Shanthee Manjoo is a retired teacher with more than 40 years of experience.

Classrooms in the Shade

By Shanthee Manjoo

STE Publishers

Copyright © 2008 Shanthee Manjoo
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-919855-67-7
CHAPTER 1

PIETERMARITZBURG 1932

Jai! Jai! Jai! Hanuman gosaai

Kripa karo gurudev kinhaai …

His voice rose magnificently from the grapevine in the corner of the garden.

Raising his right foot in the posture of Hanuman, he stood holding aloft a lota, the brass vessel from which water fell in a silvery arc.

Water, Nourisher of man, Nourisher of the earth, falling to the ground in a gentle embrace.

He was singing the Chalisa, a tribute to Hanuman, revered Creature of God. God the Creator of the Universe.

My father’s voice rose and reached the house in the east where Moulvi Aniff, the Muslim priest, awakening on time, was responding to the muezzin’s azan – the call to prayer from the minaret of the mosque. Allah ho Akbar!

Beads of water gleamed on his shoulders, water from the cold shower that began his day. Clad in a dhoti, he went barefoot to the garden where the Jhunda stood, the prayer flag with the symbol Aum.

Aum, the word vibrating the wonder of God’s might. The Cosmic hum.

The dew lay on the grass, untouched by the sun’s sparkle. There was a hush in the Pietermaritzburg air. The sparrows, hidden in their leafy perches, had not taken flight. My father’s approach and splendid voice did not startle them, for he had begun his Song of Praise long before their own joyous clamour heralded the dawn.

Returning to the house, my father, Pathram Ramkisson, changed quickly into a pair of grey trousers, short-sleeved white shirt, black socks and shoes. He had no need for collar and tie. Seven days a week, he stood before a huge coal-fired stove at the old Plough Hotel in Longmarket Street. A white apron and tall chef’s hat completed his simple attire.

His daily routine was to walk to the hotel in the white area of Pietermaritzburg, and back again at two in the afternoon to our home in Loop Street in the downtown non-white section. My father would then rest for an hour or two before returning to work. Sometimes during his break, he worked in the garden, turning over the rich black soil with a spade, preparing it for planting. But it was not always like that – the garden often became a pool when it rained.

Before leaving in the morning, my father would enter the large room where I lay on the floor with my sisters. We slept on beds made from long rice bags: sheets with ‘Blue Ribbon Flour’ printed on them with a blanket for cover. In spite of years of dedicated service, he could not afford proper bedding for his children.

“Come on! Get up! Time to get up!” he sang out, teaching us the habit of rising with the sun.

Five sisters sleeping in a row …

My mother Rajpathie had died in her early twenties, seventeen days after the birth of her fifth and youngest daughter. A child-bride, she was frail, gentle and soft-eyed. She wrote a prayer for long life and happiness for us in her childish script, in a small autograph book with a blue hard cover. Our names had been carefully chosen by the Hindi-speaking priest Ramdeo Maharaj who consulted his books for our horoscopes. He lived close by with his family in George Street. My eldest sister was Dharamdevi, goddess of mercy, whom we called Didi. Ghumtidevi, goddess of the winding river in India, was Lela. I followed, Shantheedevi, goddess of peace; then Brijdaiwi or Devi, belonging to the gods. Finally, Gowri the fair one.

Although I was not the youngest, it was I who slept beside my mother’s eldest sister, the serene woman whom we called Ma. Ma lived with us and was our mother figure.

Shantheedevi, goddess of peace! Surely that was a misnomer as I had a restless and imaginative nature and was often beset by the same nightmare. I would find myself alone in a field, when suddenly the angry snort of a bull reached me. As hard as I tried to run, I remained rooted to the ground with the bull thundering closer, head lowered and nostrils flaring.

The nightmares persisted.

They were waiting for me, those animals. They were always waiting. Lying in the dark long after my sisters had fallen asleep, afraid of the inky blackness that crawled into every inch of the room, I willed my eyes to close but they would not. They stared instead into the blackness while the objects in the room turned into terrifying shapes. My grandmother’s bed loomed over me, the ornate bars of the high brass headboard stood like faceless creatures with round shiny heads and long bony fingers. They would not go away.

The big black box against the wall looked at me menacingly. What was in it?

I remember finding the shuttered doors of the room open one afternoon. I stepped into the enclosed verandah. Pots of glorious maiden-hair ferns trailed from a stand alongside pink begonias and the wooden trellis fence. One of the smaller pots glowed like a mass of little green stars, the pride and joy of my sister Lela, ferns more beautiful than any I had ever seen on the verandahs of the white colonial houses in upper Loop Street.

I stopped short and stared at an object close to my feet.

I had almost stepped on it. It was a straw soop, like the one I had seen Ma use to clean rice by winnowing it up into the air causing little bits of husks and stone to separate from the grain. In it lay a crudely made doll pierced with pins. Who had made the doll and why was it lying there? I gazed at the ugly thing, mesmerised, stumbling as I fled indoors.

The bedroom had once been a shop with double doors, shuttered windows and a high ceiling. At night it became a cave from which I could not escape. And those faceless creatures kept coming, wanting me to let them in. Shortly after I had seen the soop with its mysterious contents, my mother had gone away, never to be seen again.

Had that thing been placed there for my mother?

Why and by whom?

She died after childbirth, the sweet young mother who had called me her little doll in her book of baby names.

A mother I had never known. Gone, forever.

Nani, my maternal grandmother Soomantari Kaloo, often sat on the floor of the room with her right knee drawn up against her chest. She wore white clothes, a symbol of her widowhood: the pure and sensible white mourning of hot lands. Her blouse was long-sleeved, her langha reached her ankles, and a thin white downee covered her head. Her silver-white hair enhanced her appearance and fell loosely over her eye – she was always tucking it behind her ear. Often she could be seen bending over a small smoking tin of powder, which she inhaled deeply. I soon became accustomed to the smell of this asthma remedy. Nani was a tiny figure, yet she remained the head of the household and the entire family loved and respected her.

I remember how, despite her regular warnings, the well my father had dug in the farthermost corner of the garden almost claimed the life of my youngest sister Gowri, who toddled off unnoticed and fell into it. Moosay Nana, a close family friend, had fished her out of the water in time.

Gowri, the star-crossed baby of our family, was a pretty little girl with brown hair that fell into soft curls. She spent much of her time tagging behind Nani while we were at school. She would meet an untimely death at the age of five.

The nearest shop was at the corner of East and Longmarket Streets where Francis the friendly Tamil-speaking Christian sold groceries. There were no pavements in the Indian part of town. One day, Nani was walking slowly up East Street to the store with Gowri close behind. In a flash a motorcycle came thundering around the corner, and collided into my little sister, dragging her a hundred yards into Longmarket Street past the shop, before finally coming to a halt in front of the Shri Vishnu Temple.

She died at the old Grey’s Hospital, never regaining consciousness. Ma spent the night there waiting for news of her niece. Then, silent and grim-faced, she took the long walk back home as dawn crawled through the city.

All this while Nani sat before her cold and lifeless fire which had started the day glowing brightly in a bowla, a home-made fireplace made from a tin punched with holes and advertising Laurel paraffin with its garland of interlacing bay leaves. It brought warmth to the house in winter and my sisters and I would creep as close as we dared, to spread our hands before the glowing coals. Sometimes another fire was made on the back verandah and we warmed ourselves there. When all the wood had burnt away, we picked up the coals one by one with a chimta and refilled the bowla. But on this awful night the last dying embers had long since turned into ashes. Nani refused to go to sleep. My sisters and I huddled around her, with sleep-filled eyes and a nameless terror tugging at our hearts.

It was not the last time I was to see Ma return from the hospital so silent and grim.

Drunk with the power his newly-purchased vehicle had given him, Jack Naidoo, the motorcyclist who had run my sister over, had been riding round and round the block circling Loop, East, Longmarket and Retief Streets, driving everyone mad with the noise and show of newfound bravado. Years later, I came face to face with him in the street. I stopped for several seconds and stared at him with loathing, unable to utter a single word, overwhelmed by the anger that had begun on that fatal day.

He stopped before me, his eyes shifting uncomfortably at my glare. Of course he had been acquitted. What good would talking to the wretch have done, I thought miserably afterwards. It could not bring my baby sister back to life – dead at five because the cause of permanent grief too often is that you do not have proper pavements. Gowri – rescued from a watery grave only to die a violent death with glass embedded in her skull. Not long after, a traffic sign was erected near the scene of the tragedy: ‘Children crossing’.

Perhaps in future, motorists, seeing the warning sign, would drive past less hastily so little feet could patter safely across.

The ‘infant’ classes were conducted in the church building of St Paul’s in George Street.

My father finally managed to get us into school. I stood looking down while the teacher squatted before me, a bemused look on his face.

“How many legs has a duck?” he asked again, not unkindly.

“Three,” was my barely audible answer.

Mr Valentine Nobin leaned closer toward me.

“How many!” he asked once more.

I did not answer but the silence was enough. The whole class had heard the teacher exclaim and the news of the three-legged duck spread to the upper classes till my older sister Lela heard it too. She would not speak to me when I got home. Lela, the delicate and clever one in the family, was humiliated by my stupidity.

I hid behind the tall rose bushes in the churchyard at playtime. Their fragrance filled the air and I looked up at the creamy white flowers with their deep yellow centres – clusters of them swaying gently on long stems. How beautiful they were! If only I could remain there in the garden with nothing but their fragrance wafting around me. But the bell would ring suddenly, jarringly, and I would drag my feet back to the classroom. For days I was the butt of the class jokes and I hated school.

Then came the blustery day with the cold biting through my thin body.

I drew the coat closer. It was a pretty coat. My father had given it to me that very morning and I was happy to be wearing something new to school. My happiness, however, was short-lived. No sooner did the class set eyes upon it than they began shouting, “Joseph’s coat! Joseph’s coat!” They roared with laughter and ran out of their places to have a closer look and prod me with their cruel fingers.

Joseph’s coat.

The coat of many colours. My eyes stung with unshed tears. What was wrong with it? Had it not been a similar coat that the jealous brothers smeared with the blood of a newly slaughtered lamb to take back to their father? The well-beloved Joseph, who, later, when the seven fat years were followed by the seven lean years, had Egypt’s granaries overflowing with corn. I was proud that my coat looked like the one Joseph had worn as a little boy. Let them laugh and shout! I looked at them defiantly. But I never wore the coat again. And the wind continued to whip about me bitingly, making me hunch my shoulders.

I have happier memories of St Paul’s too!

Days filled with fun and laughter … acting in concerts, making paper roses to decorate the stage, attending Hindi school with my younger sister Devi.

I remember being wildly excited when my music teacher, Mr Lawrence Barnabas, chose me to lead the chorus in a song welcoming the Girl Guides of Baroda.

Sons of Hind rally round join hands
Join hands in strong endeavour!
Here in distant climes ‘mid Afric sands
Our good school claims us ever.

The school assembled in the hall where the visitors from India stood ready with bows and arrows, a team of twenty young girls dressed in white shorts and shirts, their long black hair neatly braided in two plaits.

Targets were placed at the back of the hall. The girl guides were about to demonstrate their skill in shooting at the targets that were reflected in large mirrors placed in front of the hall.

Bending over backwards so they could look directly into the mirrors, they took careful aim and shot the arrows straight into the targets, scoring a perfect bull’s eye each time: all twenty of them!

Together with the school I watched the dazzling performance.

The visitors acknowledged the applause by modestly placing their palms together in greeting ‘Namasté’ before going back to their seats. And now it was my turn to sing as I stood before them, my heart racing with joy:

Star of India morning bright
Shining after stormy night,
India’s sons where’er they be
Ne’er forget their loyalty!

The chorus took up the tribute:

Sons of Hind rally round join hands
Join hands in strong endeavour

I sang the final verse:

Alma Mater Light of mind
Star of progress here we find
Faith, truth, love and honesty
Are the bonds of loyalty!

O! I exulted. If only I could go to that wonderful land with these girls from the Indian state of Gujarat! My father would surely let me go. I would learn among other things to speak Hindi faultlessly, perhaps even see the glorious Taj Mahal by moonlight! That night I lay awake thinking of India, the land so far away yet so close to me now. The fever of excitement had taken away all hunger and sleep and I waited impatiently for the night to fade away. Tomorrow I would accompany the girl guides back to India! My heart sang. But when morning came, my father would not hear of it. I cried bitterly but it was of no use. Later, after the girl guides had gone and all that remained of their visit to the school were the large mirrors still standing in the hall, my mind kept dwelling on the marvellous display of archery. The day passed by as if in a dream until the boy sitting in front of me rose …

Tilakdharrie was a pale thin boy with dark mournful eyes and fine black hair. The headmaster, Mr Philip Seethal, towered over him cane in hand. Mr Seethal was a tall large man with closely cropped hair and a mole on his lower left cheek. His mother tongue was Hindi which he spoke in a deep pleasant voice. He travelled by car from Plessislaer, also known as Sutherlands, six miles from town. Travelling with him were two teachers, Mr Armand Pardesi and Mr Moonilal, who were Hindi-speaking as well, the majority of the people in Plessislaer coming from the same language group.

In order to gain the headmaster’s post at St Paul’s, Mr Seethal had to join the Anglican Church. But he still held Puranic principles governing the proper upbringing of children: spare the rod and spoil the child. He was a strict disciplinarian, feared by staff and pupils alike.

Watching Tilak from the safety of my desk, I was filled with pity, but like the rest of the class I dared only look on in frozen silence. Tilak was an intelligent boy and read as many books as I did, along with the curly- headed Ronnie and Manuel. These three boys were the only ones to provide some competition for me in class.

Why does he not try to answer, I thought helplessly.

“Speak boy! Have you lost your tongue?” roared Mr Seethal, gripping his cane.

It was too much for the unfortunate boy. Flinging his hands over his head in a protective gesture, he shook uncontrollably while a stream of urine jetted down his legs.

My own disappointment in not being allowed to go to India paled into insignificance at the shocking sight. Closing my eyes, I forced myself to silently repeat the words of Ramani’s wedding song that I was memorising for the school concert.

(Continues…)Excerpted from Classrooms in the Shade by Shanthee Manjoo. Copyright © 2008 Shanthee Manjoo. Excerpted by permission of STE Publishers.
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