I learnt of the Arab traders coming to Tanzania and staying back, British colonisation and with it the Indian influx, mainly Gujaratis and Sikhs.
My cork sandals with the white cross-band were so stylish. And I—the princess—in my best white-and-pink lace frock stitched by my mother, completed the look. We were at the Holiday Inn in Mumbai and I don’t know what my parents were thinking on their maiden flight, and that too, an international one, but I was definitely no longer an ordinary bespectacled ten-year-old.
Coconut palm fronds were swaying in the breeze of the Arabian Sea. I was wonderstruck by the sea since the only water bodies I had seen were the ponds with buffaloes wading in them on the way from Delhi to Panjab during our school summer holidays.
The flight next day took us to Addis Ababa and we checked into a hotel. I remember the look of consternation on my otherwise adventurous Mom’s face as she went through the menu. In those days for Papa, even dosa and idli did not constitute a meal so here I was, lost between the two of them, not knowing what to eat. And then spaghetti with meatballs were ordered. None of us knew how to fold it around the fork and so I would rather not remember what we made of it, but I do remember drinking a couple of colas and us having two helpings of ice cream. You see, even in those days ice cream was available in India, too.
We were on that flight because my father had been selected for a deputation to the Water (Maji in Kiswahili) Department of the Tanzania government and in the 70s, travelling overseas was almost exotic. Everything outside India was “phoren” and a nebulous space where cars zoomed by on concrete roads, women wore scarves, sunglasses, stilettos and drove sun-roof cars; and men were all tall and handsome.
The scene that greeted us outside the Dar es Salaam airport was quite contrary to my imagined world. There were the locals with their dark skin and curly hair. There were porters, coffee shop-wallas, taxi drivers. None of the women walked tall in stilettos; most were born tall. There were so many Indian-looking faces; cappuccino skin-coloured and puzzlingly, with frizzy hair. I also discovered the Sardars with their peaked triangular turban.
As we settled in, I learnt of the Arab traders coming to Tanzania and staying back, British colonisation and with it the Indian influx, mainly Gujaratis and Sikhs. There were Bohra Muslims many of whom spoke Gujarati, and Ismailis who were the “sophisticated Muslims”. The gurdwara and the temples were venues for weekend get togethers for all. Dhokla, khandvi and garba entered my life as did cassava, Khanga and Kiswahili. I would realise later how many of my mental stereotypes were being peeled off. The local Africans wore dresses, spoke English. The men were debonair and swirled to the tunes of John Travolta. Papa brought home the concept of “weekend” from his office coffee-break banter. He found the concept funny.
How come this phoren country did not have a television that broadcast shows? Even we had a TV back home and would watch the one Hindi movie on Sundays and even the one song that was featured in Krishi Darshan. Tickets were sold at a premium for Amitabh Bachchan movies. And there was a huge drive-in cinema.
We walked to school in groups; skirts were short or long depending on how “modern” your parents were. Some girls wore the burkha to school but at birthday parties, their skirts were the shortest. Some came in long Japanese cars, re-conditioned for the low- and middle-income economies, and then there were the dollar-salary parastatal children (kids were known by their parents’ status) with their noses in the air. Yet, after class, we were all responsible for cleaning the classrooms, the windowpanes, the corridors and the stairs. The farmland across the road from the school had patches that each class “owned” and we took great pride in cultivating and harvesting the produce, short skirt or long skirt.
Every Sunday after 2 pm, you could not drive your car unless you had a special permit. The city would turn into a walking hub. Even the big avenues would come alive in a very different way and the cars would be silent spectators, happily resting in the parking lots.
Children from even the remotest parts of India today know their spaghetti from spaghetti straps. TV channels are passée but that’s because there are OTT platforms and social media. Pre-owned car stores are everywhere, petroleum is wondering if it has lost the race to lithium, and yet, cars are waiting to rest. The long and the short of the skirt remains and my mom still knits scarves and woollies.
Rupinder Pannu Brar is Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Coal, Government of India