an anvil used by the cobblers

While Bata was ubiquitous in later years, early Indian cobblers created all the footwear in East Africa. Every town had its lone cobbler family. The cobbler worked on the verandah of the front room of their shop-cum-home.

A flat square cushion on a 'guniya' a gunnysack on the floor was their seat to squat on. The leather crafting tools lay within easy reach as did an old battered aluminium 'sufuria,' cooking pot, with water to soften the leather for cutting, stitching, smoothing, and a very smooth black granite piece was at hand, to sharpen the half moon leather cutting and trimming knives, and the hooked stitching needles. Nails, hammers, stitching string, and needles lay near an old tin that contained homemade blue coloured lye. A ball of wax was at hand to apply to the stitching needles for easy penetration of the leather.

A variety of leather rolls lay in a wooden chest nearby. A thick red covered ledger book that sat atop the chest was the order book.

Ichhoo Mochi was one such cobbler.

Ichhoo the Cobbler of Mwanza, in the then Tanganyika now Tanzania, was the town shoemaker.

To get any footwear, men's, women's, and children's one arrived at Ichhoo's and after the 'અરે હું ખબર છે. આ હારો  vaર્હાર્દ બહુ પડ્યો ને!'

'Aare what's the news? Aare the bugger rain is very heavy, no!' Or else, some other local topic commented on, before the business commenced.

A discussion on the type of footwear one wanted ensued. In course of this general exchange of styles, type, and colour of leather, Ichhoo, or his ‘aashishtent,’ assistant, rose from the squat, smoothed his greyed white pyjama pants and the untucked shirt, also quite grey from use, and disappeared in the room at the back.

A few minutes later, he emerged with a thick, very dog-eared shoe styles magazine, which had seen better days in some English shop. Used for years it always showed the ‘letesht shtaeel letesht’ according to Ichoo.

From the description by the customer, Ichhoo flipped the pages to find the closest match, and handed over the magazine. The customer looked at the picture, flipped more pages back and forth, and after the pros and cons of various styles was entered into, one was chosen, often with a few modifications by the customer.

Ichhoo returned to his squat and opened the thick red covered ledger book. He turned to an empty double page, as the customer removed the shoes.

First the right and then the left foot was placed on the ledger book, and both were traced on each page. The customer name and date were entered in one corner of the page, and the price as well the delivery date written.

Some days later, at least three 'fitting' visits followed. During these, various kinks, tightness, or looseness, noted next to the outlines of the two feet, and another fitting date given.

During the ensuing fitting visits the invariable, 'અરે રૂસ્તમજી, જરા કાલે હાવજોને. આજે હારુ બહુ કામ છે.' ‘Aare Rustomji, please come tomorrow, bugger today have many jobs,' was not uncommon.

The next day the fitting done, problems again noted in the ledger next to the foot patterns, and a new date for delivery entered.

The wise customer never went on the new nominated day, for he knew his Ichhoo. Therefore the customer arrived on a third or fourth day after the new date, and was greeted with,  ‘અરે હાહેબ, હું થયું? તમે મોડા થયા છો. તમારા બૂટ તો તયાર છે!' 'Aare sahib, what happened? You are late. Your boots are ready.' The customer was never right.

After retrying the new pair satisfactorily, Ichoo wrapped it in old newspaper pages, tied with the stitching thread, the money paid, and Rustomji carried home his new pair of hand-stitched shoes, until next Navroze, the Parsi New Year.

'બૂટ' boot and not shoes, was the generic Indian word for all footwear, except for ‘eeshliper,’ slipers or 'sendl,' sandals. Many Nairobi residents will recall Pitamber Khoda on the old Government Road, a leading shoe dealer.

An Indian cobbler in East Africa trims leather on a granite slab

A Nairobi cobbler 2003

Cobbler’s tools

Endowed to Asian African Heritage Trust Nairobi, Kenya.

© Kersi Rustomji 2014.

e.mail : kersiru@gmail.com 

Over centuries Indians have been sailing the high seas by Dhow in search of commerce, any work for better prospects of livelihood and adventure. They sailed with their Dhows laden with silk, spices, copper and ironware, sugar, rice, guns, and gunpowder etc and sailed to faraway places like Persia, Egypt  and Oman. Many of these young men reached Zanzibar, Tanganyika and Malindi Mombasa in Kenya on the coast of great Indian Ocean. From there started trading in different commodities, they tracked on wards to Uganda and all over East Africa. They took up work as civil servants, customs officers, station masters, became traders, started tilling small and big farms and established many industries. In the process they contributed greatly to the economical, political and social development of the country. Initially many of these pioneers came to East Africa from Gujarat and Kutch. Urmilaben Jhaveri's family story is one of those brave stories from Gujarat whose family has spent several generations in Tanganyika where her husband K.L. Jhaveri, was also an elected member of Parliament and together they endeavoured to contribute to both civic and economic life of Tanganyika. Urmilaben has written her autobiography, 'Dancing with Destiny' which is published by Partride Publications. In an interview with Sadananda Sahoo, Veena Sharma, and Rahul Balley, she shared some of her eventful and courageous experiences in Tanganyika and India.  

We have been hearing about your riveting experiences in Tanganyika- Tanzania as a social activist, who involved in women empowerment, promoting inter-community relationship. We would like to hear about your life journey in Tanganyika -Tanzania. Those days perhaps it was difficult for women to cross kalapani. How did it happen? 

My story began nearly hundred years ago in the late 1920s when my father Tarachand Gandhi arrived in Zanzibar. Those were the days when there was no air travel and it was kalapani even for men. My father was allowed to travel on condition that he should get married first. He married my mother Labhuben who was ten years younger to him. He left her with my grandmother, sailed from Jamnagar to Zanzibar by Dhow, and  joined government service as customs officer in Zanzibar. I was born in Pemba in 1931 where he was transferred. After being transferred again to Bagamoyo, Bapuji my father decided to join his brother in Dar-es-Salaam. As my uncle had good experience working as a Compounder in Jamnagar they opened a medical shop and named it Gandhi Medical Shop. They became popular immediately. Dar-es-Salaam is my home town where I grew up, got married to Kanti Jhaveri from Rajkot, raised a family and together we participated in pre and post independence struggle in Tanzania. We witnessed the Zanzibar Revolution, forced marriages, army mutiny, nationalization of assets, Uganda expulsions and so on.

What are the other communities from Gujarat and other parts of Asia; and what kind of occupation they are engaged in to?

Members of Gujarati community came from all over Gujarat including Kutch. There is also a big number of Sikhs and Ismaily Khojas, Bohra and other Muslim families. There are communities from Ceylon, Burma, China and so on. So you see it is a cosmopolitan society. Some members worked for the Colonial government services. Many started with running small dukas and farms and being enterprising and hard working they developed their own whole scale businesses and farms, opened ginneries and small and big scale industries, hotels, medical institutions etc. and went in construction business in a big way.

Can you tell us  how the Gujarati  Community  engaged  into business , especially linking  with other businessmen  at home.

Some businessmen who had the facility to trade as whole sellers imported their goods from India and as I remember it from Japan and UK as well. They supplied the small Dukawala. In those days all businesses transactions were run on mutual trust. Goods were delivered and payments to be made were agreed though the word of mouth and a piece of paper called chithi.

How do you think about their ethnic and inter community relationship?

Tanganyika was a Trust Territory under the British Colonial rule and similar to South Africa and Kenya. The Colonial government ruled Tanganyika  with an iron fist strictly on racial basis. Thus the people were categorized according to their race; Europeans were at the top of the ladder, then Asians in the middle, and the Africans were placed  at the bottom. All this was changed only after a young leader Julius Nyerere emerged and led the independence struggle in Tanganyika. And I am happy to say that my husband and I were very much part of this struggle and were involved in it from the beginning. The country gained Independence in 1961.

Most of the time, interrelations between the communities especially between Muslims and Hindus were healthy but deteriorated after the partition of India and Pakistan  during and after the partition of India and Pakistan it was disturbed. And yet people of all communities including Hindus-Muslims, Sikhs and Christans as neighbours and friends always shared celebrations and festivals and were on friendly terms. 

I remember in Bagamoyo my best friends were Sakker and Kulsa; Ismaily sisters who helped their mother run their small shop selling khangas and other dress material. I spent as much time as possible with them and enjoyed watching their customers, mostly African women bargaining with them in good humour.

Tell us something about how the Asian Communities practice of Religion?

There are Temples, Gurudwaras, several Mosques for all denominations and Churches as there are all religious groups amongst the Asians. For example Hindus go to the temples, Muslims to the Mosques, Goans attend service in Churches and Sikhs visit Gurudwaras. In Dar-es-Salaam a Bhadara -feast was held every Sunday and on auspicious days where all were welcome. Thus the religious life is simple and peaceful.

You have worked with the women empowerment movement in Tanzania. What is your experience as an activist?

All those years when I was an active member of the Central Committee of the National Women's Organization – UWT were very fulfilling years for me. Those were the days when the country and the people as a whole were struggling for development on all fronts but the women were the most marginalized and deprived members of the society. They were bound by age old social taboos and customs, wife beatings and other oppression, and leading their life practically without any amenities was a way of life for them.  And even water and light, clinics or elementary education was not available to them.

Our organization was responsible for formulating the policy and initiate projects to help the women. As such our first priority was to visit the women, try to end her age old hardship by initiating self help projects to give her some financial leeway and bring them on the main stream of the society so that they can share in the general progress.

Mama Sophia Kawawa the Prime Minister's wife was our Chairperson. Very simple by nature she never expected any special privilege for herself and was just one of us. And the  members of the CC of UWT comprised of many women leaders who were brilliant achievers in their own professions. During our field work in villages we shared living space, food, ideas and arguments.

We visited all parts of the country. This gave me the rare opportunities to visit the remotest part of the country and meet the women, discuss the problems facing them and help to try to find the solution for these problems. By living with them we got  the first hand knowledge about their predicament. It was a bumpy process but if we wanted the women to take their rightful place in society we had to begin at the beginning. Over the years we did manage to achieve quite a good number of our goals.  

It was most satisfying experience  and for me this bond with the women remains as strong as ever, whether I was sharing with my friends  a meal, a song, a life times story, an argument or holding hands with a half necked mad man or listening to a witches call ! 

We heard that you are an excellent cook specializing in so many varieties of delicious Gujarati food which we relished at your home. How did you manage to preserve all these food culture in Tanganyika?

My mother was a very good cook. I learnt to cook all these varieties from her and enjoy cooking different food. My husband was elected Member of Parliament from Dar-es-Salaam Constituency and our house was always full of guests and I enjoyed feeding them. In Tanzania all the traditional spices, vegetables and other items are available. Just to mention a few names, you will find dhokla, bhajia, khandvi, pani pury ,bhel puri, jalebi gathita, patra , sev khaman, idli dosa and so on every where in the country.

You have a family which is truly transnational. How do you maintain the relationships?  Which is your real home?

Yes, young members of our family are spread across different countries; Britain, Australia, USA, Afghanistan, Switzerland, India, Scotland and so on. They visit us from time to time. However there is no official family gathering as such.  But then internet and mobile phone are always there at hand. And my home is where I am staying! 

You have been in India since last four years. This is after 80 years of living in Tanganyika – Tanzania. How is your return experience; and how do you feel here in Noida?

There are always two sides to a coin; gain and loss and plus as well as minus points. For us moving from Tanzania where we had spent the best years of our life in fact my entire life [eighty years], was a very difficult decision to make. My parents had died and all the other family members including our children had moved away gradually. My brother-in-law and his family from Uganda were now settled in UK. My late husband and I were not keeping in good health, so our best option was to move to India where we could receive medical treatment easily and meet our children frequently. 

Of course, it was a difficult transition and we both missed Dar-es-Salaam where Jhaveriji was Babu I was Bibi- grandmother for everybody. It is interesting to note that, all these years in Tanzania our life was based on Indian culture, religion, food habits and so on and we had been visiting our daughters and her family in Delhi from time to time. But even then when we moved I felt like a stranger here in Delhi. What is more even the vegetable vendor could make out that I am a, 'baharwale'. I started writing my autobiography, 'Dancing with Destiny' to keep myself mentally occupied. Fortunately I finished writing it and it is now published. 

Now that feeling of not belonging and not being able to cope with the new environment is also gone. My neighbours are very friendly and I have met many nice people like you. 

I thank you all for taking interest in my story.  

Thank you so much for sharing this invaluable experience of your life journey with us. 

Interview Date:   Thursday, May 29, 2014

Person Name:   Urmila Jhaveri

courtesy : http://grfdt.com/InterviewDetails.aspx?TabId=1033 or http://grfdt.com/Interviews.aspx

—

Dr. Sadananda Sahoo : Asst. Professor, School of Interdisciplinary and Trans-Disciplinary Studies, Indira Gandhi National Open University Maidan Garhi, New Delhi 110 068

`Dancing With Destiny : Memoir` by Urmila Jhaveri

ISBN 978-1-4828-1042-4 (Softcover); 978-1-4828-1043-1 (Ebook)

295pp  © 2014 Urmila Jhaveri

(publisher: www.partridgepublishing.com/india)

This is more than just a `memoir`; it is an autobiographical account of an eventful journey through the author`s long life (she`s nearly 83) that dwells on the history of her country and people and draws the reader in with an endearing mix of candour and warmth, wit and wisdom, and much more.

Urmila Jhaveri is a second generation East African Asian, born in 1931 in Pemba, the twin island of Zanzibar where her Indian parents had migrated ten years previously when her father was recruited to the colonial customs service.  Some four years later, her father left his employment and the family moved to the mainland where he joined the business of a drug store that had been started a few years earlier by his older brother in Dar-es-Salaam.  This then was to be and remain her home for the next 75 years. It was here that she grew up, went to school, got married, raised two children and, while living a busy domestic and social life of a successful lawyer`s loving wife, developed her own independent persona of a veteran activist in the Tanzania national women`s movement Umoja Wa Wanawake Wa Tanzania (UWT).    

The narrative is not chronological in a linear sense; rather it meanders through a series of circuitously constructed themes (such as Migrations, World War II, Our Dhow Safari, A Brief Glance over Uganda in Part I alone).  She sets out her early trajectory in the first three chapters, aptly entitled Family Diary, Home and Happy Days.  In later chapters, we are given insights into the broader history of the region, the slave trade, the arrival of European explorers and the onset of colonial rule, interspersed with mature reflections on the lives of people around her.  What emerges is an unpretentious self-portrait of a modest woman with many hidden qualities and abilities.

We learn about her idyllic childhood, schooling and upbringing in a South Asian middle-class home, though as she says at the time she `never realised that it was an environment in which we were living in small racially bound compartments`, referring to the triple layered structure of colonial society where the Europeans occupied the top position, the native Africans were at the bottom and the Indians in between, and `(a)s if this was not enough, many other extra boundaries were self imposed and jealously guarded` (p 105), pointing to the complex class, caste and religion based community groupings among the Asians and other divisions in the rest of the population, though relations across these lines nevertheless remained cordial even if at times tensions did boil over.

Beginning with an outline of her antecedents, parents` marriage and the birth of her siblings, she remembers her own first memory of `actual` India, as distinct from the vicarious India of imagination and folklore. This was in 1943, at the peak of World War II, when her family, like many others, had temporarily shifted there to elude a feared German invasion of East Africa.  As she puts it, until then “it never occurred to me that my roots were in India or [anywhere] else.  For us … Dar-es-Salaam was our home …. for those of us who made our home in Africa, this sense of belonging was our bedrock on which we built our lives”.  As she adds, “for some reason I could not understand, I did not feel at home in Jamnagar” (p 78)!

Her description of the hazardous voyage across the Indian Ocean by dhow during the monsoon season, in wartime blackout conditions, reads like a hair-raising tale of adventure and survival.  It also gives an inkling of what the earlier, pioneering generation of migrants from India had had to endure, in their case for a better future but without any idea of what awaited them.

The Indian sojourn did not last long.  The family returned to Dar-es-Salaam when the war ended but during her time in India she had become betrothed to a  budding young lawyer, K L Jhaveri (whom she refers to as Jhaveriji and whose own memoirs were published in 1999 under the equally catchy title of `Marching with Nyerere`).  Although she had resumed her schooling in Jamnagar, she did not complete it to the Cambridge School Certificate standard after coming back to  Dar-es-Salaam. That however was not to be a handicap.  Her fate was to `dance with destiny` as it unfolded, through an amazing series of chance and opportunity, grounded in her cultural roots and on a solid marital foundation with a liberal ethos that enabled her to flower into a self-educated woman of great intellect and moral integrity.

Her husband`s high-profile legal and political activities gave her a unique opportunity to mingle with top national leaders and to learn about past and current affairs and what was shaping the country`s path towards independence. Part II of the book is devoted to these matters: `Pre-Independence`, `Travails and Triumph`, `Uhuru-Independence`, `Zanzibar Revolution`, `The Tanganyika Rifles Mutiny`, `The Birth pangs of a New Nation` and `Nationalization`.   But it is in Chapter 17, “Where are the Women?”, and a later chapter with an intriguingly long title “Camaraderie … Djini Witches, Village Ancestors …And mad men”, that we get a full measure of her involvement with the UWT.  She describes its origins and progress under the charismatic leadership of Bibi Titi Mohamed and how after an initial apprenticeship at district and regional levels, she was elevated to the Central Committee and became a valuable contributing member of that organisation.  Her account of the activities of the UWT – their meetings and travels across the length and breadth of the vast country, their encounters with varied people and situations and above all their endeavours to raise the lot of the downtrodden and marginalised women – is heart rending. She was the only Asian, the only non-African, among her colleagues, who all formed a close-knit bond of friendship and sisterhood.

They campaigned and worked for an improvement in the status and education of rural women, dealing with sensitive cultural issues such as wife-beating and other forms of domestic violence, confinement to the home, polygamous households and child-rearing and lack of financial independence despite being “a labour force to work in the fields”.  Above all, it was the social oppression of the women, who were liable to be unilaterally divorced through the `talaq` process if they complained, that the UWT sought to address by “educating both men and women, and creating awareness about women`s rights”.  Their goal was “to push for women`s emancipation by initiating small-scale projects to enable women to earn, open kindergartens and nursery schools”.  

“Attending the meetings away from home meant for us late nights talking, joking, singing, sharing experiences and drinking beer and Fanta.  Many of our older members were Muslims who had formerly belonged to ngoma groups that were open to all, regardless of religious and tribal affiliation.  Occasionally there was mock posturing of visible tribal accents amongst the members like Wachaga and Wasukuma resulting in merriment all round.  Swahili was the common language that bound our understanding.  I had grown up speaking Swahili, and became fluent through using it continuously at UWT meetings and on long journeys to remote regions.  It helped me reach out, make friends, and find my own tiny little place in the lives of the village folks” (p 173).   In fact her command of Swahili was such that she regularly translated press reports and formal party documents into English for her husband!

In Part III, we learn about a couple of serious incidents of threat and assault in their later years, but on the positive side a great deal about her travels also.  In 1970 she was one of three UWT leaders chosen to represent Tanzania at the World Women`s Conferences in Moscow and Budapest.  It was a fabulous trip, which also included Leningrad and Moldavia, with a full programme of cultural and social functions and meetings with important people, among them the first woman cosmonaut Valentina Tereskova.  Elsewhere, she recalls her trips to Mauritius and Varanasi in India and “Tryst with a Tantric and visiting Kumbh Mela”.

In the closing chapters, she reflects on her spiritual journey through to the `evening of my life`, on her children and large extended family and basically everything that has happened to her, putting it all in a wider philosophical context.  There is a Waltonian (The Waltons – the 1970s American tv saga) quality about her homilies and other observations throughout the text.  So much is packed into the book – in terms of the countless number of people whom she remembers by name and of every significant turning point in her life – that for a reviewer it is an invidious task to highlight everything or to miss anything.  But what is clear is that hers is a life that has been lived to the fullest in every possible way.  Some of this can be gauged from the collection of old black and white photographs, among them of her with Julius Nyerere, his wife Maria Nyerere, Mrs Indira Gandhi and Dr Radhakrishna, in all of which she struck a charmingly beautiful figure who has aged well since.

What else?  Among her many vivid WWII recollections are seeing convoys of European PoWs and shabbily dressed, hungry and traumatised refugees (women, children and old men) being transported across to the station in Dar-es-Salaam, and how her father`s German friends came “stealthily to our house at night with their valuable books, artwork, paintings, delicate porcelain tea-sets and coffee-sets, for safekeeping or just to give away before they fled the country” (p 62).

And she remembers friends and neighbours and wider community contacts and acquaintances of all races and religions by name, often with details of what happened to them or where they ended up.

There is more to the book than this selective and partial review can convey adequately. It leaves the reader with respect and goodwill for the author, for all her accomplishments certainly but above all for her strength of character, her humanity and her modesty and selfless service to the cause of women`s betterment in her native Tanzania.  Her husband, to whom the book is fondly dedicated, died just a few weeks before its publication. Of him, she writes in Acknowledgements, “without [his] silent support and encouragement I would not have written this book. Jhaveriji is always there for me; but he never tried to proffer advice or even commented on what I was writing …. letting me write our story in my own way”.   And with typical shyness, she adds:

“My book is based on facts drawn from history and my personal experiences, limited understanding and some impediments.  I am afraid there may be some unintended discrepancies, unseen gaps and even language shortfall and hope that, these may please be ignored (sic)”.  Undoubtedly these are present – and the book would certainly have benefited from some professional input and editing – but not so as to mar one`s enjoyment of what she has to offer.  For the academically inclined, it is also worth noting that as well as an appreciative Foreword by G Madaraka Nyerere, a distinguished Tanzanian journalist and commentator, the text is supported by a useful end section containing References and Notes.

Having explained the genesis of her story in a moving Preface (how, having “arrived from familiar Dar-es-Salaam to Delhi”, she was feeling “like a bewildered, disconcerted, disoriented foreigner in India”), she concludes the book with a Postscript in a similar vein thus:

No doubt, all my experiences, relationships, actions and reactions have mo[u]lded my being.   And today, I am what I am, yet for me the enigma `Who am I?` remains …

To complete the poetic summation that follows, that indeed encapsulates her, you must read the book.  It is an uplifting experience, not to be missed.

Wednesday, 9 April 2014

RAMNIK SHAH © 2014
Surrey, England

http://www.ramnikshah.blogspot.co.uk/