Uhuru Street

Dar es Salaam is a city on the east coast of Africa, a coast that over the centuries was visited by Arab, Indian, and European: traveller and merchant, slave trader, missionary and coloniser. Some 50 miles away on the Indian Ocean lies the former metropolis and slave market of the area, the isle of cloves, Zanzibar, barely visible on a clear day by some accounts. In 1498 Vasco da Gama stopped for rest and provisions on the coast, and took two guides along. His object lay across the ocean, beyond the horizon to the north and east, India: several weeks’ journey by dhow when the Trade Winds allowed, later two weeks by steamer, now a few hours by plane. Dhows from Cutch and Kathiawad brought Indian traders here. In 1885 when Karl Peters began signing up the land around Dar for the German emperor, there were already small Indian settlements dotted along the coast.

Once upon a time Uhuru Street was called Kichwele Street. The change marked a great event in the country.
Uhuru
means ‘independence’. This street of independence ran through the city. It began in the hinterland of exclusively African settlements, came downtown lined by Indian shops, and ended at the ocean. Here, where ocean liners came from distant lands, where a German ship was sunk to prevent a British warship from coming up close, where dhows once brought traders from Cutch and Kathiawad and Oman when the Trade Winds allowed, where the new quays were named
after Princess Margaret after the old ones were destroyed by fire, Uhuru Street met the world.

Over the years Uhuru Street changed its looks; so did Dar, so did the country. The stories in this volume are about the Indians of Uhuru Street during these years of change.

The Dar es Salaam of these stories is a place in the world of fiction. But it
is
the real Dar es Salaam, just as it is also the other towns there, on the coast and beyond, through which Uhuru Street runs and seeks access to the world.

Sunday afternoon languor descends over the street as usual. The day is hot but clear and a soft breeze blows bits of paper about. The street gradually empties of people and business comes to a halt. The last strains of Akashwani on the airwaves from India mingle with the smell of hot ghee, fried onions, and saffron that wafts down from people’s homes. Hussein, my father-in-law, sits on the bench and stares out through the doorway, as intently as though watching some action on the pavement. In his hands are the two halves of a ball, a soft bouncy red ball, the kind kids call flesh-ball, and he squeezes the two parts together.

A short while ago the ball fell from a roof three floors up, bounced a few times on the street and pavement and landed inside the store. Hussein was upon it even before I realised it was there. Minutes later some boys came in, with a side of wood, their bat.

‘Uncle, did you see a ball fall here somewhere?’ they asked.

‘Pigs!’ yelled Hussein, jumping up from his seat in rage. ‘Do you want to hurt people?
How
many times do you have to be told …?’

‘We won’t do it again, uncle,’ pleaded a boy.

‘Pigs from hell! I will show you … devils!’ He brought out a large knife and sliced the ball in two. A bit of rubber fell to the ground. ‘Here,’ said the old man, ‘take this –’ They looked at what remained of their ball in his hands and ruefully left the shop.

The boys call him ‘German,’ because, he says, he can speak
German. I’ve heard him say two things, ‘Mein Herr,’ and ‘Mein Gott,’ which I presume are German. He was still a youth when the Germans were here, and when he’s in the mood he can spin quite a yarn about those times. We all have a name here. They think I don’t know they call me ‘Black.’ Because I’m dark, almost an African. They have to give me a name, and what better name than something so obvious. Black. My wife is ‘Baby’, the whole town calls her Baby, and you have to see the rolls of blubber hanging on her to see why. She was brought up on nothing but the purest butter, proclaims her mother proudly. ‘Our Baby was most dear to us,’ says Good Kulsum, whenever I need reminding of the good fortune that has come my way. How I landed in this situation is another story. I married to attain respectability, but right now I wonder if I’ve not had enough of it.

Now Baby and her mother sleep after the biriyani and I wait up, the shop half closed as usual. The quiet of the Sunday afternoon has always been mine – it is nice and pleasant in the shade and the town sleeps. I sit on the armchair and read the
Sunday Standard
column by column, and when I’ve finished and solved the puzzle set for children by Uncle Jim, and noted last week’s winner, I have tea and wait for the woman to bring samosas. All this peace while they sleep and snore. But not today. Today German sits with me.

And the woman who brings samosas at four every Sunday will not come, today she catches the bus to go to her brother’s town.

Her name is Zarina and she first came a few months ago and called out softly from outside, ‘Brother, do you want samosas for tea?’

I looked up from the paper and gave a good look at her and said, ‘Yes, I’ll take a few.’ She came in, a small dark woman, her shallow basket covered with a newspaper. I fetched a plate from inside and she squatted and counted out five samosas and spooned out the chutney. I looked at those firm and large hips, the tight bodice, and I felt my blood thicken, a tightening in my limbs. Oh, how
long since I had a good woman before my days of respectability began. What blubber I have to manipulate just to father a child. Her face was smooth and round, her hair long and wavy, tied at the back. What misfortune befell you, woman, that you are reduced to ferrying samosas, I thought. I looked into those dark shiny eyes and I touched her arm as I gave her the shilling.

She pulled it back and her eyes flared. ‘Aren’t you ashamed, brother? Just because I am a widow and I come unaccompanied doesn’t mean that I am a loose woman! My boy is asleep and I didn’t have the heart to wake him up.’

‘Forgive me, sister,’ I said. ‘I was not myself.’

She prepared to go. ‘Baby is asleep?’

‘Yes. They’re all resting.’

The following Sunday she brought her son, and every Sunday thereafter. He would sit on the doorstep, watching the empty street, and she would sit inside on the bench. Her husband had been a coal seller and had died suddenly of a fever. She had only recently rented a room in the old house across the street and lived with Roshan. This Roshan has a certain reputation for her free ways. In any case, Zarina made a living selling snacks which she prepared and her son Amin helped to bear from place to place. Amin was ten years old or so and a quiet sickly fellow, surprisingly fair, for the coal seller wasn’t very fair either. I would look at him sitting on the step and wonder, How long before he takes to the streets, before he starts stealing and pimping …

It turned out so that whenever we were out of bread in the morning, I crossed the street for fresh vitumbua. The door was always kept ajar there for customers, and I would walk inside into the dark and narrow corridor, at the end of which she sat beside the fire. There were three rooms on the left which I passed, closed with curtains. Zarina’s face glowed like the coals and there would be a film of sweat on her face. The air was rich with a sweet smell
of frying and the ceiling was covered with soot. She sat on a low stool, her hair undone and wavy, the hem of her frock tucked in front of her. The dough would be ready by her side, yellow and yeasty, which she would pour with a ladle into the small woks in front of her. Then she would prod the contents and turn them with a long skewer until they were raised like little tummies, brown and crisp, sizzling in the oil, almost filling the woks.