A Rite of Passage (Competition Entry)

I never called my uncle by his first name. His first name was Kassam. Ismailis, as with other Indian cultures, call their uncles by their first names but add to their names the suffix chacha if they are paternal uncles or the suffix mama if they are maternal uncles. So Kassam was my Kassam-chacha. When I was about four, I tried greeting him by his name but to the great amusement and merriment of those around at that time, including of course my uncle, the greeting came out as Kassu-chacha. I was mortified and ashamed of my gaff and from then on I simply greeted him with “Chacha”, which greeting never failed to bring a smile on his face. Yet it was a kind of smile that did not offend but seemed to say you’re okay kid; one day you’ll call me Kassam-chacha. I did not mind that smile at all.
Kassam was my father’s younger brother, a quiet and a self-effacing man, who never raised his voice in anger or frustration. He was married and lived on the Pemba Island, one of the smaller islands off Zanzibar. My uncle was a dukawalla, a shopkeeper, in piece goods. He sold Khanga, Kitenge and Buibui. A Khanga is a piece of cloth, spun cotton with colourful prints and an African epigram in its centre, with which an African woman covers herself before putting on her Buibui, a jet black chador covering her entire body, with delicately embroidered face-piece, which could be lifted up to eat or drink but never was in the public. The only things that you could see of these Muslim women were their eyes looking out at the male-dominated world through two round holes above the face-piece.
I was about five when Kassam-chacha took us kids, my two older brothers, his son Alikhan and me, on a train ride to Pugu, one station away from Dar es Salaam. Until then I had no concept of speed, for in those long gone days, very few people in Dar es Salaam owned cars. And my father did not. So I was soon to find out what it was to travel
at a speed indubitably greater than my fastest dash from a schoolyard bully by a factor of at least twenty.
It was a hot day in the almost perpetual summer-like weather of Dar es Salaam. The Station had only two tracks, on one of which stood the mighty train with its steam engine gurgling with strange sounds coming from its boilers. I had seen trains a few times from afar, as they chugged away in the distance but never this close. I stood on the platform with the others as if in a trance and, I must admit, in considerable awe and fear of that thing belching white plumes of smoke and, on occasions, letting out a shrill cry as the steam-valve opened to let out excess build up of steam.
This was only a two-coach train. The second coach had a small platform at the back and the African conductor stood on it, under the shade of an overhanging canopy. He was leaning against the backdoor of the cab, his head nodding off with snippets of sleep.
Chacha bought tickets and we were herded into the second cab. I could hardly contain myself with the mounting excitement and apprehension as I sat next to my uncle. The other three were seated ahead of us and they kept up a constant chatter; they too were excited. The car was otherwise empty. Suddenly the great engine emitted a loud whistle, making me jump and I grabbed the arm of my uncle, looking up at him for assurance. Chacha laughed and explained to me that the train was about to pull out of the station and that the whistle was to warn us of the departure. The train gave a sudden lurch and soon left the station, gradually gaining speed. So did my apprehension. I sat gapping at the passing landscape, feeling somewhat nauseous and considerably afraid.
But the fear and nausea passed soon and they were replaced with the thrill of the experience. The countryside flew by the window. We passed a number of sisal plantations with workers slashing down the fronds of the sisal plants with pangas, machetes, and the hot sun beating down on their curly heads.
The African conductor came through a passage between the two cars. Chacha gave him our tickets and the conductor returned these to him after a perfunctory examination. As he did, the conductor struck up a conversation with my uncle. He was a shario, a half-caste, partly Arab and partly indigenous African. Soon these two were off and running discussing the clove harvesting season in Zanzibar.
I stood up from the seat and went over to where the others were seated. But they, older than me by a few years, simply ignored me as they went on with their nattering. So I made my way to the back and, with great deal of caution, stepped outside through the backdoor, which had been wedged open for ventilation, onto the platform. I grabbed the railing enclosing the platform and stood there for a long moment until my uncle, noticing my absence, turned around and seeing me standing out, hollered at me to come back into the compartment.
It is difficult to describe that moment. I stood there and watched with fascination as the rails flew by under my feet and the last of the shambas with its toiling workers became a distant landscape. The wind coming over the top of the caboose, whipped down on my back, ruffling my hair; it also came buffeting from the sides making me feel that if I were just to let go of my hold, I could fly. I was no longer afraid. The magic of the moment had me in its thrall and I felt as a hang-glider must feel going off the cliff and flying like an eagle, the master of the element. The clacking of the wheels on the rail was no less fascinating; it had a rhythm of its own – clackti-clack, clackti-clack. It was a sound that seemed to rhyme with my uncle’s name: Kassam-Kassam and I said the name in my mind in time with the clacking of the rails.
As I sat inside again on a seat by myself, looking out, I thought that I would surprise my uncle by saying his name: Kassam-chacha. But I did not on that trip; the fear that I may bungle it again in front of the others proved to be a powerful disincentive.
And I never got to say his name to his face again. After that trip, he did not come to Dar es Salaam as before. The wholesaler with whom he did his business had expanded his business by opening an office on Zanzibar Island and so Chacha went there to do his purchases.
Then in the second year of that train trip to Pugu, on a short haul to Zanzibar, his dhow capsized in a heavy squall and all aboard perished. His body was washed ashore on the west coast of Zanzibar three days later.
My father took me to my uncle’s funeral in Pemba. My father, a stoic person, had urged me to be brave and not weep and put him to shame. I stood by his side in the funeral hall as the Fatias were recited, looking up at him every now and then to see how he was doing and to draw strength from his stoicism. But when he and I had our turn to do chanta ceremony and knelt before Chacha’s body for that purpose I, feeling every bit a recusant, could not stop tears from streaming down my face. When we got up and stood in the line again, my father put his arm around me and drew me to his side. I knew then that I had not, after all, shamed him.

After the adult male members of the Jamat left on the funeral cortege, I drifted over to the beach and sat on its pristine white sands. It was dusk with the sun setting in the west emblazoning the white cirrus clouds with the hues of a rainbow.
For some strange reason, I felt at peace. I felt as if Chacha had reached across the chasm of the unknown and had created the sunset just for me. I suspect that the feeling can be rationalized in a number of ways but I have resisted the temptation to do so, for to analyse is to destroy and if I went down that path the magical moment on that Pambian beach would remain as nothing more than a plebeian recollection. So, I will keep the moment sacrosanct and closed to scrutiny as indeed I would those moments on the conductor’s platform, when my body and spirit soared in unison to a greater height till then unknown.