The feeling of possibility

 September 1^st 2017, sometime after 11am.

The world spins around me ever so slightly. I seem to have hiccupped out of sync with the rotation of the earth. Beside me are a bottle of cold water and a cup of hot coffee. I attempt to pour balance back into my body. My mother turned 60 the day before. We sang old 70’s songs, danced till our limbs ached, laughed till our cheeks ached, loved till our hearts ached. For a few hours we escaped into a simple joy. But I pay the price for it now as I gingerly try to navigate out of the grogginess that coats my brain.

I sit in front of the TV watching red robed bodies preparing to speak. Cupping my heart tenderly, I whisper to it in hushed tones, run my fingers over old cracks and remind it that it can heal from this too. This, being the anticipated disappointment from our Supreme Court echoing foreign sentiments that the flawed elections were good enough for us Africans. I steel myself to cushion hope’s fall.

Then it happens. Not all at once. It is gradual. Words. More words. Solemn statements

“The greatness of any nation lies in its fidelity to the constitution, adherence to the rule of law and above all respect to God.”

And even as we wait for the ‘but’, a ripple begins undulating over the skin of the country. Murmurs of astonishment. My brain tries to inform me we are watching history being made, but my mind asks, what is happening? Is it happening? Could it really be happening?

Then it happens.

‘Invalid. Null. Void.’

Three guilty words that flip a switch in Kenya’s consciousness.

I think about how far we have come.

And in that moment, I can’t breathe. I walk around and around the table. Around and around the table. My brain struggles to catch up with my heart. I don’t know what to do with this feeling. This unapologetic euphoria. This possibility. This……eventually I collapse on the floor in a weeping heap. It feels like an appropriate reaction for a watershed moment, to shed water, like the bursting of a dam when enough pressure is applied by enough people who refuse to tire of trying.

I remember seeing this feeling once in my friend’s eyes. Watching him recall when hope was birthed into his being. The year was 2002. Uhuru Park. The dismissal of a dictator. The thing that for many decades didn’t feel possible, became possible. One million people physically connected by a shared feeling of possibility. Not a single pocket was picked. He chuckled when he told me this. It was a different Kenya. Of course, we all know how that went, but I think about how important moments like this are, when we discover what is possible for us.

The ruling showed us that it is possible for systems to work the way they are supposed to. It is possible to demand it and to expect it. It is possible for us to refuse to accept that we deserve any less. This, the extra-ordinary, can one day become the ordinary. I get intoxicated about the possibility of all our systems working. Not so that we can show the world or set an example for Africa, but for us, everyday, here. To make Kenya more livable in every way for each and every one of us.

September 11^th 2017 sometime after 11am.

A yellow plumed bird taps away at the window. She is insistent as if trying to send a morse code message. She twists her body into different positions, angling her beak this way and that way to transmit different sounds through the window. I watch her and wonder what she is trying to tell me.

I think about September 1^st. I remember the urgency I felt then of trying to capture that feeling of possibility, knowing that if I didn’t give it shape then, it may dissolve when despair returned. I was right. It has already begun to fade. So I look back at what I wrote on Facebook in that moment to remind myself.

“Artists….you are needed now. Capture this. Show what it means to the people of a nation. Record it. Document it. Archive it.

Because they may try to take it away from us, change the narrative, smudge away its significance, make us feel like it isn’t important so that we forget that it is possible for us to demand and expect better.

But we need to remember what possible feels like. 

So writers, write…write this feeling down for when we get tired and need to remember what hope tastes like…write this into the tapestry of our history. That we were this too.

Musicians sing it…sing this feeling for us. Let it be an anthem of this moment.

Beatboxers, create new sounds for this new feeling.

Poets give us language for this thing our spirits are experiencing.

Painters, let your brush show us what this new possible looks like.

Dancers, show us…show us with your bodies what this feeeeels like.

DJs create a playlist for our times…this time…a time that many of us thought we’d never see in our lifetimes.

Parents, talk to your children about this. Help them understand why this is so significant. Where we have come from. What it means for them. Let them too taste the joy.

Capture this feeling of possibility because we will need it again.”

And we do. We need it again.

All around us Kenyans are showing us our systems are broken. That it is breaking us as a people. The nurses try to tell us. The girls in burning schools show us. The man who publicly proclaims he will rape a woman shows it to us. As does the politician who threatens to take scissors to another man’s genitals.

I think about how every day we are numbed, bribed, intimidated, coerced, silenced, dismissed into believing that we should just accept broken systems.

Yet just 11 days ago, we saw for ourselves that we do not need to accept and move on. That we deserve better. That we must continue trying. That it matters. That we matter. That it is possible.

It is essential to summon up that feeling of possibility again so that we can use it to fight for all our systems to work. In this moment, I go deep into myself and pull it out, that feeling of possibility. I snapshot it. Because if the last 10 days are any indication of the future, we are going to need to tap into that feeling to survive. So harness it. Nurture it. Keep it alive, this feeling of possibility.

photo credit: Lion_Towers <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/125308583@N05/14553531346″>Don’t Stop…</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a&gt; <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/”>(license)</a&gt;

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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You are not us

This piece was written on August 20th, 12 days after the Kenyan Elections. It was commissioned to appear in the ‘Reflections: Talking to the soul of a divided nation’ series where it was first published on The Elephant. I have republished it here because Chanyado has become a (sometimes) personal commentary of the times we live in here in Kenya. So for archival purposes, I would like for it to have a home here too)

Dear Kenya,

My beloved. Home to my beating heart and 48 million other heartbeats. Beneath your soil, our ancestors sleep, and underneath your sky, our children dream. In you, we walk around, carrying our loves and our fears, taking one step at a time, one foot in front of the other, 48 million pairs of footsteps, everyday, echoing from corner to corner, hoping, always hoping, that you will take care of this tenderness that sits nestled in our throats.

But, Kenya, do you know what things are being done in your name?

Because I don’t believe you would allow the sun to continue to emerge from your ocean and the moon to glide behind your mountains, everyday, if you knew the things that I know.

So I feel I must tell you.

Last week, a group of mothers peered in through the holes of a small room in Kibera, watching their children seated together on the floor. The mothers held their breath as they searched for any light in their little babies’ eyes. Your babies. But the eyes of these little children, your children, had become black holes from sucking in the kind of trauma no little child should ever have to experience.

So we tried to make our children, children again. We played games. But even childhood games take on a sinister tone at a time like this.

Let’s play Hide and Seek.

We begin. The children quietly arrange themselves, instinctively knowing where best to escape being found. A soft mattress covers a soft skull. Silent. To make noise is to be revealed. To be discovered. To be silenced. By now, they are used to hiding, had spent the last few days hiding, listening to the hailstorm of bullets on mabati roofs, and hiding. Clutching each other and hiding. But for some, hiding was not enough.

Kenya, did you smell the fear in the air as your little children watched their fathers being pulled from their homes?

Let’s play Chinese Whispers.

We sit in a row. One of the adults begins with a word. They cup their palms around the tender ears of a little boy and whisper Amani. The little boy turns around. He cups his little palm around the little ears of a little girl and whispers. And it goes on. Little palms to little ears. Until they reach the last person. The little boy speaks out loud the word he has heard. Imani. The word has changed form, from ear to ear, whisper to whisper. Amani becomes Imani. From peace to faith.

Kenya, did you hear the sound of baton pounding bone, as those entrusted to protect became enforcers of peace?

Let’s play Police and Robbers.

We stand in a circle. One hand atop the other. The other hand under another. Interlinked and intertwined. The children sing. They giggle. Finally. One hand receives a smack, then swooshes through the air to deliver another hand a smack. Until they reach the part in the song where everyone falls down screaming when the robber is shot.

Kenya, did you feel the warmth of fresh blood seeping out of flesh and into your soil?

These are the things that are being done in your name.

Yet many say it didn’t happen. They didn’t hear the screams, didn’t see the bodies, didn’t feel the pain. So what do you tell the 3 month old who can identify the sound of a gunshot? What about the 1 month old whose eyes still stream from the teargas? What about the woman whose brain has shut down to save herself from her memories?

Do you tell them they are making the nightmare up?

That their realities are not real?

That they don’t exist?

Move on, they say. But how do we move at all when the very heart of us is broken? Yet they insist, we must leave the past behind, and we must move forward. For you. For Kenya. It’s always about you, Kenya. But what about us? What about us, Kenyans? Don’t we matter at all?

Sometimes I wish you would please just leave us alone.

You are not us.

You are scenic untouched landscapes for foreign tourists to drink up with their thirsty dollars. You are a beacon of stability and peace to show off to the world what new Africa looks like. You are high speed internet and shiny highways.

You are Kenya. And we are just Kenyans getting in the way of your progress.

But it’s not really about you is it? It never was. Yet you let it happen. You allow our pain to be silenced, our reality to be ignored, our fear to be stoked. And I don’t know how to keep living in a Kenya where we pretend we are ok, when really we are so shattered at the core, the splinters keep drawing blood. I don’t know how to keep living in a Kenya where we are as frightened of speaking the truth as we are of each other. I don’t know how to keep living in a Kenya that doesn’t care about all Kenyans.

But what I do know, is that if we don’t confront our ghosts this time, pluck them out of our history, lay them down, examine them, look them in the eye, expose their ugliness and speak them out loud, one by one, we may not have a Kenya next time.

Yes. You may disintegrate, Kenya of mine.

Because in five years time, those little children will be young adults. The trauma that lives under their skin will have marinated into hard bitterness. What they may not understand is that the pain they feel is not fresh. It has lived in all of our bodies for decades, festering and deepening in strength as it is passed down silently and often unknowingly, generation to generation. And one day these grown up children will ask us, when you smelled the smoke, what did you do?

And we will say, we sang our throats hoarse with patriotic songs of peace and clasped our hands tight in prayer breakfasts. Look at how our bleeding blisters weep from building this nation? Aren’t you proud of how we ignored our pain and went back to work?

But when the children try to respond, they will be gasping, all our children will be gasping for air, trying to breathe through the suffocation of despair.

By then Kenya, when they come for you, we won’t know anymore how to speak out, because we were silenced when you allowed this to be done in your name. And you, Kenya, when you say to us, but I am yours and you are of me. They will simply say. You are not us.

And it will be too late.

photo credit: Garret Voight <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/23458617@N00/8265023325″>Lutsen, MN</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a&gt; <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/”>(license)</a&gt;

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kenyans, 10 ways to **** better… #5 will BLOW your mind!

On the night of August 11^th, the silence of the Kenyan night was pierced.

In some hoods, the screams were of joy.

In some hoods, the screams were of anguish.

In some hoods the ratatat was from gunfire.

In some hoods, the ratatat was from fireworks.

Less than a week later, all through the day and the night, the silence is now pierced once more by calls to Move On. Except this time we aren’t even being asked to Accept. Just to Move On. It no longer matters whether we accept it or not, the wails of loved ones who were killed, must be smothered by the ka-ching ching of coins pouring into this Kenya rising of ours.

But to expect the nation to just Move On, is like chopping off an athlete’s knees and expecting them to get back into the race. Make no mistake. Whether you acknowledge it or not, we are broken. And if you only notice it every 5 years when Kenya holds its breath, you may well be cushioned by a bubble of privilege. But the fact that we are so terrified of each other speaks volumes. And no matter how much paint we slather over the cracks in our nation, aesthetics alone will not fix it.

Yet, we also can’t exist in a state of paralysis. We must exhale, pick ourselves up and figure out what next. What does Moving On look like if we were to refuse for it to be a return to the status quo and business as usual?

Of one thing I am certain.

It has to begin with caring.

It must start with giving a shit.

If you don’t care about the fact that we are broken, this is not the post for you. And if in order to care, you need a list of all the ways in which we are broken, and how this affects your daily life, this is also not that post. And if you don’t care because the people that were killed do not look like people you call your own, this is most certainly, definitely, definitively not the post for you.

BUT if like me, you are trying to figure out what you can do, at this time, when we are reeling as a nation, when it is easy to feel helpless and paralysed, I present to you, 1O ways to care better, or at least a few things that I think you can do. And #5 will really blow your mind.

1.) Feel all the things you need to feel

Outrage. Grief. Anxiety. Fear. Anger. Love. Hope. All of them. If you aren’t ‘springing’ out of this in the way others around you are, that’s not abnormal. We have experienced deep trauma. And truthfully sometimes we are a people that are impatient with and intolerant of emotions that make others uncomfortable. But remember your feelings are valid.

2.) Bear witness

Our history makes us and we make our history. It is important to call it by its name and acknowledge what happened. It will be the only springboard from which we can truly be able to move on. Record, document and amplify the voices of those who are doing this work. Do this with honesty and integrity. Refuse to allow this part of our story to be erased or smudged out by a single narrative, like so much of what has happened before.

3.) Help in the ways you can

You know that elections stockpile you have sitting at home? Now is the time to use it. The wonderful people at www.rescuebnb.com are collecting contributions of all sorts to help the families whose lives have been affected and torn apart these last several days. You can support with money, in kind, your time, your skills. Get in touch with them and ask how.

4.) Practice care

Especially with your words, and I don’t mean be careful. I mean practice the act of care. Ask yourself what does that look like for you? It begins with not denying the lived experiences of others. Just because it isn’t your reality doesn’t mean that it isn’t someone else’s reality. Think about what you can do, every day, in your own life, that makes caring a doing word, something that is grounded in action.

5.) Blow your mind

The action of blowing evokes a sense of movement, of expansion, of effort expended to change the nature of something. In the same way, it is important to educate yourself about the historical context of what has led us to this point. It is essential to understand the nuances and read different perspectives. None of this will have been taught to you at school, so you must go and find this information. Google is your friend. I have been exploring the www.theelephant.info and finding it very useful. Books are also invaluable. Feel free to drop links that are useful in the comments section below.

6.) Stand in the gap

The best example of this I can find is what Juliani was doing online those nights when people, terrified of the gunshots around them, didn’t know where to turn. He heard their calls and connected them to assistance. Or ResqueBnB who are working tirelessly to support the communities affected. You can connect people with organizations that need their skills. You can connect people that need help with places they can find it. You can be a bridge, connecting the dots to show people different perspectives and ways of thinking. You can prevent things from falling into the deep dark crevice, by simply standing with your arms outstretched and your feet rooted in your truth.

7.) Share beauty

This, my friends is my tool for survival. When the world feels ugly, sharing beauty becomes an act of revolt. It may feel indulgent or frivolous, but especially at a time like now, it is essential to shine light when the darkness threatens to overwhelm. So share the things that may lift the spirits and stir the souls of the ones who may need it, even if it is just for one moment in their day. My little piece of beauty that I share with you today is this, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQuWH0xbypo

8.) Imagine

Prompted by Keguro Macharia, I discovered how powerful it is to imagine. To do the work of imagination. And it is work. Keguro offered me a new framework to think about this. So ask yourself what does the Kenya you wish to live in look like? Now go one step further. Paint a picture of it. Try and articulate the very specific and practical things that make up this Kenya. Get clarity around what this Kenya looks like, how it behaves, what it feels like to live there. Now, you have something to work towards, as opposed to running away from what you don’t want. Isn’t that so much more inspiring?

9.) Tie your lesso

We have a lot of work to do. Now is not the time for apathy or complacency. Ask yourself, what are the specific things that you can do help move towards this Kenya of your imagining. For the politics to change, we cannot afford to be divorced from it. From the county level spiralling outwards, get involved. Participate. Engage with those whose vision and values you believe in. Hold those elected into office accountable. From now. Don’t wait for another 5 years.

10.) Don’t let go of hope

Never forget that what you do makes a difference. Even what you don’t do makes a difference. We are all, every single one of us, interconnected and intertwined. It may not feel like it at times, but the actions you take have an impact, sometimes in immeasurable ways. So my friends, do not go gentle into that good night. And do not lose hope, for it is the only shard of light that can help guide us out of the darkness.

If you have any other ideas of what we can do, now, at this point in time, in the Kenya we are in, please do drop them in the comments below. Any comments that go against the spirit of this post will be deleted. Chanyado is not a democracy.

Thank you to all the wonderful people on twitter, who are too many to list, but through sharing their thinking online, have helped me think through this.

photo credit: BONA LUMO <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/143828298@N08/36578576486″>There is Always Light</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a&gt; <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/”>(license)</a&gt;

Love is a Mixtape

Side A

One sweet day – Mariah Carey

 When somebody you once loved dies, a part of you also dies. You won’t realize it because that love was two decades ago, brewed in the 90s to the soundtrack of old school R&B. But it was your first love. Back when your heart delicately unfurled itself for the first time to romantic love. Before your heart had ever been broken. Before you learned how to put your guard up. Before you had been taught how to hold back. And so you gave everything. And received everything. Because that’s what makes first love so special. And it was beautiful and pure and full of possibility. Then life comes at you and changes you. Hardens you. Darkens those rose coloured glasses. Steals the innocence from your eyes. Leaves your heart with a mosaic of callouses from years of cracking and being patched together again.

Un-break my heart – Toni Braxton

 Two decades later, hands clutched together and trembling, you stand looking down at your first love and he looks so handsome. Except his prostrate body is covered in a funeral shroud and red roses line the length of his body. You think you can still see the stubble on his face. Perhaps if you reached over and rubbed your palm across it, the once familiar roughness would muffle the screams in your chest. Because in that moment your heart breaks again. But it is unlike anything you have ever experienced. This time the cracks let in a wind of loss. It is final. It sweeps in and rattles around the dark cavity, letting out a mournful whistle, and displacing once forgotten memories.

Shy guy – Diana King

And in that moment you are 15 years old again. You sit next to a boom box, listening to Hits not Homework, two fingers poised over the play and record buttons, ready to pounce the moment the right song comes on. Having already curated the songs you want on this mixtape, you patiently wait for them to appear through the radio waves, alert so as not to allow the presenter’s voice to intrude into the seamless love story you are weaving. Side A will be filled with ‘Your Songs’. For Side B, you wait till late at night, when there is no risk of banging doors and interfering conversations. Then, you whisper into the boom box, recording 30 minutes of your voice. Because this is a time before whatsapp voice notes, or mobile phones. When you waited 15 minutes to get a dialing tone on the landline and had to rely on the person being home, their line not being busy, and fighting off other family members wanting to use the phone. Voice was precious. So you’d hoard every spoken word, listening to it in the dark. Rewinding and pausing and inhaling and exhaling and smiling.

More memories start getting dislodged.

The grainy newspaper cutting of him in his Team Kenya Hockey uniform when they beat Uganda.

The scarf that housed the distinctive musk teenage boys wore in the 90s, before you sniffed the scent away.

The heart shaped pillow with the red satin weave that he gave you before he knew you hated shit like that.

Killing me softly – Fugees

 It surprises you how much you are affected by this. After all you haven’t been in each other’s lives. You don’t talk. You aren’t even Facebook friends. Then you realize you are mourning who you both were at that time in your lives. Before every passing year, chipped away the what could be’s and turned them into what will be’s.

So you mourn the 15 year old girl whose shoulders were yet unburdened by the weight of societal expectations. She lived and loved in the moment. She coloured outside the lines, threw away the eraser and joined the dots as she pleased, certain that the picture she created would be a blueprint for life.

You mourn the 17 year old boy with the poetic spirit and athletic prowess. Deep, sensitive and with a heart so full of love to give. He was a thinker, at once both reflective and mischievous. He shunned the way he was expected to be, adamantly insisting on being true to who he was, whether people liked it or not.

Until the end of time – Tupac 

For the first time you were both rebels, untested yet by society’s determination to chisel you into acceptability. But the years would chip away at both of you. For this is the nature of this world. But at the end, before it could try to claim his story, prop up the sculpture of what it made him into, and say this is who he was, you find yourself urgently typing away. Because you know better. You know who he used to be. Before the shaved blade got to work on both of you. When you were trees whose branches instinctively stretched out towards the sunshine.

So you look at his 3 year old son and you want so desperately to tell him that he may not understand it yet, but his father was a great man. One the world didn’t understand what to do with, and will be poorer because of it. One whose glittering wings are hopefully stretched out, gliding into the afterlife, where you pray his soul finds joy, freedom, peace and home. So you write him as you knew him, to record the impact he had on those who loved him. And you write to honour his legacy. To stop and pay homage to love. Because sometimes we can forget to do so.

Everything is everything – Lauryn Hill

The next few days after the funeral, the radio is filled with ‘your songs’. At first it seems peculiar. How could you all of a sudden be hearing songs you haven’t heard in several years. One after another. Every time you turn on the radio. Then at 8:05pm on Chiromo Road, when the co-incidence feels too eery, you burst out into sobbing laughter. He always was playful.  Perhaps this is him sending you a mixtape, from wherever he is, so that you can remember….remember the girl you were at 15 years old, when your heart was full of possibility, full of hope, full of defiance. To remind you not to lose her, because she’s still inside you, simply waiting for you to make space for her to come and play.

For Shino.

Photo Credit: Suzyhazelwood

Letter from Kenya’s 44th Tribe

Dear Kenyan sisters and brothers,

At last we are family. It’s been over a century of feeling like the unwanted bastard son that was dumped on your doorstep. Drenched and shivering from the storm, you allowed us to stay, but in many ways made it clear, we were not to overstep our mark with ambitious designs of being part of the household.  So after resisting to acknowledge kinship with us for so long, the fact that you have now accepted us as one of your own fills me with such warmth. Because how can our Kenyanness ever come into question when now the President has recognised the Asian community in Kenya as the 44^th tribe. It still isn’t certain whether this was a declaration or simply an acceptance to consider it, but either way it feels momentous.

Because though we were brought here en masse from 1896, we’ve actually been here for much longer, stretching back to at least the 15^th Century, where Vasco Da Gama allegedly used a Gujarati sailor from Malindi to help him navigate this stretch of the Indian Ocean. Yet our part in the Kenyan narrative is often smudged out, with our contribution to the country narrowed down to the railway, where four of us died for every mile built. But since then we have sweated, wept and bled into this land. We started the first independent newspaper and laid the foundation of the trade union movement. Like you, we have fought and worked and stolen and loved and betrayed and dreamed and built and destroyed and imagined right here on this land. But it’s been a tumultuous affair where our allegiance has been frequently tested. In 1963, we were given two years to get Kenyan citizenship and renounce any British passports, or leave. And 20,000 of us stayed. Then in 1965 under the Africanisation programme, all Asians were removed from civil service and blocked from owning businesses in the rural areas. And we stayed. Then in 1967, two Acts were passed that required us to get work permits and limiting the areas in which we were allowed to trade. And we stayed. So now, this new designation as a tribe feels like a recognition that we passed the test of allegiance; an acknowledgement of our belonging in the history and identity of Kenya.

For those of you who follow my blog, you will know that I have written about this idea of belonging a lot. Just last year, a foreign white woman living in Kenya asked my why I was so obsessed with writing about the Indian Kenyan identity. She said it almost with disdain and I suppose she couldn’t possibly understand. But I remember thinking how nice it must be to feel so certain that you belong, so sure of your place, so entitled to this land that is not originally yours. I have never felt that. I have asserted it, but it has been a long complex journey to get to this point. And now, maybe my cousin won’t have to carry her birth certificate, mother’s birth certificate, father’s birth certificate, parent’s marriage certificate, grandmother’s birth certificate, grandfather’s birth certificate and grandparent’s marriage certificate along with her to apply for an ID to prove she is Kenyan. And when they ask her what tribe to fill in on that form, she won’t look at them quizzically like I did. instead she will proudly declare, Asian.

But then I started asking myself what does Asian mean? After all, Asia is not a country. Whilst it is commonly appreciated that in Kenya this term is used to talk about Kenyans of Indian ancestry, who after the 1947 partition, could no longer all be referred to as Indians, does the Asian ‘tribe’ include the Chinese and Japanese and all the other 48 countries in Asia? And how can we be lumped into one tribe, when in India alone, there are at least 645 ‘tribes’. Closer to home, within what you see as the Asian community, we have our very own specific groupings with our own messy ‘tribal’ politics and ridiculous stereotypes, from the fierce warriors to the stingy shopkeepers, conservative traditionalists to the pretentious intellectuals. We brought our ‘tribal’ divisions with us from the Indian subcontinent, along with the zambrau trees that pepper the route of the railway and the chapatis that are now considered Kenyan cuisine. And I wonder in amusement, will we too now dance for the President during National celebrations? And if so, will we lift our shoulders up and raise our hands high to the beat of Bhangra, or will we bend low and clap our hands in Raasra?

I have many questions. What does this mean in practical terms, to be considered a tribe? Is there a provision in the Constitution that grants us certain rights that we didn’t have access to before? Do I sniff politics in the air? I share the #44thTribe status on facebook and receive a mixture of sentiments. A friend remarks that the last thing we need is more tribes, that we should be moving towards a more unified Kenyan identity and away from the deep tribal divisions. I get it. As a minority we’ve watched from the fringes how messy and downright dangerous tribal politics is, and many of us don’t want anything to do with it. But the truth is that language frames mindsets. And tribe is the language of belonging in Kenya. So now, maybe we are no longer ‘other’? I think about what it feels like to be named in the language of tribe. Seductive and familiar, it feels intimate, like we are being whispered to in your mother tongue.

But is tribe Kenya’s mother tongue?

I dig down a little deeper and discover that the language of tribe was a creation of the colonial regime. Before that, ethnicity was fluid and evolving, with people moving into different communities, working and living amongst, and loving those that were different from them. Becoming one of them. Until the British enforced the language of tribe to divide and rule. To order Kenya. To assign favor and privilege to one group at the expense of another, manipulating us so they could control us. They divided us physically, creating territories that you weren’t allowed to leave, the Asians in one, the Maasai in the other and so on, designating what our worlds would look like, and making it illegal to go into each others spaces, ensuring that we didn’t weep and love together. But they also divided us existentially, limiting what we could imagine for ourselves and contribute to the country. Kikuyu for labour, Maasai as herdsmen, Asians as shopkeepers, making our world smaller So within this historical context, if that’s what it means to be a tribe, I’m not sure that it’s something to be celebrated. Because I don’t want a Kenya in which our world is made smaller, where we are expected to live in certain places and only fulfil certain roles. I want a Kenya where our world is big and audacious and creates space for everyone to thrive.

So whilst I am uncertain about whether I will take up the identity of 44^th tribe, I am extremely gratified by the gesture, for it means I am finally seen as Kenyan and that’s all I really ever wanted in the first place.

Yours in sisterhood,

Aleya

(This is not intended as an official letter meant to be representative of the entire Asian Community of Kenya, but is a reflection from one member of said tribe. Accordingly, any responses to these letter should be directed at me, the author, and not at ‘you muhindis’.)

Photo Credit: c-u-b  

A Ghazal for Kenya

Tonight l want to sing.

Melodies of pain.

Harmonies of heartache.

Songs of rage.

For I don’t have the words to speak, so all I can do is sing.

Come, my friend.

Is your mouth dry from sighing?

Are you as worn as I am?

Does your soul ache?

Are you afraid?

Let’s sit here outside, under this patch of sky that is momentarily ours before the clouds shuffle away to the homes of our neighbours.

Let me pour you a drink, something strong enough to bring tears to your eyes and a scratch to your voice. But first we must give our ancestors a sip. Don’t be stingy, a little more, after all they too need their tears diluted.

Are you comfortable?

Now let me sing.

I shall sing a Ghazal for Kenya, the music of melancholy that echoes along my lineage, from the shores of Veraval, accompanying my ancestors on the dhows across the Indian Ocean, leading them here, the first piece of soil in Kenya we have ever owned, where on Sunday nights, when dreams reign, my father scratches his beard and soaks his spirit in the sound of Jagjit, a ghazal maestro.

You must forgive me, for I am not accomplished in the specific poetic technique of the ghazal, but allow me to share its sentiment, as no other musical form quite captures the sweet pain of unrequited love. For it is only deep love that can birth a sorrow enduring enough to steal language. It is only the ghazal that can express the pain of separation and intensify it with the beauty of love for the thing we are separated from.

Let me re-fill your glass, for it is an insult to the host for ice to be exposed in its nakedness.

Take your shoes off, let the grass whisper the secrets of the land to your toes.

Before we start, I must tell you, like a ululation that must be answered, this ghazal is a response to the Blues sung by a sister, so that the singer may see she is not alone.

I wish her to know her voice is the solo that urges on the choir.

The first verse begins with a question.

When did we become so angry?

An earnest inquiry whispered between two friends sitting on a balcony overlooking the road, where in 1922 a woman whose torment possibly mirrors your own my friend, stood up to her oppressors, and they were so threatened by this woman expressing her rage by stripping in protest, they massacred two hundred people.

And there whilst the souls of the murdered sway to a dirge played on the natiti by a musician sitting under a tree, the friend answers.

I think it was 2007.  

The first verse ends with another question.

Was that when the anger was birthed, or unearthed?

The second verse tells of remembrance.

A young man stands on stage. He joins a litany of silences breaking, of injustices voiced, of naming those that were murdered in 2007, in Garissa, in Mpketoni, in..in..in..It is radical, this act of not forgetting in a nation insistent on moving on, always opposed to reflecting back.

And as dust dances around his lit up figure, his voice rises then croaks, it whispers and breaks, it roars then sobs. Until his rage is exposed, naked and raw on stage and the audience shudders at our normally masked anger being performed in public.

The second verse leaves us shivering and outside on the road.

Let’s take a break to eat some goat trotter curry. It will line our stomachs, as the night will be long, and the song shall go on. Don’t be shy now, there is no shame in sucking the marrow, for the sound of slurping is the vocabulary of pleasure. As you lick the stickiness off your fingers, let me continue my ghazal.

The third verse sings of darkness.

On a city night, following a tail of red lights, a young woman determinedly shuts out the world. She closes her car windows and listens to the radio. The nonsense commentary coming from the speakers drowns out the sound of the pain of a nation. Inside she too can pretend. She sings. She laughs. She taps her fingers on the steering wheel.

Three men appear. Two go to the back of the car. One to the front. He bends down and shoves his hand under the car, shoving and pushing. Her hand presses down on the horn, hooting. Frantically screaming, something, nothing, anything. As the back door swings open and a man jumps in, grabbing her purse, she locks eyes with the man in front. In his eyes she glimpses hell.

The third verse ends with anguish for the too many whom hell has become intimate with.

The fourth verse circles around to the exact same location that the very first verse began, in the spot where enough once became enough.

A departure from the traditional ghazal in which the unrequited lover is resigned to their fate, but continues loving nevertheless, this is a verse swelling with hope and defiance. However to hear this tune of hope you have to listen deeply, beyond the words recited on stage, and instead focus on the heartbeat beneath the story being told. You have to submit to the rhythm washing over and cleansing your jaded spirit in the way only art can.

Two men sit across from each other on a stage that has become a dungeon. The one who makes a living out of killing holds a knife. As the words are spoken aloud about the unspeakable things we do to each other, people giggle. The laughing spreads. An infection of malaise. A reaction that reveals the resignation of a people who can’t cry anymore, so they laugh as a form of rebellion, of taking back power and control. And in the audience, someone wonders when our tears were robbed from us, unaware of the other theft that is soon to be revealed.

Later, a performer yells out his desire for freedom in Swahili, and the audience audibly bristles. Our word for freedom has been stolen. Someone wonders what happens to a nation’s spirit when we can’t call out in our language the thing we yearn for, because it has been hijacked to become something more loaded. Yet there in front of our eyes, in the energy vibrating within those walls, a new language of freedom starts to form in the hearts of those who have just glimpsed the injustice and courage, the protest and defiance captured in the stories of those who came before us, those who imagined a freedom whose shape is unrecognizable from the one we claim to have.

So the fourth verse circles around, reminding us that we are still here, in a place that looks too much like where we were before, but calling out to us to imagine a new place.

And so the fourth verse ends the ghazal not with resignation at our fate, but with determination to imagine a new future.

And that my friend, is my humble ghazal for Kenya offered with deep love.

You look tired. Come, let us open another bottle to rinse away the melancholy.

For the moon is still rising and the sun is still snoring.

Now it’s your turn to sing to me.

Songs of faith.

Melodies of possibility.

Harmonies of hope.

For I don’t have the words to speak it, so you will have to sing it for me.

Written in gratitude to:

Wandia Njoya for your determination to speak truths and reveal new ways of thinking.

Sitawa Namwalie for your courage in continuing to break silence and pushing boundaries.

The entire #TwoEarlyForBirds team for giving a gigantic shit and daring to care enough.

And all of you who resist the stealing of your humanity. 

Photo Credit: Thank you Alice Wangui @alicekombani for responding to my call. 

And full stop.

 

I lay in bed last night asking you to visit me in my dreams. To sit with me. Stroke my hair. Peel back your eyelid with your finger like you used to and give me that sweet sweet smile that would sweep away any melancholy clinging to my heart.

Did you hear me?

It’s been five months since you’ve been gone and I waited. I waited for the 40 days to pass so that your soul could finish the journey to heaven. You see I didn’t want to hold you back. And since then, I’ve asked and asked and asked again, and still you don’t come.

So I am writing to you Mama. I’m etching out the lines of my bittersweet grief, because I am afraid if I don’t, you will disappear into the haze of colourless bite sized memories that emerge at family gatherings, becoming sound bytes that are told in the same words every time.

First of all I would like to register a complaint. I heard that you visited my cousin in his dreams. I am not going to pretend and say that I wasn’t irrationally hurt by that. But to expand any further will only make me sound petty, so I will draw wisdom from your own words and know that you must have had your reasons.

You know, I don’t miss you anymore.

Instead the missing has turned into a yawning pulsating longing that won’t go away. I crave you. Doesn’t that sound odd? Normally, when you crave something, you comfort yourself that there’s a chance that you’ll get it. But the eviscerating nature of death means that never ever ever ever ever again will I trace my finger over the crinkly, papery crackle of the skin on your hand, marvelling at how it seems completely unconnected to your flesh. Never ever again. And it makes me want to throw a frenzied tantrum. I get angry at unreasonable things. My fury lashes out its forked tongue at anything that crosses its path. The guy on the road who cuts me off. My ex who has started dating again. My shoulder blade, beneath which a stubborn painful knot has deposited itself and refuses to be dislodged.

I see you everywhere.

On your birthday we took some of your new dresses to a home for the elderly. There was a woman there who had the same gorgeous cloud of silver hair. When I leaned in to kiss her soft cheek, she smelled like you. And it tore me apart inside. I wanted to climb into bed with her, the way I used to on Sundays with you, when you would peel back your eyelid to see who had come in. And cup my face with your trembling hand. With you, I felt unconditional non-judgemental love, the kind I’ve never felt with anyone else, comforted by the knowledge that you had no opinion on how I led my life. You were just happy to have me there.

And we look for meaning everywhere.

In loud whispers we marvel at the enchanting nature with which you almost seemed to plan your death. We grasp onto these signs, refusing to let go. Believing that you were in control.

You died on Mir’aj. The holiest night in the Muslim calendar. When the Prophet’s own soul ascended to Heaven. You were buried on Mother’s Day and when we came back home from the funeral, the headline on the newspaper read ‘Mama’s final journey’. It makes me smile thinking how amused you would have been reading that, and how we would have discussed Mama Lucy’s passing on for days. And your birthday fell on the new moon, when your other favourite granddaughter was leading prayers at the mosque and had to say a special prayer for the departed souls. You would have said how clever she was. I loved that about you. How you always thought everything we did was so clever. How you were filled with awe when I would drive you to mosque, exclaiming that indeed I was very clever to be able to do so.

Here’s the thing Mama. None of us truly understood how exceptionally clever you were. It didn’t strike us as extraordinary that an Indian woman born some 90 years ago could recite Shakespeare as skilfully and passionately as you used to. That it was quite incredible that your KCPE essay was number one in the whole country. That you read every line on the page before you put your signature down on anything. We didn’t understand the odds against which you battled, in a world where women were expected to wear their pachedi and stay put in the kitchen. Daddy says all that the family accomplished in life was because of you. That you were the ambitious, fierce, driving force of their success. And as he tells me the stories, I’m only just beginning to appreciate how remarkable you were Mama.

After your soul left your body, we sat together in the living room, peeling back the memories, year by year, going back in time to the forgotten, which at one time seemed so mundane but all of a sudden felt profound. We took turns, urgently reciting them, all of them we possibly could summon, terrified that they may remain forever forgotten.

The recent. How you would hide your food on the plate underneath the spoon in the hope that you could trick us that you had finished eating. The way your brain would wander back in time, propelling you into a vivid memory that was more real than reality, so that in the middle of praying you would shout out ‘And full stop. Pencils down. That’s all now,’ your brain convinced that you were back teaching a classroom full of rowdy students. We would giggle, delighted that we had the chance to peek into a life of yours from before our time.

The not so recent. How you would brusquely tell your sister to mind her own business when she scolded you for not bothering to dye your hair. Your complete obsession with the curtains being closed the moment the sun even considered setting, yelling out at anybody unfortunate enough to be passing by.

The before. How you would get ready for mosque, making sure that you had the right amount of money in your purse, and heckling Daddy for taking so long, with his dozens of hair creams and potions. How you used to have a crush on Fayaz Qureshi and was completely captivated by his moustache.

The before before. How you would take us for walks as children, lacing up your bulky white sneakers and warning us not to drink your blood. (This saying makes sense in Gujurati, but gets lost in translation). The frank way in which you sat me down and asked me if I had heard about S.E.X and if I had started wearing a brassiere yet. You never called it a bra. Always a brassiere.

Could you hear us then reminiscing? Could you see us in the days leading up to the funeral? Me endlessly lighting sticks of incense, clinging to the ritual of death to protect me from the horror of loss. It hardly seems like the right word, loss. You lose socks, pens, maybe even a job. But how can you use such a casual word to describe the violent ripping away of a chunk of your heart when someone you love dies.

I used to think death was like a switch you just flicked on, and life would instantly stop. But I don’t think its like that anymore. I watched you struggle. I watched the battle as your soul navigated its way out of your body. How for days you sank into the space between two worlds. And when the time came, we knew. And you didn’t want us there. You never told us. But we knew. Inside. Which was strange as you always hated being alone. But this time, you had to do it alone. And so we left you that night. At midnight. For the first time in days. We left you to slip away. And when the phone call came at 2 am. We knew.

And when we gathered around your body in the hospital, holding on to each other desperately for comfort, I remember being filled with such intense gratitude when the nurse asked if she could pray for your soul. First she silently recited a Catholic prayer, then a prayer in Kikuyu. It was a very long prayer Mama. I think you would have been so enormously touched that this woman who only knew you for a few days, would take the time to talk to her God. For you.

And then you would have been very annoyed that they put down ‘housewife’ as your profession on your death certificate. You were a teacher. Proudly so. How arrogantly presumptuous to decide that a woman of your age couldn’t possibly have a career.

I lied. I miss you desperately.

I got your gold filigree ring. Let me tell you, when all the ladies were gathered and asked to pick something of yours, we went in order of descending age. And I prayed so hard that I would get that ring. It was probably the oldest, least valuable, most faded item. But I had spent my whole life slipping my fingers into yours, feeling the ring rubbing up against my skin and watching your face light up as you exclaimed how warm my hands were. And it was the one thing that reminded me most of you. I wear it now on my thumb and when I feel the yearning becomes too much, I look down at it and remember your sweet sweet smile.

Won’t you visit me tonight?

And full stop. Pencils down. That’s all now.

Photo Credit: Paul Saad

 

 

The floodgates that Modi opened

Until only a few days ago, never in my lifetime had an Indian Premier visited Kenya. So with Modi set to arrive, a whisker away from Netanyahu’s visit and barely a year after Obama’s, the hype leading up to his visit was unsurprising. A website was set up for people to register for a special community reception to be held in his honour. An emotive jingle was produced, fusing the Indian National Anthem with a patriotic Eric Wainaina tune, which the community radio station played repeatedly. In classic Indian dhamaka fashion, our heartstrings were tugged, and I will admit to being a little curious, if also somewhat bemused by it all. Indians know how to put on a good show, and I wondered what sort of razzmatazz spectacle would be on offer.

But I didn’t go for several reasons. On principle I find Modi’s politics incredibly problematic and this was a State visit. I have absolutely no allegiance to India the state, since my only relationship to India is a cultural one. My heritage is Indian. I hold it dear and am proud of it. But that is as far as it goes. I am a Kenyan voter.

And so when apparently 25,000 people showed up to welcome Modi, majority of whom had brown skin, it predictably raised eyebrows. Just why did the Indian Kenyan community, who traditionally shy away from big public events, show up in such huge numbers? With some help, I compiled an evolving list of theories:

• Everybody loves a party and the hype leading up to the event emitted the promise of somewhat of a spectacle.
• People are curious about celebrities, particularly larger than life personalities who share something in common with them, even if it is just skin colour.
• A sense of cultural nostalgia and the attraction to something from a home that exists only in language passed down and fiercely preserved rituals.
• The visit represented a seemingly profound statement of acceptance by our Head of State towards a minority that has traditionally felt threatened.
• The bringing together of all Indian communities which is something that is highly unusual.
• A sense that Indian Kenyans could participate in a National occasion in a way that was comfortable and relevant, but more importantly in a way they felt they had a right to.
• The idea that Indian Kenyans had the chance to represent Kenya in this State visit, as if one were welcoming their mother and showing off their new home.

Ironically, I believe Indian Kenyans showed up to Kasarani Stadium in all their Salwar Kameezes and jingling bangles, feeling very proudly Kenyan.

However, it didn’t seem like this to some people who were watching. One tweet in particular inflamed tempers; someone who many admire, respect and appreciate tweeted a rather unfortunate accusation.

‘We know where your heart is’.

Whilst it was irresponsible to generalize in that tweet, there was something interesting underneath. A sense that Indian Kenyans were showing up for India in a way that they don’t for Kenya. Here’s the thing. When you are a visible minority, your presence is as noticeable as your absence. And yes, whilst it can be argued that Indian Kenyans don’t seem to visibly participate in political or civil affairs these days, there is a historical context to this. And we show up in other spaces and in other ways; in business, philanthropy and development to name a few. So it appeared as if our very Kenyanness was being questioned. But there is one thing we often don’t pay acknowledge. There isn’t only one way of being Kenyan. Or of engaging with issues in the country. Or even one type of Muhindi. So Indian Kenyans showed up to defend their Kenyanness on social media.

And I felt so tired.

Until I realized. The narrative is changing. In my father’s generation, Indian Kenyans were told to stop interfering with national affairs. To stop participating. Now, my generation is being challenged. We are being told, you are Kenyan, so why aren’t you participating. We demand it from you. This if nothing else is such a profound affirmation of belonging, because if it was felt that we were not Kenyan, nobody would care and this would have just been another expat event. Underneath that tweet was an invitation and an expectation. Show up for us. Not just to defend your nationality, but for Willie and land grabbing, for injustice and change. Show up and help us do the work that it takes to make Kenya better for all of us.

But the floodgates had already opened allowing a deluge of unresolved resentment and defiant defensiveness to pour out. All of a sudden this was about more, much much more than people showing up for an event. Old wounds got ripped open. Amongst the reasoned responses and kind messages of support, there were accusations hurled. Racism. Discrimination. Classism. Insularity. Big words for a lot of hurt.

And as I read the tweets, it felt like a punch to my stomach. Living in my little bubble where it just doesn’t seem so bad, I had forgotten. But I was reminded that bubbling beneath our bubbles is all this resentment and unresolved anger. And it scared me, seeing people that I know say some things that were very painful. Some were true. Some were untrue. But, I wondered, when people see me, am I painted over with that same brush stroke? How many that I call my friends feel this intense hatred towards brown skin? And how must it feel on the flip side feeling that your black skin incites hatred too?

It made me ashamed. It made me feel anguished that a community I belong to causes this pain. I wanted to apologise, but it was not my place to do so. A part of me wanted to distance myself from this. These things that are being said. That’s not me. And I saw others doing the same. It was so easy to say #NotAllMuhindis. But I had to acknowledge that there were truths, even amongst the misconceptions.

You cannot deny a lived experience. When someone says they feel cold, you cannot say to them, no you do not.

And as I watched the Twitter streets get sprayed with mud, I became intensely uncomfortable. So I listened. Because when I am uncomfortable, it is usually a sign that I need to learn something. Or unlearn something.

 Now that the floodgates have opened again, let’s not build up the wall.

Get uncomfortable.

Show up.

Listen.

‘We know where your heart is’. An invitation has been extended.

As always, this exploration is my personal opinion and as such I represent only myself, and certainly not an entire community.

 This is one of a series of posts about being Kenyan Indian. You can read more here:

Not yet Kenyan

Kenyan and Indian

Becoming an African

Indians are racists

Photo credit

For women who refuse

Part 3

This is for women who refuse to make space.

It probably confused you that I didn’t lower my gaze when you stared at me. Perhaps that’s because you don’t know who I am. For a long time I didn’t know either until my Kenyan sisters showed me where to look. Plucked from India, my tongue recognised only three generations, and I was filled with envy at those whose homes lay on land that sheltered all their ancestors. Then one day, on a stage bathed in red light, Sitawa the third Namwalie demanded that we call out her name. And as I danced in the shadows, the nyatiti licking at my soul, my blood reminded me that it could never forget.

Let me tell you who I am.

I am the daughter of a woman whose fearlessness in her pursuit of justice comes from a place grounded in such deep compassion, that it cannot be cracked by the bullying of mere men.

I am the granddaughter of a woman whose adventurous spirit recognises no limitations, whose appetite for life cannot be dampened by your silly notions of what a woman should do.

I am the granddaughter of a woman whose resilience is matched only by her intimate knowledge of what it is like to have to defend yourself in a world that tells women they don’t exist.

In my veins runs the blood of a long line of women who are not intimidated by men who confuse money with respect. You see your power may lie in paper notes and cement blocks, but mine lies in kindness and truth.

So when we sit together on the woven mikeka in front of death with the scent of incense lacing through the air and you squirm because your legs have no space, I will sit with my spine straight, eyes shut, singing loudly and I will not move.

Because I refuse to make space to ease your discomfort.

Part 2

This is for women who refuse to keep their mouths shut.

It must be perplexing to you that I have an opinion that I insist on voicing instead of just adopting the one you so kindly shove down my throat.

And that I speak out in public the things that will open up our tightly wound up world to undesired scrutiny.

Really, what is all this fuss. Why can’t I just sit pretty.

I get it. You aren’t used to the idea of a woman who refuses to just be beautiful. But I wasn’t raised to be beautiful. I was raised by a man who has never told me I am beautiful, because the way I look doesn’t mean anything to him. Instead he demanded that I equip myself with the knowledge that I would need to help make a difference in the world. That I armed myself with the language to articulate a voice that is too often silenced by a dismissive wave for more samosas.

He understood that women see things in different ways, and it is foolish to dismiss their perspective, because if you ignore what they say about the things you cannot see, you will forever be groping in the dark.

So when you are afforded the privilege of leadership and don’t speak out against injustice and refuse to do what is right, you should remember that gone are the days when our presence exists only to make tea and take minutes.

And since you refuse to do the work that needs to be done to make our world better, we have tied our lessos, tucked in our saris, zipped up our boots and pulled back our hair. Whilst you are busy protecting your little corner, we are out changing the horizon.

Because the revolution will have red lipstick and highlights.

Part Always

THIS is for women.

 

Photo credit

of downward dogs and life lessons

The Lion

I am five years old. My mum has gone mad. Sitting on her heels, fingers splayed out on each knee, her eyes bulge out, pupils rolling back into her head. Her mouth is wide open, so wide I am worried her skin may start to rip at the corners. Her tongue sticks out as if she is trying to catch raindrops. She breathes in. When she breathes out, a long aggressive ‘haaaaaaa’ comes out of her mouth. I am terrified. This is my first introduction to yoga.

Kapalbathi

My grandfather spends several minutes everyday sitting cross-legged on the floor doing a series of breathing exercises. He forcefully thrusts his stomach out and extends it as if he is mimicking being pregnant. And then all of a sudden it snaps all the way back in disappearing into his spine. His tummy undulates like a rippling fleshy wave, in and out at a speed that makes my eyes water. Hundreds of times. A loud puff sound is forced out of his nostrils on every exhale. When I get home, after everyone else has gone to sleep, I sit on my pink bed and try it myself. I get to 7 times and I feel exhausted barely making even a tenth of the speed of my granddad. This is my second encounter with yoga.

Anulom Vilom

In a hall in Westlands, hundreds of women in awe watch the man on stage. They sit on yoga mats in leggings and big baggy t-shirts or pastel coloured Punjabi suits. The man on stage is the famous yogi Ramdev, swathed in his signature flowing orange robes, which yawn at his chest to reveal an arrow of hair that emerges from a tuft in the middle of his chest and descends all the way down to his belly button. He is demonstrating the Anulom Vilom or alternate nose breathing technique which allegedly helps treat insomnia, headaches, depression, eye, hair, ear problems, sinus, high blood pressure, heart diseases etc. His face and head are covered in a cloud of shiny black hair and I am intensely frustrated at the fact that I can’t tell how old the man is. If I could just see through the hair. He finishes his demonstration and starts giving us lifestyle advice. I tune back in just in time to hear ‘Coca Cola atle Toilet Cleaner!’ The hall vibrates in giggles. This is my third meeting with yoga.

Death

We sit across from a Muslim scholar. A few days ago, after a long battle with cancer, my Grandfather slipped through the curtain into the afterlife. The women of my family huddle under the warm quilt of comfort we have woven around ourselves. We emerge to look for answers. We don’t know yet what our questions are. Recognizing eyelids that flutter too fast trying to shoo away tears, the scholar talks about life, about death. He shares theories with us. Your days are not numbered. It is your breaths that are finite. Stress speeds up your breath and so you use them quicker and die faster. Yoga slows down your breath, which is why it is said to elongate your life. This is my fourth tango with Yoga.

Yoga finds me many years later. A shattered body and dislocated heart. Or was it the other way? In that time yoga has become mainstream and jarringly sexy, all Lulu Lemon and designer mats. And overwhelmingly skinny and white. For the first time I feel excluded from something that is at the core of my cultural heritage. Ironically, it takes someone from a very different culture to gently welcome me back. Bubbling with far more energy than is ever warranted at 6:00am, a beautiful woman with the warmest heart and generous soul teaches me how to do my first downward dog. This is a relaxing pose she tells me. My arms quiver. I decide right there and then, there is nothing relaxing about downward dogs.

But in the safety of my garden, with the chirping encouragement of the dawn birds, Irene from Africa Yoga Project starts nurturing my body back into vitality. And without realizing it, my heart starts slowly putting its pieces back together. What emerges is a beautiful new incarnation of its former self, a glittering mosaic where the former cracks sparkle in the light casting playful shadows into the darkness.

Along the four years I have been practicing I learn things. Surprising things. Non-yoga related life things.

Crow Pose

The way you are on the mat is the way you are in life. I am a little skeptical of this new-agey soundbite from Irene. I try to get into crow pose but I keep falling on my face. Frustration rises and splashes my face with an expression that is decidedly not placid. You expect to be perfect immediately. This hits me with the force of primal lust entering your adolescent belly. This is true. It is true of how I live my life. It is what keeps me from writing regularly.

I start paying attention to life.

Tree Pose

I stand on one leg. Focus. On one place. I look at the door of my neighbour’s house and wonder why they would paint it such a hideous shade of blue. My mind wanders. It is a storm. My work threatens to overtake my world. I can’t find balance in my life. Balancing poses require a strong foundation Irene reminds me. My values. They are my foundation. If I ignore them, I will never find focus, and balance will remain a perpetual game of hide and seek. Epiphanies come, and for once they remain stored in the memory of my body.

Headstand vs Straddle bend

My sister looks very comfortable upside down and the last time I was this jealous of her, we were 6 years old and she had won an art competition in school. I had just been told by my art teacher that I should never draw again. I can’t seem to order my brain to lift my legs over my body. I issue the instructions but somewhere along their journey, they get lost and wander over to tell me I have an itch on my lower back. I feel forlorn. Later we are in a straddle bend pose, my forehead is resting lightly on my heels. I look over at my sister. She strains to push her head down to her. She looks at me. Forlorn is familiar. We are all good at different things I tell her in our secret sister code language that is transmitted via hugs.

First Wheel Pose

My body goes into a panic before every wheel pose. My mind whispers a litany of ‘I cant’s’. As if eavesdropping on my inner voice, Irene, ever the sage says, Remove I can’t from your dictionary. My eyes roll backwards and with it, they pull up the rest of my body. I am in wheel. I am in wheel. I am in wheel. In that euphoria, I coin my own saying. Be open to surprise, and don’t be attached to the outcome. Be in the process. I begin to feel rather pleased with myself.

Gazillionth Wheel Pose

I want to introduce myself as Aleya, the wheel accomplisher. The day before yesterday I do ten wheels and I feel invincible. I think, like anything in life, if you do the work, the results will definitely come. Then yesterday I placed my hands near my head, grounded my feet and breathed in. I couldn’t lift myself into even one wheel. And just like that my complacency deflated. Never get cocky, nothing is ever guaranteed in life.

Frog Pose

I am not entirely certain why it is so important to open one’s hips. But Irene seems convinced. So faithfully, I do as she says. Frog pose throws me so violently out of my comfort zone, I am afraid I will never find my way back again. I hold the pose for five minutes. I am truly terrified I will get stuck. That I will remain in this pose for the rest of my life, at the mercy of the goodwill of people to bring me cocktails and read me poetry. They will write about me in the Daily Mail. Breathe into the pain and exhale out the discomfort. This sounds sufficiently abstract, but I figure I am here and I am not going anywhere. So I try it. The discomfort doesn’t ease, but against the odds, on the next inhale I haven’t cracked in two.

Crescent twist with a bind

I adore twists. Irene calls me Mama Twist. I imagine the toxicity being wrung out of my blood and fresh, bright red vitality swooshing back in. If only life was like this. I peep over at my sister. She is in a bind. She looks a pretzel. Or a Japanese Ham Sandwich. The scarlet envy rushes into my blood filling my body with the same toxicity that I am trying to flush out. And just like that I realize I can see the back corner of the balcony. This has never happened before. The envy gets squeezed out and I am filled with wonder. If you don’t stop looking over your shoulder at other people you will miss the magic that’s happening in your own body. In your own life. And then another thought pops into my head. This pose. This isn’t the end game. It is actually irrelevant if I can worm my arm under my knee and clasp my hands together. This where I am right now, is exactly where my body needs to be, where I need to be.

Savasana

My second favourite pose. I lie in corpse pose. My body tingles. I can hear the individual tunes in the harmony of the bird opera, the background score of leaves rustling. I can feel every bead of sweat being sucked up into the air. My skim thrums. I think how wondrous that we have within ourselves the gift to restore our bodies and our minds.

I don’t give a rats arse whether bridge pose will tighten my arse. It truly doesn’t matter. I think of how much I love my body for flying me through life. I think of how much my body loves me.

We aren’t used to being in love, my body and I. It is generally frowned upon for ladies with love handles. This affair is an act of subversion. But I can’t help it. We are deliciously, deeply, divinely in love!

(This post is dedicated to my Yoga guide. Shukraan Irene)

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