retrospect I think how dangerous that was, and then the thought comes to me that my father was somewhat reckless, and that I have acquired that streak from him, through example, because such things are not genetically inherited, however much one may think they are.
At the back of our house, on a higher ridge was my friend Sissie’s house. Sissie was an Afrikaner girl and I enjoyed her company. She was my age, but more important, she was a girl. Her mother was a large woman, with a great big sore on her leg.
Our favourite pastime was playing house. My mothers had bought me a small grass and cane table and two chairs from a vendor who had come by the house. With just those three items of furniture, Sissie and I constructed a whole house in our minds and on the ground on which we played. We could be anything we desired, and we had all sorts of domestic adventures.
One day we were dining on onions on my little grass table when a snake came slithering by. We were shocked into total silence. We saw the snake snap up and swallow a frog, and we watched mesmerised as the frog disappeared and the snake’s thin body became bloated with the frog. We never said a word to each other, nor to anyone else. It was as if that snake had cast a spell over us. We moved only after the snake disappeared to wherever it had come from. Then we went rather hurriedly into our respective houses.
Ma would sew together fabric samples and I would have patchwork dresses of sorts. Maybe I only had one such dress, but then I also had one dress that was a little girl’s dream, or rather nearly had it. Ma had sewn a sleeveless, frilly dress for me of a gossamer, fairy-like fabric, bluer than the blue sky and yet not quite blue. It was turquoise, the sky mixed with green of the land around me. I imagined myself in it, but it was snatched away from me before I ever wore it.
Someone in the neighbourhood, someone important to my mother, had a baby and the dress was presented to that baby. I was very disappointed, but I did not complain. I have never in my life seen a comparable dress and yet I suppose it must have been pretty ordinary. What could have come off a hand sewing machine in Wentworth in 1932?
Then came Ramadan and my first fast. I had just turned four. Ma had cut up one of her trousseau long scarves – chocolate-coloured and heavily embroidered in gold and made me a dress with matching trousers. To help me while away the last hours of the fast which can become trying, I was dressed in this finery and taken for a drive to the second Meer home in Durban – Uncle AC’s flat in Pine Street.
Uncle AC’s parents made a huge fuss of me and my mother Ma sent for flowers and made me a garland. I have never felt so decorated and honoured in my life. Even my reception in Surat in 1995 – when I was presented with an award and draped with so many garlands that the photographer had to ask me to remove the garlands so that he could see my face which was lost in the roses – did not compare with the thrill I experienced on that day. The fast was more than worth it. I felt so grown-up, so important.
Eid followed Ramadan and was very special. We got new clothes and were taken to Durban to be fitted with new shoes. I set my heart on a black patent leather pair with white bows. The shoes were displayed in the window of the shop at the entrance of the passage that led to my father’s printing press. I could not have known greater joy than when Papa bought the pair for me.
On Eid day we woke to the aroma of frying samoosas and boiling cardamom milk, to our mothers’ distant voices from the kitchen, and the hazy memory of pillowcases put up the night before at the end of our beds for presents that would be brought by the angels – the faristas. We cast aside the clinging sleep and jumped out of bed to look at our presents.
In my pillowcase I found a large celluloid doll in a blue dress. I shouted for my parents, “Ma! Papa! The faristas came!”, and I ran to show them my doll. My brothers came after me with their motor cars. Our confidence in our parents was strengthened. They said the faristas would come, and they had, and they cared sufficiently for us to bring us toys.
My new Eid dress was pretty and Amina Ma put an apron over it. Papa gave us Eid money and Ismail was allowed to take us for a train ride to nearby Jacobs where we spent some of this money on ice creams. I wished Eid would go on forever, but our Papa said that all things come to an end and so did Eid.
Other charmed days followed. Papa brought Allah Pak into my life. Solly, Ahmed and I sat in a circle on Papa’s bed and he said, “Close your eyes tight so that everything is black and no light can enter.” And we did just that. “Keep them closed”, he said, “until I say open.”
We opened our eyes to a feast before us. Each of us had a plate of sweets and fruit. We looked in wide-eyed wonder at Papa, Ma and Amina Ma. We asked, “Where did all this come from?” Papa said: “It all comes from Allah Pak.” I asked, “Where is he?” and my father said he is far, far away in the heavens. “He sent us these things from all that distance?” I asked. My father confirmed that he had. And my mothers smiled approvingly as my father added, “Allah Pak can do anything. He is all-powerful. He looks after you. He looks after all of us.”
I constructed my own image of Allah Pak. I identified him with my father and he took on his gender, but I saw him in a red dress, reclining above me in levitation. I did not share this image of Allah Pak with anyone. It was a secret in my mind, a secret between Allah Pak and me. One day I was walking with my uncle Gora Papa, my father’s brother. I saw something red levitated far above me in the sky, and I called in great excitement, “Allah Pak!” and Gora Papa said, “That is a kite”.
Ma told us about the Prophet Muhammad and we listened in rapt attention as she told of the time he was dying.
“The Angel Jibreel comes to take away our souls and we die,” she said. “He comes at his will, and he takes our soul at his will. We are all helpless before Jibreel, but in the case of Prophet Muhammad, Jibreel knocked on the door, and Bibi Fatima the Prophet’s daughter asked, ‘Who is it?’ and Jibreel said ‘It is I, the angel of death’. Bibi Fatima said, ‘I will not allow you in, go away’.
“The Angel knocked again. This time Prophet Muhammad asked his daughter who was at the door and she told him it was Jibreel. ‘Then why did you not let him in?’ She said ‘He wants to take your soul. I won’t let him in.’ Then the Prophet told her she had to open the door. ‘It is a courtesy that he asks to come in. He can come in without opening the door. He is paying his respect and you must respond with respect.’ Then with tears streaming and sobbing, she opened the door. Jibreel entered and asked Prophet Muhammad if he was ready and could he take his soul and Prophet Muhammad said ‘Yes’, and then with great gentleness, Jibreel took the Prophet’s soul and bore it away to Allah.”
I was deeply impressed by this story and by another Ma told us about the Prophet.
“It was the custom in those days among the wealthy to bring in a wet nurse to nurse a baby and she would take the baby to the countryside and nurse him there where the air was clean and fresh. So the baby Muhammad was sent to spend the first few years of his life with Dai Halima, his wet nurse. Dai Halima had her own baby and the two babies suckled at her breasts. When the two boys were about three years old and were playing together, two angels came and took Muhammad away, and opened his heart. The little friend ran in consternation to his mother, screaming that two men were attacking Muhammad. Halima ran to rescue him. She found a laughing Muhammad and no sign of the two men. Muhammad told her not to be alarmed. It was only the angels, ‘they opened my heart and cleaned it!’.”
Ma added that Muhammad was thus without sin. He was pure. He is the model for us all to follow.
One of the earliest stories my father told us which left a lasting impression on me was about King Solomon’s justice:
“Two women came to King Solomon with a baby and each claimed the baby belonged to her. To prise out the truth
