The Gunny Sack by M.G. Vassanji

Author:M.G. Vassanji [Vassanji, M.G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-307-37515-5
Publisher: Doubleday Canada
Published: 2005-05-10T04:00:00+00:00

They opened a stall on Bagamoyo Road far away from the town, deep inside the African district, selling pili-pili-bizari: chili and turmeric, a clove of garlic here and there, sugar by the packet, flour and grain by the kibaba-cup, kerosene by the jigger. And they were known in town, even though the family name had been changed to Hasham, there were people who could point their finger at them and say, “There walks the house of Dhanji Govindji, who stole from God,” and cross the street and walk on the other side.

During the hartal of 1923, the strike called by Indian shopkeepers to protest against the Government’s requirement that accounts be kept in English, they had to close the stall even when they could ill afford to, they didn’t have a shilling in the house. They had to sell through the back door, the compound, where the mamas knocked and pleaded for groceries and brought vitumbua and barazi for them.

Through the 20s and into the 30s, the years of boom, when the big mosque with the clock tower went up, all in stone, with huge wooden doors and iron gates, when the Indian population swelled and Dar grew and grew, they carried the shame, afraid to look people in the eye, to get into an argument, for fear of a taunt.

There was one incident Ji Bai never forgot. Her son Kassim, ten years old, was playing in the street with other boys. She sat minding the store, looking out over the groceries, it was a dull humid afternoon right after a brief rainfall, the ground was wet on the surface although the sand underneath was dry … A sudden commotion woke her up from her reverie: Kassim was racing furiously towards her, bare feet thumping on the ground, kicking up dust, chased with even greater thumps of larger bare feet by a grown woman: Sheru Bai of the Indian shop across the road. Kassim raced inside, panting loudly, and looked at his mother in relief. No sanctuary. Sheru Bai without losing the slightest speed raced right into the store, caught hold of the boy by the hair, shook him a few times and slapped him twice. Then without a word or a look at his mother she stomped off.

A kid’s fight, perhaps. But wasn’t I, the boy’s mother, the proper authority to be told? Kher. Never mind. We survived this and other insults. The people forgot, but it took them twenty, twenty-five years to do so. Sheru Bai and I are friends now. We’ve both seen hardships.

In the 1930s Gulam became a missionary. He joined a group of young men, many of them freshly off the boat from Bombay, who went on car trips to the interior to keep their brethren in line and to teach the faith to the African. In the first purpose they were phenomenally successful: few intermarriages, fewer concubines or multiple wives, mosques and schools going up everywhere. In the second, they proved a miserable failure:

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