Another small dose

Prologue

We want to believe that love is the last untamed. That at least it, with all its chocolate scented promises of eternity s not constrained, not confined. It will never be packaged as neatly as everything else in this day and age has become. Think rows of cereal boxes or houses like boxes, a neat little package to contain an entire life. We want to believe that it will always be just a little too big, too loud to be contained.

Think again…

Cutting words for the romantic, I know. But yes, think again…love is bound by time, space, distance, circumstance. Often it happens at the wrong time, to the wrong people. So from the outset it is doomed. That deformed foetus that under different circumstances could have been whole. Could have been beautiful. Then nothing remains of it but the echo on a stolen wind. A borrowed wind.

And it is this wind that follows me. Like a shadow. And brings with it, him…

It has been this way as long as I can remember. I’d be walking amongst a crowd and see him. Plain as day, standing before me. He never looks at me. Never acknowledges my presence. At first I was alarmed by these sightings. But now, I’ve come to think of him as a friendly ghost of sorts. Someone who is there, watching over me. You know, if that were really the case, I would not be surprised. Since, what we shared…well it’s hard to explain. A precious secret to be jealously guarded. A memory that evokes a pain so exquisite that I would be bereft without it. It defines my very essence.

I remember that day vividly. The riots. 1976. Oom Ghassan with blood on his hands; a cut on his head; dust on his body. Before he even opened his mouth, I knew what he was going to say. I wanted to scream at him. Tell him to go. To leave me. I wanted to put my hands over my ears, block out his words. Close my eyes and pretend I had not seen him. But the jacket. Bloodied and torn in his hands. It told me what words never could. The crystallisation of my most feared nightmare. And in that moment, I hated him.

Completely. A hatred so pure that it seemed to extinguish the love that had once consumed me. Why didn’t he listen? Why? It was a road that was going nowhere. A road that would forever be paved with bodies, mostly black, being trampled on by the boere. Those bastards. Sharpeville was only the beginning. The bloody beginning. Soweto would be remembered forever.

“They killed a dog,” Oom Ghassan murmured. Almost to himself. A man lost in the horror of what he had been forced to witness. “Hacked it to death and burnt it. A police dog.”

He didn’t need to say more. The anger that had radiated from the mob was almost visible. I had seen them that afternoon as groups made their way across the railway line that separated Actonville – the Indian suburb - from Watteville – home to the ‘Bantus’. And though the government used the occasion to prove that every stereotypical picture painted of black as savages was true, I saw it as a sign of things to come. A sign that perhaps the iceberg was just beginning to melt.

Watteville has no memorials to mark the occasion. Soweto does. While Hector Peterson has a memorial named in his honour nothing remains of my him. The man who shaped my life. Nothing, but a dusty plaque in the hallways of my heart. One that I visit during moments of solitude. In other ways, everything remains of him. I see him still. And know that he has always been watching over me. Hence the sightings of the ghost.

Afrocentric Review - Maha Ever After

Maha Ever after – another spunky tale of Romance, Rotis and Unsuitable Men – so says the cover.

And that’s exactly what it is. Maha has graduated. From a naaching, koodhing teen to a Duryi dorternlor. The perfect round roti. The very thing she’d vowed never to become.

Brace yourself for a trip through Slumurbia – unmatched. Loads of Guji, even some Cape Malay. And Maha de-bandanna-ed, dripping jewels and wearing heels. Perfect Palace Hostess. Or is she?

When Sameer turns out to be a lot less than she’d hoped for she is faced with a choice. Call it quits, or hang in there. Knowing Maha, what do you suppose she does?

A small teaser:

The Patel posse burst into the room to find me giggling at my book while Sameer lay dozing.
“Ey, Maha! You laughing also!” Dada barked without preamble and jabbed at my book with his walking stick. Behind him Sameer jerked awake and Mummy and foi immediately fussed around him.
“You saali, sitting here reading chopras?” the old man continued, knocking the book off my lap. “You know my wife, marhoom?” he yelled. “So-so much she suffered. When we were young, your age, we was battling-battling, but she made sabar! Now you girls must also learn to make sabar, never mind what and what happens!”
I listened with my gaze appropriately downcast.
“So now you just sitting?” he shouted. “Where your beeg mouth now? You got nothing to say? Just now I heard you had big bhen-chodh mouth for talking talaaq-talaaq!” he spat, prodding my foot with his cane.

Lee explores the Indian prejudice and bigotry with regards to philandering men and divorce with a light touch. She manages to turn an otherwise serious situation into an occasion for laughter. She makes you cry. She gives you hope. And reminds you that second chances really do exist. I enjoyed the trip thoroughly.

The language is as colourful and evocative as ever. The pace never lets up and you are swept along, most willingly, I might add. Even better than The Story Of Maha, and that, in my view is quite an achievement, since few writers manage to achieve that.

The ultimate feel-good read. Perfect for lazy days on the beach.

What you waiting for? Go out and get a copy!

Title : Maha, Ever After

Country: South Africa

Format: Softcover
Publisher: Kwela Books

ISBN: 9780795702914

Length: 222mm

Width: 152mm

Weight: 365g

Pages: 272

more please mum

Okay, so I've ignored chronological order with all of this. But I think you get the picture. But this has to be the last excerpt for some time now. Can't go giving it all away for nothing :)


Dear Diary

I give him this much. He’s persistent. I mean, this guy just does not let up. Yesterday he insisted on walking me to the ward. Even though he had a lecture to attend. Plus, he embarrassed me by wanting to carry my books. Must be watching too many movies from the sixties. Though it was sweet. And very flattering to be treated like some princess.

As for the lectures he keeps missing on my account, I’m sure he won’t have any problems with catching up, since everyone says he’s a genius.
He doesn’t look like much of a genius though, if he’s chasing damaged goods this hard. Sometimes people just don’t know what’s good for them. Or what’s not.

Fatima has a good laugh whenever she sees him coming our way. She says he looks a bit like Tom Cruise in Endless Love. I reckon she probably says so because she doesn’t know how to say that he’s got a big nose. And that one slightly crooked front tooth. Tom Cruise looks good with it though. So maybe he looks that way too. I can’t be sure since I find myself hiding from his gaze most of the time.

She keeps bugging me to give him a chance. But she doesn’t push me. She knows…

She’s going out with this gorgeous guy she met while we were getting pizza one afternoon. He’s…wait for it…studying to be an accountant. Aside from his dead beat interests, he seems like a nice guy. He’s very sweet. And the way the two are forever together, every spare minute that they have, I’m sure it will end in marriage. Good for her. She really deserves a break in life.
Today, I’m thankful for the love of good friends. And for my father who seems to really be coming around now. He’s almost normal.

By that I mean that he now watches TV most days and doesn’t try to set the table and stuff anymore. He seems to have reconciled himself to the loss of his shadow.
A

__________________________________

“So Asma. I don’t think you’re even going to relax around me enough for us to start something. So I think I’m going to get my father to phone yours. And then we can do this the right way. Like an official proposal and stuff. When’s a good time to call?”

My jaw must have dropped to the ground when he said this. I mean really! The guy could not be serious. I didn’t even know him! Proposal! Was he out of his mind?

Fatima walked up to us just then. At the sight of my face she started laughing. The laughter of the demented.
“What happened, Zaheer? Did you ask her to go to the bioscope with you or something? Majestic?”

“Erm, Fatima. Assalaamu alaikum.” A dense silence.
“What? Did I interrupt something?” She looked worried.
“Just come with me. And don’t say another word. I’m not lus for your jokes today okay.”
I pulled her hand and led her to the parking lot.

When we got into the car, she turned to me. That same no nonsense look she used to give me whenever I asked her to cover for me back in the day on her face.

“When are you going to just move on huh? I mean the guy is gone, what’s it? Six years now. You have to start living again. You can’t punish yourself and this guy, who happens to be the best thing that has happened to you in the longest time, for something that neither of you had anything to do with. If you must blame someone, blame this country for giving us twisted values. Blame the government. But don’t keep making yourself suffer. What do you want to be? The Penitent of Benoni?”

“Oh, shut up will you. You don’t need to lecture me. You’re not my mother okay.”

“In case you forgot baby, you don’t have a mother. I’hm all you have.” She didn’t do a half bad Southerner.

And then I was laughing. From deep within me. From my very core. And between the raucous bursts of laughter, I saw his face. And I realised that I had noticed. I had noticed that his eyebrows were thick. And joined over the bridge of his nose. And that his eyes were very warm. That his lashes were lush. And that his smile transformed his face from ordinary to extraordinary.

Maybe…just maybe…

accusation...

So Farzana reckons I go from phases where I post often enough to those where I all but vanish. She's right. So to thank her for the observation. And for taking the time to voice her irritation with the state of affairs, another little taste.


“Wow! Your mother is a very charming woman.”
“Ya, I know.”
“Ya, and she’s also very pretty.”
“Oh, so you wish you’d married her instead?”
“What? You jealous? Tell me you’re jealous. It would make this night all the more memorable, ’Cos I sometimes wonder whether I’ve just married the Ice Queen. You haven’t given me a single kiss all day.” His eyes laughed.
“How could I? We’ve been surrounded by people all day!”
“Ya, and I think you like it that way. That’s why you’re sitting so far from me. Come hither daahling .”
“Your English drawl is lame. But I’ll come closer anyway.” I got up from the bed and went to settle myself on the couch next to him. We were in at the Holiday Inn in Jo’burg.
“Wait!” He stood up from the couch.
“What?”
“I need to do something first.”

He disappeared into the bathroom. I stood up and went to the window. I pulled back the curtain. The City stared back, all million eyes, or so it felt. The lights were just amazing.
So this was the big First Night. There were questions I had to ask though. Before…Things I needed to know. I was surprised we’d got this far without discussing it. Zaheer emerged from the bathroom with a dripping chin. He was towelling his arms dry.

“Can’t forget the salaat.”
“What?”
“Before, dot, dot, dot? You don’t know?”
“No.”
“Hmm, so it would appear that you didn’t do this thing the right way the first time around.”
His first mention of my past. And done so casually. He sure had my vote.
“Okay, now, go and make Wudhu. I brought a musallah for both of us. And a compass. Among other things.” He winked. And my pulse tripped over itself.

I stood behind him. To the right. He was my imam. I followed his movements. Matching. Just a beat behind. And I knew that into the world of the great unknown he would always precede me. He would always clear the obstacles. My Imam.

writing...

In honour of Nanowrimo Month, I'm posting this here excerpt of a work I've dug out from the archives. It's been posted in bits and pieces, sporadically over the last few years.
I've started work on it again. And have set a goal of December for completion. I approach the 20 000 word mark.

Here goes:

A week later my mother gave me an address. It was for a house in Fordsburg. I set out early that Saturday morning.

The drive there had passed with me replaying images of my father’s face in my mind. And having imagined conversations with the both of them. Conversations that ended with them getting together again.

As long as we live with them, we’re still their children. In fact, we never cease to be just that, as I later learnt. And as long as we’re their children we want to play happy families. Here I was as 22 yearning until it left a hole in me, for a family. A whole, though flawed family. Even when every sensible cell in my body reminded me that things had been ‘finished’ for both of them for some time already.

I stood before the little house with its low roof and cheerful potted clivias that were just beginning to flower – a riot of orange. It seemed unfair that she should have these bright, happy flowers when the garden of my life had just been destroyed by a storm that she had unleashed.

I rang the bell.

“Just a minute,” she sang.

At the sound of that voice, my heart soared. But when she opened the door, it plummeted from those heights, crushed.

How dare she look so happy when…?
Had she not given a moment’s thought to him?
Her husband of twenty five years?
What kind of a woman was she?

Her own expression flitted from surprise, to joy, to contrition. Almost as swiftly, I would imagine as my own transformation from a state of joy to one of anger.
My eyes burnt with the unshed tears. I would not allow her the pleasure of seeing my pain. I blinked, angry at myself. I turned around, ready to leave.

“Wait!” I stopped mid-stride.
“Wait Asma. We need to talk.”
I didn’t turn. The pain, which had now become a physically gut wrenching one was too much. It left me breathless. “What’s his name?”
“Asma, look at me!”
“You don’t have any right to demand anything from me.” My voice quavered.
“Okay” softer this time. “Okay, Asma, please look at me. Come here.”
Are we also conditioned to obey? I thought bitterly.
As I turned to face her, I suddenly felt guilty. Didn’t she have a right to happiness? Would I want what they had shared for myself?

And then I knew what to do.

___________________________________

Dear Diary

Her story, as it turns out is not very different to what happens to people every day. She didn’t go out looking for him. He happened. Ya, I know, shit happens. But I guess to her, he is anything but that.

She’s happy. You know, I’ve never seen her happy. She looks pretty like that. What’s that word? Radiant. Ya, she’s radiant.

She says they’re going back to Cape Town. All of his family live there.

I tried to hide my shock. And I was shocked. Shaken, like I’ve never been before.

I wanted to feel betrayed when I heard her say that. I wanted to scream at her and tell her what a hypocrite I think she is but I couldn’t really find the words. Does this make me a better person than she is?

Do I want to be better?What is better?
Or is it simply being human?
The best Human you can be?

A

Celebrities and celebrations

I'm sure you can tell that I'be been invited to a good few parties lately:P I attended all dressed as a cake.

The Mad Hatter was thrilled with this one. I did it especially for his party. We finished it with a tea-set precariously perched on it's lopsided topmost tier.

Yes, I've been hobnobbing too. Just some of the celebrities I've met lately

dead??

Nah, contrary to what the absence of posts may hint at, it's not true. I'm not dead. But I have been run over by words. I was in the ICU after reading Barbara KIngsolver'sThe Poisonwood Bible, since I had never even imagined writing as stunning as all that.

Pity none of the words that floored me were my own.

I've also just read three of the Twilight books in a space of three days. I plan on buying the fourth. Not because the writing dazzles or anything though, but simply because I'm chachie to know what happens next.

I read J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace. Food for thought there. Maybe, contrary to the evidence, I am growing up after all. But don't tell anyone I said that. They might expect me to start behaving more responsibly . Shudder. Can you even begin to imagine that !!