Shubnum Khan's Blog, page 2

I dream of the village every night.

I keep replaying the moments above Bhatpura in my head.

The promises we made.

Kids shouting.

Setting sun between trees.

Names carved in stone.

A fistful of chinar leaves in the air.

A Moment (From The Morning Of)

On the morning Of, I went outside with the thick utility scissors and above the bin outside the backdoor (where, on winter nights in the dim yellow light I remember another moment), I cut up the last memory I have. The rubber is tiny and stiff and I struggle and I can't remember now if I was crying as I did it or I was hard and cold. I don't know if it was hurting so much to cut because it was so small to cut into pieces or because it felt like I was cutting out a piece of me. Maybe it was both.

And when it was done, I knew it was done.

Excerpt (Paper Flowers)

TwoAkbar Manzil was once the most grand mansion on the east coast of Africa. When ships came into the harbour, those on board would catch sight of the outrageous manor with its Palladian windows, marbled parapets, Romanesque towers and golden domes. The astonished travellers would point to the strange structure on the hill and declare amongst themselves that there was indeed hope for the Dark Continent if one could find such development right at the bottom.             It was a sign that civilisation (however bizarre) was possible.             But as with many great ambitions in the world, the house was abandoned and soon fell into neglect and began to deteriorate. With an overwhelming responsibility the house passed hands from auction to auction until the local municipality made the financial decision to convert the giant structure to hold tenants. The contractor, a cheap draftsman was called in because no architect would agree to a project involving such mutilation.             After thirty years of lying abandoned, the house was reopened and a group of workers with hammers, tape measures and pencils made their way up the hill. The designs of the new apartments were awkward, flimsy and downright peculiar. Trembling rooms were hacked into, misshapen bathrooms were pushed into corners, kitchens rose up inside of bedrooms, walls were broken into to make way for plumbing and passages were squeezed between rooms like struggling arteries. Smoke rose out from the windows and the walls began to stretch, then crack.             Outside on the hill, the house began to swell slightly like a mouth after treatment at the dentist.             The project was a failure. Those who moved in quickly moved out. People complained; the electricity was unpredictable, the water unreliable, there was damp in the walls, pipes leaked, doorways were too narrow, rooms were unfinished and the designs were absurd, but mostly, they said, it was just that the place didn’t feelright.             It felt, one tenant ventured to say, like the house was watching her.            In their apartment Sana felt squashed and caught in corners. Walls presented themselves to her suddenly and thrust her into the bedroom or tossed her into the kitchen or sometimes she found herself pushed and pushed until she was out of the apartment completely and left standing in the main original house.             It was there that the pushing and pulling abruptly stopped and everything became quiet. The silence was heavy, broken only by the groan of pipes and the occasional trickle of water. Shadows deepened and the carpets smelled faintly of tobacco. Worn curtains ran over long stain-glass windows. Sana had the sense that things were moving around her quietly but if she turned around suddenly everything was still.            Of course such places have secrets. Sana knew it. She could tell it from the day she entered and even before she entered. Such intuitions collected with other unknowable knowings, like sensing when a phone will ring or a dog will die. She knew there were all sorts of things to uncover and discover and recover.             All the uns and dis and res throbbed in the house like waiting packages at the post office.             She walked through the passage and made her way downstairs. The staircase ran in two separate lines along the wall and become one at a landing just before the ground floor. An ornate glass chandelier with missing lights overlooked the staircase and except for small sections where light passed through grimy skylights the house was dark and this made distances in the house indistinguishable so that passages seemed to go on forever.             On the stairway landing Sana noticed coloured light on the carpet coming through a tattered curtain along the wall. She peered behind it and found a long stain glass window that overlooked a stone courtyard at the back of the house. In the early morning light, she could see a man in frayed overalls and a straw hat painting something behind a tree. His fingers moved deftly, dipping a brush into a pot of white paint and moving his hand in small-scattered strokes. Suddenly he stopped painting and turned his head up and looked directly at her, his eyes bulging and yellow. Sana quickly pushed herself against the wall away from the window, breathing hard. When she looked again, edging slowly around the corner, the man was gone; she peered through the curtains and tried to see where he was and as she strained her neck and pulled at the curtains, the heavy material suddenly gave way from their rail and fell down in a rush of dust and moths. In a tangle of material, the coloured light rushed into the house in a blaze of red blue and green.            There was a shrill scream and a deep voice called out, ‘Ya Rabb! Save me! Save me! She’s come to kill me! Oh help! I’m going to die!’            Sana looked around bewildered and was blinded for a moment by the dazzling light. Then someone at the bottom of the stairs laughed. As her eyes settled from the flashing light, Sana saw a thin woman with hunched shoulders and narrow hips drift out of the shadows towards the stairs. In her hand she held a small sharp knife and a black scarf draped loosely over her greying hair. Her face came into the light and Sana saw that she was smiling wryly.            ‘So you found our little friend?’ The woman asked. Her voice crackled like a radio that wavered between stations.            ‘I’m sorry. What?’ Sana asked as she untangled herself from the curtains.            The woman gestured toward a dark corner on the landing. In the dim light Sana made out a large metal cage half covered in black cloth, housing a small green creature that watched warily from beady eyes. It gave a small squawk, almost mechanical.            ‘Our jaan, our beloved, our light of our eyes, don’t you know? Our baby…’ the woman cooed.            ‘That’s enough,’ snapped a voice from the top of the stairs. A small and round woman wrapped in a yellow sari, a purple knitted jersey and multi-coloured woollen gloves appeared at the top of the stairs. Her face was as round as her body and her red lips were turned down in distress. Gold bangles clattered around her wrist as she marched downstairs.            ‘Arreh wah, look at that! Our queen has arrived. Her majesty has come from the great land of Upstairs! Welcome!’ said the thin woman at the bottom of the stairs, as she bowed dramatically, sweeping her long arms on the floor.            ‘That’s enough,’ the small woman said softly. Her voice was soft, almost squeaky, like new shoes on polished floors. ‘I told you to leave him alone, Katy Bibi!’            The woman at the bottom of the stairs crossed her arms over her chest.             ‘How, Fancy Bhabi! I’m just introducing him to our new neighbour. I was just saying how sweet he is,’ she turned to Sana and continued, ‘tell her, tell her, how I was saying how sweet he is. So cute. So bichaara.’ She scrunched up her face in an expression of seemingly being unable to bear the cuteness.            The small woman lifted her hand and shook her bangles as she spoke.             ‘Stop it I tell you! Stop making fun of him. He understands everything! You know he’s sensitive.’            ‘Sensitive? Sensitive?!’ The thin woman uncrossed her arms. ‘Ha! Please. That thing is not sensitive. Did you hear what it screamed now? Arre bapre, it said God’s name in vain! How it can say like that? Even a deaf thing like you must have heard it upstairs! It was… outrageous, outrageous I tell you!’ she said suddenly clinging to the dramatic English word she had unexpectedly discovered in her vocabulary. ‘I wont have God’s name taken in vain by a Hindu bird in a decent Muslim house like this!’            ‘Oh shut up, shut up, shut up! I said that’s enough! You’re upsetting him,’ said the other woman. Her lips were trembling now. ‘Mr Patel doesn’t know what he’s saying. Obviously he must have heard you! You know he repeats things!’            The woman at the bottom of the stairs quickly strode forward and thrust out her neck. ‘All I know is that good for nothing bird keeps screaming for everything and I can’t get any work done in peace!’            Fancy Bhabi was trembling now. ‘I’m taking him upstairs!’            ‘Yes! And keep it there! Until it dies!  I hate it on the bloody stairs! I hate seeing it’s stupid face! Woh jara kabuthar thera jaisa lagtha hai!’             Fancy Bhabi looked tearful. ‘You know – you know he likes to look out at the courtyard at the pigeons, Katy Bibi! You know he doesn’t like being cooped up in my small room! He gets depressed when I keep him there for too long!’ And with that she grabbed the big cage and marched up. A few seconds later a door slammed somewhere upstairs.            Katy Bibi scowled.             ‘Sensitive as her bird, that one.’ She turned to Sana now and appraised her. ‘So, you’re the girl who just moved in. Father-daughter combo, hai? How old are you, fifteen, sixteen?’ She clicked her tongue and snorted. ‘I don’t know what Khaled Bhai was thinking,’ she said beginning to mutter to herself. ‘Thinks he can make all the big-big decisions here without even asking us. I told him, I told him, nowadays you can’t trust anyone. If we take any Tom, Dick or Harry off the street, what will happen?’ She turned now to Sana and looked up at her as if she had asked the question. ‘I’ll tell you what will happen! This place will become a drug den! It starts with just letting a father and daughter in, oh yes, it all seems very innocent, yes, okay so they’re Indian like I made Khaled Bhai promise, but then soon the drunk down the street is knocking at the door also asking for a place and then you’re letting in anybody and next thing you know the vagabonds are selling daggaout the backdoor! Oh, don’t think I don’t know! I know all the latest things! I know what Durban poison is, even! Yes I know! And I mean really, look at your family. Who would trust you? A father with no proper job! And no mother! Tsk!’            ‘Well… my mother died,’ said Sana reasonably.            ‘So what? Whose mother doesn’t die? Which normal man doesn’t get married again? Tell me! From what I hear it’s been years now! You can’t trust a man without a woman! And tell me, why did he move here? It’s all very fishy, you know.’ She climbed the first few stairs and brought her face close to Sana. ‘Tell me, are you and your father up to something fishy?’            Sana shook her head.            ‘Well,’ Katy Bibi said moving back to the foot of the stairs, ‘you just remember that I may look old but I’m the sharpest one here and I don’t stand for nonsense. I know everything. You and your father get up to any masti and I’ll know it! I have the nose you know,’ she said tapping her undeniably well-defined nose. ‘Carried down from the Persians, this nose. GoolamHussein ancestry. Tell your father no strange women are allowed to visit! And no loud noises. And no smoking! And no visitors! We’re very strict about all that here.’ Then she lowered her voice and said more to herself, ‘Anyway I shouldn’t worry, you’ll leave soon enough. This is a crazy place! With crazy people.’ She raised her voice in the direction of upstairs. ‘Especially that old one upstairs!’ She continued, ‘Anyone who comes here, leaves. Trust me, I’ve been here from 1988 and I’ve watched them all come and go. Only the crackpots get left.’ She laughed suddenly then. ‘Even that bloody bird is crazy. Did you hear it? Imagine, ha! She says it’s sensitive!’ she sang the last word out. ‘Have you ever heard such bakwas? Did you hear what it said? Tell me, where you come from, do birds say these things?’            ‘No,’ Sana answered truthfully.            ‘Of course not! We should get rid of it. It’s bad luck. My nani said keeping a bird in the house would cause trouble. My goramamoo, he was eighty-five – fit as a fiddle, not a single problem, not even arthritis and you know how much that runs in the GoolamHussein family – his bloody grandson, that damned Nafeesa’s boy brought a parrot in the house and just like that,’ she snapped her fingers, ‘the next day, goramamoohad a heart attack and died! Curse of the bird I tell you!’            At that point the grandfather clock suddenly began to chime loudly in the foyer. Katy Bibi threw up her arms in the air.            ‘And that bloody thing! Loud enough to wake the dead! That clever-for-nothing Joseph can’t even fix it. It sets that bloody bird off every morning! I can’t get any peace here! All I want is some peace! Is that too much to ask for?!’ she wailed. Before Sana could answer, she continued, ‘You’ll find out soon enough! This is a mad place! And then you’ll leave like everyone else! Mark my words!’
            And with that, she scowled and walked away, disappearing around a corner.

South Africa's Untold Success Story (Huffpost SA)

This story on the success of a Muslim minority in South Africa was originally published at the Huffington Post South Africa here: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/2017/04/09/south-africas-untold-success-story-a-christians-nations-peac_a_22032852/
Religion, the one thing that has divided the rest of the world so starkly, has not done so here. This has perhaps been one of the most remarkable stories of post-apartheid South Africa.
Growing up in early 90s South Africa I was not exposed to many different races, in that stifling, artificially divided environment apartheid left us with. But I was immersed in a rich religious melange that formed my understanding of community. My neighbours on my right were Hindu, on my left were Christians and opposite me were Muslims. I heard stories about Ram's love for Sita from Mrs Moodley, about Christmas from the Davids next door and about the Prophet (PBUH) at madressah. There were at least five temples, mosques and churches in my area alone (often right next to each other) and our parks were littered with white rocks that mark Shembe outdoor prayer sites. In town, outside the bustling African traditional healer's market was the Catholic Emmanuel Cathedral and right next door was the largest mosque in Durban, the Juma Musjid Mosque dating back to 1880.While we may have been segregated by race, there were no clear rules about religion and it is perhaps one of the reasons that faith bound us to one another so strongly. Religion was not only a source of strength and comfort during apartheid, it was also a means of resistance against a system designed to divide. And yet religion, the one thing that has divided the rest of the world so starkly, has not done so here. This has perhaps been one of the most remarkable stories of post-apartheid South Africa, but the least told.Despite being a secular state, South Africa is a deeply religious country – it has more than 60 religious affiliations and in 2016, the General Household Survey by StatsSA revealed that more than 90% of South Africans associate themselves with a religion while 36.6 % of Hindus, 52.5% of Christians and 75.6% of Muslims attend religious ceremonies at least once a week. While the number of South Africans who consider themselves religious may be lowering we still have a uniquely united approach to religion in a world that is steadily growing divided over it.Thuli Madonsela, the former public protector who helped draw up the the South African Constitution, explained in an interview last year that respect for the right to choose one's faith and the state's respect for all faiths is how a secular democracy and a religious population work together so well in South Africa.This is especially pertinent today in a world where Islam and its communities have come under scrutiny with non-Muslim majority countries calling for stricter control measures like the surveillance of Muslims, preventing mosque construction and supporting the introduction of Muslim identification documents. South Africa's Muslim population represent only one and a half percent of the population but it has a strong presence in the country due to an active and involved community. This community of Muslims have lived in harmony with the Christian majority in South Africa for years. It is perhaps one of only a handful of countries where this has succeeded.One of the reasons for this is the way Islam was introduced to South Africa. Islam first arrived on our shores though slavery, which began in mid 1600s to the mid 1800s when the Dutch sent slaves and political prisoners to the Cape Colony from Indonesia and other Asian countries. The second wave of Muslims arrived from India as indentured labourers to work in sugar cane farms for the British in the late 1800s. This history of slavery is part of the reason why Muslims are so organically a part of South Africa, says Gabeba Baderoon, an academic and author of Regarding Muslims, a book that traces the role of Muslims in South Africa. "South Africa was built not only on colonial occupation and land theft but on slavery and indentured labour. Islam is intricately connected to these deep beginnings because many enslaved and indentured people were Muslims and the long history of struggle during colonialism is part of the reason that Islam is an ordinary, organic and indigenised part of our present," Baderoon tells the Huffington Post South Africa.Khadija Patel, a Muslim journalist and editor of the Mail & Guardian, echoes similar sentiments. "Islam in not homogenous, it is many things and it has grown through an organic process that speaks to the long and difficult history of this country."Despite their small numbers, Muslim South Africans are visible in many fields, including our politics. In 1998 former South African president Nelson Mandela reflected that: "Our country can proudly claim Muslims as brothers and sisters, compatriots, freedom fighters and leaders, revered by our nation. They have written their names on the roll of honour with blood, sweat and tears." Some Muslims, most notably Yusuf Dadoo, Ahmed Timol, Ismail Cachalia and Fathima Meer, fought in the struggle against apartheid.But the Muslim community in South Africa has not been without its criticisms. Safiyyah Surtee, a Postgraduate researcher as the University of Johannesburg's Religion Studies, says that Muslims do have a unique situation here but she believes that a lot more can be done on an interfaith level. "Muslims need to contribute more to interfaith, respect and harmony. I often find myself the only Muslim at interfaith events."Some within the Muslim community have been labelled racist, sexist, apathetic and unwilling to integrate into a South African community. There is a danger that they consider themselves separate from the people and government.And mostly alarmingly, there is one aspect of the issues facing global Islam that has crept into an otherwise largely peaceful Muslim existence in South Africa: an undeniable strand of extremism. This may pose the biggest danger to the social cohesion South Africa enjoys with its Muslim population. While most were largely moderate Muslims, and a significant number well-integrated into society, some South African Muslims have actually joined terror groups. In 2015 a fifteen-year-old Cape Town girl was taken off a flight en route to join ISIS.But then there are moments like anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada's state funeral which demonstrate the power of South Africa's real religious tolerance. His memorial in Cape Town was proudly hosted by the historically important St George's Cathedral, and religious leaders in attendance at the Muslim funeral included the Anglican Archbishop. This prompted former University of the Free State vice chancellor, Jonathan Jansen, to write a viral post about religious cohesion in South Africa "where Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu and other faiths come together in a broad swathe of South African humanity to remember a man who fought for all of us. Where on and off the stage no one racial or ethnic or religious group dominated the event".An active and committed community with a history in the country may be the reason why Islamophobia has had little impact in the country. Whilst there has been some protests to construction of mosques in Valhalla and most recently Atholl, these incidents are often related to the history of the area as previously white-only areas, and objections mainly came from white residents. This year the Western Cape experienced vandalism of two mosques in January; the mosques were desecrated after a public call on Facebook to burn Islamic places of worship. However there was an immediate outcry and the Christian community showed support with the local Bishop attending interfaith meetings at the mosque and publicly denouncing the acts.Despite these incidents South African Muslims have experienced little of the current levels of fear and intimidation of global Muslim minorities and this may have something to do with the fact that Muslims have been allowed to develop their communities and thus feel settled enough to become active and contributing members of society. In 2014 The Pew Research Centre conducted a study on the perceptions of Americans towards members of different religious groups. The study revealed that whereas Jews, Catholics and Evangelical Christians were all viewed warmly, Muslims were viewed coldly. However several trends emerge from this research, an important one being that the more likely a person is to know a Muslim, the more likely he or she is to express positive feelings towards Muslims as a group.South Africans rely on their immediate community and not on the media to formulate an understanding of Muslims and this has led to a far nuanced understanding of a currently misunderstood religion.South African Muslims have a long and peaceful history in the country and while Islamophobia and extremism has been on the rise globally, and cannot help but affect us here, religious tolerance is still one of South Africa's strongest traits – and a story we don't tell often enough. It is a shared history of struggle, a Constitution that protects religious diversity and a remarkable tolerance for difference from many South Africans.

South Africans Married to Foreigners Face Hurdles (Huffpost SA)

This piece on the hurdles South Africans face when married to foreigners was originally published in Huffington Post South Africa here: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/2017/02/13/for-south-africans-married-to-foreigners-there-are-more-than-th_a_21713128/"I never thought I would marry a foreigner, let alone live in a different country," Sarona Reddy a 34-year-old law graduate from Durban, tells me over Skype from Germany. In the background her husband Andy picks up their baby daughter, bundles her up and tells her to say, "Tschüss, Mama," ("Bye, mom,") as they head out into the snow. Reddy blows them a kiss goodbye and turns back to the screen. "I would love for my daughter to spend more time with my parents but they only get to see her once or twice a year."As travel and telecoms become cheaper, the world is growing smaller. Thanks to instant messaging and video calling, chance meetings and holiday romances are more likely to transform into serious relationships. This was the case with Andy and Sarona, who met randomly at an art exhibition at Durban's Point Waterfront while Andy was a medical intern.Statistics from several countries show a rise in international marriage. According to a report in the Economist, in 2010 over 10 percent of marriages in South Korea included a foreigner. In France, international marriages reached 16 percent in 2009. Local numbers are scarce, but one estimate put the share of South African men married to foreign women in 2000 at 3,3 percent.Just because marrying a foreigner has become more common, doesn't necessarily mean it's become more simple, though.Reddy says the cultural adjustments were big. "Indian families don't really recognise personal space whereas Germans take that very seriously. We have different views of tradition and raising children. In Germany, I have to keep explaining things like my South African Indian history."The biggest adjustment though has been being away from her family. "I would love for my daughter to spend more time with my parents but they only get to see her once or twice a year."And there are no easy answers. "Wherever we are, one of us is going to be away from family."Marriages that cross borders and cultures face many difficulties, not least of which is an administration system that can make being together almost impossible.In the year before their marriage, Reddy's husband, a medical doctor, was unable to work in the country. The process to get the approvals he needed to work here dragged on for so long that he eventually abandoned it. They had planned to leave for Germany after the wedding anyway but Reddy saw it as a missed opportunity for the country. "He trained as a doctor in Germany – he could have been using his skills to help in South Africa," she says.They consider themselves lucky compared to other cross-border couples, though. After all, it's not uncommon here for a foreign partner to wait years for a work or spousal permit.First, there's the stigma of being a foreigner. Rebecca Kaissi* and her Moroccan husband Ilyas know this all too well. One of the toughest challenges they faced was not being supported by family and community. Many people believed Ilyas was just "in it for the papers".Language was another obstacle. "Things are often said and interpreted totally differently," says Kaissi.And then there was the admin. Kaissi says she's had to support her husband financially for nearly 10 years while he was on a spousal permit because of delays at Home Affairs."It was a real emotional struggle," she says of their application for her husband's permanent residency. "I mean we had almost been married for a decade and we had a child together and when the new visa laws came out in 2014, I thought it was all going to fall apart."The new laws clamped down on spousal or life-partner visas, which the government believed were being abused. Suddenly, couples applying for a temporary residency had to prove they'd been in a relationship for at least two years and those applying for a permanent residency had to prove they've been in a relationship for five years."I'm really hoping this comes to an end soon so that he can move on with his life; get proper work, study, open a bank account, get a driver's license, all the things we take for granted," says Kaissi.Nikki Schöntauf, a South African marketing lecturer told HuffPost SA that her family is being forced to consider leaving South Africa because her German husband's permanent residency was denied after two years of waiting.Schöntauf says she spent thousands of rands on the process and on hiring an immigration specialist, only for her husband's residency to be denied because of an error at Home Affairs. She says that eight months later, her appeal has not been acknowledged."It was our dream to live in South Africa, but we are at the mercy of a system that is messing with people's lives with no accountability."John Arries, a senior case manager at New World Immigration, an immigration agency based in Cape Town, told HuffPost SA that delays on the adjudication of primary residency applications for foreign spouses have "extended beyond the 8- to 12-month window". "No specific communication has been given as to the reason for the delay," says Arries.Some processes can also be contradictory he says. For example, a foreign spouse might be asked to show "reciprocal financial support" –- basically they have to show that they're also contributing financially in the marriage -- but this might not be possible if the visa they have doesn't allow them to work here in the first place. An application could be rejected on this basis and an appeal process could take up to 16 months, he says.These lengthy delays can drive couples to desperation.Adeela Vahed* a businessperson in Johannesburg, said that when the system barred her husband from the country, she became so desperate that she considered trying to have him smuggled back in.Vahed says when her husband refused to pay a bribe at OR Tambo International Airport, his legally obtained life-partner visa was stamped "cancelled"."Legally he was on the system but the actual visa was no longer effective," she says. For months, she had to travel back and forth between Egypt and South Africa to visit her husband, leaving her children behind with family, until the matter was resolved and he was allowed back into the country.Melinda Smith*, a South African married to a German, had a similar experience. She says that when her husband applied for a spousal visa, a Home Affairs official expressed open contempt for foreigners and told them his child would marry a foreigner "over his dead body". Months later, when he passed through OR Tambo, officials told him there were problems with his visa and that there were ways to "make the process go faster".Nadia Paruk* a marketing salesperson, says her husband, who is Jordanian, was also detained at OR Tambo, threatened with deportation and asked to pay a bribe. The experience was traumatic. "He was a legal citizen but he was treated like a prisoner. How can this happen?" she asks.Schöntauf and Vahed say that because of the administrative hurdles, they're seriously considering leaving South Africa to live in their spouse's home country.With nearly 7,000 fraudulent marriages recorded in South Africa from 2007 to 2010, Reddy the law graduate says she understands why there are laws to keep South Africans safe from dubious marriage proposals. It's the implementation that needs to be reviewed, she says.Despite the personal sacrifices, the costs and the often overwhelming legal issues, these couples say they would keep fighting for the relationship."You have to know what you're getting yourself into," says Reddy. "I made this choice and I knew there were going to be struggles." These challenges, she says, have made her relationship with her husband stronger.Kaissi agrees. "If I had to do it again I would. The process showed me that, if both people are committed, no matter what is thrown your way, any marriage can be a success."As we say our goodbyes over Skype and Reddy prepares for her cold commute to teach legal English to Germans , she adds as an afterthought: "It is hard. Sometimes when I say goodbye to our families at the airport I feel sad. Then my husband tells me, remember when you had to stay behind and I had to leave? Now we don't have to do that anymore. We're together."The department of home affairs did not respond to requests for comment. This story will be updated should a response be received.*Names have been changed

For South African Indians Love Is Not Colour Blind (HuffPost SA)

My piece on skin lightening on South Africa's Indian community for the Huffington Post. Originally published here http://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/2017/01/25/for-south-african-indians-love-isnt-colour-blind_a_21655793/When I was little, an aunt pulled me aside to give me some marriage advice. She told me to find a man so fair that when he stood next to a white wall, you wouldn't be able to see him. The incident left me shaken and confused — why would she want me to marry someone so terrifying? Later, I learned that in my South African Indian community, fair skin was perceived as a sign of high social status."You're lucky you're fair," friends at my Indian primary school friends would tell me. "Don't stay out in the sun or you'll spoil your colour," adults would add.Durban has one of the largest concentrations of Indian people outside of India* so the pervasiveness of this mentality is not surprising. India has one of the largest skin whitening industries in the world — worth more than $450 million (about R6,1 billion). With a history of fair Gods and dark demons, an upper class made up of light-skinned Brahmins and a colonial history of white British power, India has transformed into a massive, colour-obsessed monster that consumes more than 233 tonnes of skin-whitening products a year.The obsession has taken on new extremes with whitening creams produced for the underarms and nether regions. Indian skin-lightening adverts often use relationships as a hook to sell products by portraying unhappy couples whose love is reignited only when the woman achieves a lighter hue.Local statistics are scarce but in a 2014 study conducted at the University of Kwazulu-Natal (UKZN) — which sampled 579 black women, 292 African women and 287 Indian women from Durban — 27 percent of the Indian women surveyed were using skin lighteners containing banned substances including hydroquinone, phenol and mercury.South Africa was one of the first countries to outlaw the controversial compound, hydroquinone, and is the only country in the world to forbid advertisements for skin lighteners.The study's principal investigator, Professor Ncoza Dlova, who is head of the dermatology department at UKZN, told HuffPost SA that she was not surprised by the findings considering the number of people presenting at healthcare facilities with skin complications.She said abusers of skin-lightening creams present with myriad skin complications including skin infections, skin cancer, acne and ochronosis, a condition that gives people patchy dark pigmentation, often with purple or blue-black layers of skin."It shows that people are not comfortable in their own skin and that they believe that being fair makes them more attractive and opens up more opportunities. In certain Indian communities for instance, it is believed that the prospects for marriage are enhanced by fair skin. This perception was confirmed by our research survey," she says.Amina Peer**, a 31-year-old software developer in Durban agrees. As a young woman, she thought being fair would make her pretty. "There were lots of proposals for my sisters who are light skinned but not for me. I assumed it was my skin colour," she said. She began using skin-lightening products shortly after high school and used them for seven years until, she says, she realised she was getting darker instead of lighter.Peer hopes that some day young people won't feel the same pressures to lighten their skins that she felt. "We need to inform and educate girls and make them feel comfortable in their own skin," she says.After using skin lighteners herself, socialite and former Miss India South Africa Sorisha Naidoo created her own range of products, which were even endorsed by Winnie Mandela.In 2011, Naidoo told IOL that she had become insecure about her skin colour after an FHM bikini shoot and turned to lighteners to boost her confidence.Her product range however, later came under fire after users complained of skin damage.A popular Indian matchmaker in Durban, who declined to be named, told HuffPost SA that colour definitely plays a role when it comes to choosing a partner in the local Indian community. "The first question I almost always receive from interested men, or their mothers, is 'Gori hai?' ('Is she white?') or 'Kali hai?' ('Is she black?')."Men ask the question more often than women, she says. "The women rarely ask about a man's skin colour." The pressure to be fair-skinned, it seems, falls mainly on women.Adverts on Indian marriage websites and in local newspapers like The Post are filled with men seeking wives with "fair to wheatish" complexions. But it wasn't always this way. Preference for light-skinned women is a relatively recent phenomenon among Indians globally.
In 2009, the University of Seattle's Mara Beth Adelman and Sonora Jha examined matrimonial adverts in Indian newspapers. They found that while a bride in the 1960s was idealised in terms of certain talents, like singing, the 1970s saw the emergence of sought-after attributes like education, work and physical attributes. It was only in the 1980s, they found, that physical beauty, with a particular focus on skin colour, emerged as the dominant ideal. The 1990s later ushered in the era of the "super-bride"' and, they write, "fair-skinned complexion became a form of social capital for females in attracting males".This focus on fair skin also extends to children. Dr. Levashni Naidoo, a senior dermatologist at a popular Durban skin clinic, says she she often sees parents who have brought along their children to inquire about skin lightening. "Some of them already have severe skin damage from previous skin-lightening products," she told HuffPost SA.Naidoo said the easy availability of skin lighteners at Indian supermarkets and community fairs is concerning as many of these products contain dangerous substances not listed on their containers. "These products are seen as cosmetic, so people don't realise there are medical side effects. These unregulated creams often contain undisclosed ingredients like steroids and, with time, can cause permanent discolouration of the skin, acne outbreaks and abnormal hair growth," she says.She also frequently sees young brides who want treatment ahead of their weddings.At local Indian weddings, it's traditional for brides to apply turmeric paste to their skin to tone and lighten it, and they're often encouraged to avoid the sun before the big day. They also turn to make up, using foundation shades lighter than their actual skin tone.Once, at a photo-shoot, a Durban makeup artist asked me if I wanted to look "lighter". When I expressed confusion she said it was common for Indians to ask to look lighter on their wedding day. She often did Indian bridal make-up, she said, and was often surprised at how light some Indian brides asked to look on their wedding day. "Often it looks unnatural," she said.

Children are brought up to believe that to be attractive you have to be fair-skinned. The media further taps into the insecurities of the individual and becomes part of a larger system that promotes self-hatred, low self-esteem and self-loathing.Dr. Akashni Maharaj

Durban psychologist, Dr. Akashni Maharaj says the idea that fairness indicates superiority has been ingrained in people's minds over generations. "Children are brought up to believe that to be attractive you have to be fair-skinned. The media further taps into the insecurities of the individual and becomes part of a larger system that promotes self-hatred, low self-esteem and self-loathing. All these are psychological maladies that contribute to psychological dysfunction," she said.The dermatologist, Naidoo, agrees, saying the obsession with skin lightening is communicated to children from a young age and then entrenched by family, peers and the media.
There's a growing drive though, to create awareness of the side-effects of skin lightening. In August 2016 Durban held its first march to highlight the dangers of skin lighteners. The march, organised by the KwaZulu-Natal department of health and UKZN invited the public to stand up for dark skin.Dlova, who initiated the march, said it aimed to raise awareness of the dangers of skin lightening in both African and Indian communities, as 90 percent of the women surveyed in her study were unaware of the dangers and complications associated with skin lightening.Dlova says there's an urgent need for awareness raising programmes on the dangers of skin lightening, which should include skincare education at primary schools."We need to educate and instil confidence in children from a young age and nip this perception in the bud, by reinforcing that the best skin colour is the one that we are born with."

The empty shape of grief

Sometimes when I remember abbajaan now, I don't feel sad anymore. The air has left the balloon. The empty shape of grief. How time wears away the edges. Rubs raw the points we pierce our chest with.
     Every day I pray for God to take away the grief of other things. Of things that sit outside the kerb and beg for attention. Clanging their tins against rails.

Already I am mourning the things I am yet to lose.

This tender, fierce heart

This tender, fierce heart,

the end of all my beginnings,

the beginnings of all my ends,

how my love

rages, rages, rages

like wind upon the glass

how it rattles in its cage

and at dawn,

such a tender bruised thing

a murmur on the floor,

I would do anything!

Anything!

It's so much more quiet now

The rage has died down,

such exquisite tenderness

I have shown

some mornings, in the mirror

all I am is light,

a running light

Just yesterday I stopped

in traffic,

to wipe my eyes,

when did I become so soft?

Such a tender thing?


This fierce and tender heart

all love, love, love

that refuses to be loved


Rather stand on stones at the shore

than watch the current pull you away

A Moment (from the KTV)

Once at the KTV I was singing Katy Perry's Roar and my voice  could not reach loud enough but I was screaming above the sound, screaming with all my heart and JC was laughing.

  I was giving it my all because I had nothing left to lose. 

At the Edge of the world

Once on a beach at the edge of the world near the small sea I had to cross to reach the island where the shells broke open my feet, I wrote your name and I didn't look back to watch the shore wash it away.

I never looked back.