxiation. Even though I barely understood the concept of hijaab, I never took it off.  Not even for sports or when the heat became unbearable.

It was a significant aspect of my identity as a Muslim, that much I knew.

It never bothered me and I wasn't phased by other kids remarks either. Some claimed that I was bald, others thought that I was infected with a disease so detrimental only the fabric (tied so severely around my face) could remedy it, whilst there were those who assumed my brain was in temporary isolation from the rest of my body.

I indulged them. If anything I added fuel to their baseless theories.

When I was in Grade 5, I feigned temporary  blindness. I was so dramatic when I wanted to be. My math teacher, Mr.Gundiwalla believed my story of 'I didn't wear my glasses while I was watching TV last night hence'. He was such a math whiz I'm surprised he couldn't calculate the fact that I never wore glasses, ever.

Then there was the time I tried to convince my class mates that my calculator actually doubled as a mobile phone. I walked around speaking at the top of my voice to some family member or the other, loud enough for aliens in some un-be-known to man planet to assume I was in fact, trying to communicate with them.

Suffice to say that I wasn't admitted in to a mental asylum as a result, though I'm not sure I can say the same for those who believed me.

I was never a loner but none of the friendships I had established lasted for longer than a year. I wouldn't say that I was difficult to get along with, even then I was a friendly child, but I was eager to please.

Too eager.

I was the friend that would stand in tuck-shop queues so I could purchase lunch for someone claiming to be my friend. I was the friend who came back from the holidays remembering to bring back gifts. I was the friend that would make an added effort to actually pitch up for a play date.

Things never ended on an ugly note they just faded away into nothingness.

I'd start each year afresh, different friends, a variation of me.

I was constantly trying to fit in, to be a part of the other kids. I didn't realize then, the value of being my own person.

That is often the case, we struggle so hard to find ourselves in our everyday living, to fit in, to be seen as someone equal, or on similar wavelength as others that we forget being different doesn't mean irrelevant.

We may have varying preferences, likes, dislikes and habits but this is a result of the pattern of our lives having a different thread course.

I wish I knew then, that being different wasn't a fart that needed to be contained

Chapter 17 | Nancy Drew and the Doughnut Den

"If I regarded my life from the point of view of the pessimist, I should be undone. I should seek in vain for the light that does not visit my eyes and the music that does not ring in my ears. I should beg night and day and never be satisfied. I should sit apart in awful solitude, a prey to fear and despair. But since I consider it a duty to myself and to others to be happy, I escape a misery worse than any physical deprivation." - Helen Keller

After the accident, we went from doctor to doctor. I hated it but Papa and Mama wanted to look for alternate options. They, somehow, hoped that they could prove the doctors wrong. That I would regain my eyesight somehow.

We didn't have medical aid and Papa couldn't afford to take me to a private hospital so I sat in public hospitals from the early hours of the day waiting to eventually be called in.

I never understood what had happened to me. I woke up the next morning in Mama's bed with a little girls face peering into mine. The scab on the side of my face represented a mask in itself and she immediately retreated in fear.

People came to visit, sympathizing, bringing gifts and cards that made me feel special. Yet, I never understood the detriment of that accident till much later. I only reveled in the attention.

You see, today's youth (and I don't mean to sound like a Khala who knows it all) are obsessive about their appearance from a young age. I was eight, but I was never phased by my looks. When I glanced at myself in the mirror I never saw a girl with a squint eye, I saw someone who needed her hair combed or her teeth brushed because her Mama said so.

I sat in an endless line of waiting rooms with Papa and Mama patiently, not sharing in their concern. So I had lost sight in my one eye but I still had sight in the other. All was well in my world. Or so I thought.

The next year we moved schools. Papa had a job further away from home. Mama dropped us off every morning before Papa left for work and sometimes she would give us 20c to buy something from the sweet lady outside. On a good day we'd get 50c and spent the entire day eagerly waiting for home time so we could buy red juice in a clear rabbit shaped plastic container.

By then, Eesa had started Grade One. He's teacher was Madam Moorat, which I thought odd because she had eyes.

My form teacher was also our English teacher and through her I developed a passion for literature. I never realized it then but each week she would give me a set of books that was different from the classes and asked my opinion on them.

I gulped the words like they were a packet of Mochacho's chips and I submerged myself into a world of my own – a world where fiction brought meaning to life.

Reading was my superpower.

Mama would take us every Saturday to the library in Brixton and I had read every Nancy Drew book there was to be found. I had several favorite authors though and Mama would sometimes point out books she had read in her childhood years. I looked forward to turning 13, only because I would then be permitted to take out six books on my name instead of the meager three I had to make do with.

By the end of that weekend I had read all the books I had taken out and I eventually took to reading the books Mama brought home. Papa disapproved though and would reprimand me strongly if he ever caught me reading ‘their’ books.

After the library Mama would take us to this amazing doughnut shop that had opened up on Church Street in Mayfair. They sold doughnuts for R2 and we were treated to a doughnut each. I looked forward to Saturday for two reasons:

1)     Our trips to the library

2)     The weekly treat from the Doughnut Den

I was determined to become a librarian when I was older so that I could spend all my time amongst the one thing I loved most in the world; books.

Chapter 16 | Batman in pink palazzo's

In the summer of 1995, I had a tragic accident - one that left me with a lifelong scar.

I was 8, it was the December holidays and I had taken a walk to the shops down the road with Miya and my cousins.

Then, seeing Mama out of the house was as rare as seeing an Afrikaaner who wasn’t passionate about rugby. We were on the opposite side of the street, waiting to cross what is usually regarded as a busy intersection, I saw a red car in the distance, took the chance and ran across the road.

Unfortunately, the red car was going faster than I had calculated and in seconds I was thrown off the street, flung into the air like Batman (this is how I tell the story to my younger audience),slammed into the windscreen like a bird relentlessly would against an unblemished glass and rolled on to the pavement with a graceful drop.

Except for the whiteness of their skin, the faces of the couple in the car are just a faint memory. They stopped, only to assure that I was alive and that they wouldn’t be charged with homicide. Whilst Mama cradled me in her arms, blood seeping from the right of my face, they took off. Unnoticed by anyone.

I was not a victim; I was merely a character in an incident that changed my life around in mere seconds. An incident which gave me a story to share, a history that was my own to tell.

The screaming of my name went unnoticed, as did the blood that slid down the side of my face onto my favourite waistcoat.

Moments later, I noticed the bread that lay to one side of the grass, moved to pick it up and started walking homewards. Not realizing the fatality of what had just happened.

Mama screamed, ran in my direction and made sure I laid down. I was forced to drink a glass of sugar water, for the shock.

The sound of sirens erupted in my ear. I was carried on a stretcher, a neck brace slung around my neck and all the time, Mama’s hand was wrapped around mines. The doctors asked several questions, checking to see whether I was still able to function cognitively.

The scab that plastered my face in a protective layer eventually faded with time, barely leaving a scar but I was fated for much worse, the nerve in my right eye had been damaged as a result - I would never be able to see with it again. The risks that I took had finally left me with a souvenir of which the rest of the world would be testimony to. I was given nicknames that were painful to bear even though I was unaware of the change.

Other people had 'fattie' to comply with but I was teased for something I had no control over. For something that could never be altered.Nerve damage, as doctor after doctor reminded us, had no remedy. Stem cell treatment was still in its infant stages back then and therefore an unheard of concept.

I was to live with the fact that I was blinded in my right eye for as long as I were to live.

It is narrated by Anas bin Malik that he heard the Prophet saying: Allah said: ‘If I deprive My slave of his two beloved things (i.e. his eyes) and he remains patient, I will let him enter Paradise in compensation for them. ‘[Bukhari]

Chapter 15 - The stolen box of cornflakes

“A cousin is a little bit of childhood that can never be lost.”

My cousins, Rasheed and Zahir proved an integral part of our childhood memories.

They taught us how to make paper frogs and quack quacks. We would take turns pushing each other up their drive way in a broken red cart with wheels. We didn't do anything untoward and yet, Papa took that way from us too.

Once I turned nine he forbade us from playing with them. For him, it was a case of it being Haraam. And I get that. But I was a long way from getting my periods, my breast and my chest were in alignment and the only place hair was sprouting from in grass like patches, was my head.

I don’t think Papa heard of the concept ‘forbidden fruit’ and like everything else that Papa forbade; we took to doing it behind his back.

We spent hours at the park, letting our hair caress the ground as our legs swayed in motion with the swing. We used the extra room outside as ‘the Clubhouse’. We called our selves ‘The rascals of the round table’ (we had an actual round table in our clubhouse). At night we would sneak into Daddi’s grocery cabinet, steal an open box of honey coated cornflakes and run back into our den.

If the kitchen door was open, Zahir would sneak into my room and shake me awake. Some mornings I woke up to him peering over my face. I’d never scream, knowing that if I did, Papa would find out.

We got caught several times and Papa would reprimand us severely thereafter. I wasn’t sure which was worst, Papa’s (never ending) bark or his bite.

We would spend hours playing ‘Ung-goosh.’ None of our class friends had heard of this game before and so we began sharing with them the rules of our special game.

It’s pretty simple. Like the game red rover, you need people standing on either side of the field (we played it in our old backyard which could barely be constituted as a field).

1.       There must be an equal number of players. For eg: If there are 3 players on the one side there needs to be 3 players on the other end as well.

2.       You need a soccer ball, preferably one that is not pap (soft) but that worked for us too.

3.       One team has to throw the ball and the other has to kick the ball. It’s a lot like cricket the difference being your feet is the bat. Your name is called (by the throwing team) the ball is tossed in your direction and you have to kick. If the opposite team catches the ball before it touches the ground the entire team is out. If the ball is thrown at you whilst you’re making a run (yes, you can make runs) you’re out.

4.       A stick is placed a little closer (to the team kicking) than halfway. If the ball is not kicked further than this line the person who kicked the ball is out.

5.       Most importantly, every time you kick the ball or make a run (which you can only do after you have kicked the ball) you are required to say ‘ung-gush’ if you somehow forget to say it and are blasted by the throwing team you are out. 

This is how we spent our holidays when we weren't away. Filling it with memories that have neither faded nor diminished in worth.

Chapter 14 | The boy who had his periods

“You can kid the world, but not your sister.”  - Charlotte Gray

In the winter of 1995, my baby brother, Altaaf was born. He was unplanned. Mama said that at that point of her life she really wasn't ready to deal with another child.

Ironically, Altaaf turned out to be a rather clingy child and he hung on to Mama as if his life depended on it. Even though I was just seven I became rather possessive of him.

Despite the tension between her and Papa, Mama never neglected him but in some way I was a secondary mother to him.

If he was reprimanded, I took his part. If he cried, I ran to take him into my arms. If he was hurt, I nursed him.

When he was one years old, he experienced bleeding from his bowels. We tease him now saying that he had, in his own way experienced periods. At the time though, it wasn't funny.

We immediately rushed him to hospital. He was admitted for the night and placed on a drip and we returned home praying that he would be alright.

Later that day we returned during visiting hours only to find my little brother shaking the cot as if to free himself from a cage, screaming his tiny lungs out.

My heart ached at the sight of him. His napkin sagged from his bottom and his scream came in ragged breaths. Here was my little brother crying in pain, while two nurses sat calmly by a cot nearby, making absolutely no attempt to soothe a wailing child.

Even Mama, who is mostly calm, was shaken. Despite the nurses protest, Mama demanded for a mattress and made a bed besides his cot. There was no way Mama would have left him alone that night.

When he came back home, I hovered over him for days, not leaving him out of my sight for fear that something awful would happen to him should I leave him for even a second.

I had adapted to the role of 'big sister' quite easily but little did I know how difficult this would eventually prove.

Chapter 13 | Yellow fish that floated in the rain

I remember many of my primary school teachers but none of them stand out for me as much as Mrs. Begg. I idolized her and even though I never knew that I myself would one day teach, she was exactly the kind of teacher I wanted to be.

She had straight black hair, cut shoulder length, which she wore lose on most days. I found her mannerisms rather demure and I always thought she was one of the most beautiful teachers I had ever had.

I think her name was Yasmin. I can't be too sure.

Everyday before we came to class she would give us some insight into her personal life. Whether she updated us on the renovations underway on her house in Greenside, or spoke to us about the reason for her choice of outfit for that day, it made me feel like she was real.

An actual person with whom ordinary people could relate. I loved that about her. When I think about it now, I realize that in some significant way she had an astounding effect on me and without understanding it then, I had aspired to be like her.

Miya and I used to walk to school every morning, on our own. I was seven, she six.  

Someone reading this might possibly criticize my parents saying; how could they allow a children of such a young age to walk to school, on their own.

I say; I don't regret it. In fact, I am grateful for it. It made me fearless and in the face of all I was to encounter, that was exactly what I needed.

It was the year 1995. The Sultan Bahu Musjid on 4th Avenue was still a church. The demolition of which, began not that long after.

Miya and I were walking with identical umbrella's in hand. To our left was the park we spent most of our childhood in, to our right was the church and then some houses.

I had walked that street without incident, until that day. I heard a dog barking, a blackened garage door opening and a white car reversing. Out of nowhere a ginger haired dog raced towards me exuberantly locking his jaw into my ankle. No one came to my rescue, not the owner of the dog, nor the people sprawled over the grassy patch nearby.

I was closer to home and yet, I continued my walk to school. I wasn't paralyzed by my pain, in fact it didn't deter me in the slightest. It was only when I got to school did I stop to assess the damage. I noticed then, the tear in my pants and the pus that seeped out of the teeth marks etched around my ankles.

I went up to Mrs. Begg, patiently waiting while she dealt with another student. I told her what had happened, lifted up my trouser to show her my wound, unsure.

To this day I will never be able to forget her reaction. She shouted, called for a substitute teacher, swooped me in her arms, placed me in her white toyota corolla and asked that I direct her to my house.

This was around 8:30. We had woken Papa from his sleep. I don't know what shocked her more; the way Papa looked when he just woke or that he started shouting at me for being so 'stupid' (his words not mine) to not come home immediately.

The very next day, I walked the same route to school.

Even after all that, I wasn't afraid of dogs. Miya however, raced in the opposite direction whenever she saw one.

I neither remember the pain of the moment or the tetanus shot that came thereafter but I do remember the blue umbrella I held so firmly in my hand and the yellow fish on it that floated in the rain.