Mango Tree
A long time ago, a mango tree was planted where I now live, nobody knows how long ago, before I was born, even before my grandparents’ time, and certainly before a community of Indians established a residence in this small patch of land in Upanga, a mainly residential area north of Dar es Salaam, our old city and a historical port, a vestibule for journeys into the heartland of Africa.
I am fourteen years old, and I live with my parents and two older brothers, in the first row of identical, two-story, whitish flats, with a simple and small, treeless courtyard in the front of the house, and a small untidy garden in the back with a banana plant and some shrubbery. Ours is flat number seven. Each row has thirteen flats, each connected by a shared wall, and all together, there are seven rows. At the end of the seventh row is our grand mosque, with water fountains and well-kept gardens. The mango tree is midway between the first and the second row of flats.
During the day from our living room window, when the curtains are drawn, I can see the tree’s majestic presence, extending its green canopy and low, sturdy, matted branches across the breadth of the dirt road that divides the rows of flats. When the sea breeze from the
Caretaker
In the way that elegant minarets, manicured lawns, and lush gardens with sparkling water fountains are inherently part of a Grand Mosque, Mr. Karmali was a human one. He was our jamat bhai, or caretaker, of the Upanga Mosque at the end of several rows of two-story cream-white identical flats along the bending
It is a modern two-story white building, with arched glass windows along the length of each floor, and a prominent tower at one end of the building, housing four circular clocks on each of its face and a dome on top of it. It looks grand and ostentatiously conspicuous, more like a palace than a house of worship. Perhaps all houses of worship are deliberately built on a grander scale to inspire awe among its worshipers — and envy among those not of the denomination. Even in
On festive occasions, our Upanga Mosque would be festooned with glittering colored lights along the edges of the building, outlining its frame at night. Many postcards captured this luminous moment — and were on sale at many of the local bookstores in town. It was a landmark of its kind and a source of architectural pride for our community, not only the Upanga Mosque, but others as well, in downtown, in Kariako, in other coastal and interior towns. These landscape monuments spoke of the community’s powerful presence — and for many a source of envy.
Every morning and evening before prayers, Mr. Karmali would be seated in his rickety wooden chair by the main entrance doors of the mosque facing
He rarely spoke, and when he did, it was only to delegate mosque-related chores in Kiswahili to youngsters; his kutchi or gujarati was heavily accented, with African pronunciations, and was often ridiculed by the affluent kids who attended Friday prayers in their best designer clothes........
The Middlemen
The daily morning racket — the clatter of the dishes and the clicks of silverware in the kitchen and the prickly crowing of the African raven — was Walji’s early morning wake up call ever since he and his ailing mother moved from the hinterland into a welfare housing complex five years ago. The housing complex was a welfare property supported by his community’s charity organization for the less fortunate members of their lot, a common practice in his close-knit community, with donations from its prosperous and enterprising adherents.
Other families of similar fate — destitute widowers, paupers, and the downtrodden — shared the complex of smallish and adequate two-bedroom flats, with a grimy courtyard with unkempt banana and raspberry trees in the center, and a cemented perimeter wall along the length of the narrow pavement, perpendicular to Zanaki Street, in downtown Dar.
Outside the complex, to the left, the narrowly-paved street, with chipped asphalt, led to the majestic two-story mosque on Darkhana Road; to the right, on either side, a row of small, dimly-lit Indian shops lined the street, displaying newly-arrived merchandise through barred windows: toys, electronics, clothing, shoes, jewelry, house furniture, carpets, and rugs; and at the end of the street was a famous Indian jewelry store: Kanti Patel Jewelries.
Across from the housing compound during early morning hours, cars parked awkwardly along the dusty pavement as their drivers rushed quickly to the Flamingo Restaurant for quick tea and Indian snacks — samosas and kebabs — before the drivers headed to their respective business routines.
And above the restaurant was a guest house with twenty rooms, managed and owned by the restaurant owner, Mr. Lakhani, an astute businessman. The guest house furnished lodging for Indian traders from inland while on business trips — many made long trips from the interior, shopping for new merchandise for their shops, and often at night, they furtively relished in the carnal pleasures of the African city’s nocturnal activities.
Together, the restaurant and guesthouse offered its patrons a heaven of enterprising opportunities, access to the world beyond the shores of the
It was set to become Alnoor Walji’s new beguiling and engulfing world.....
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Copyright © Jules Damji, 2006
