Literary Safari

I’ve been working on a series of essays about my family for the last few years. Last night, I read a slightly shorter version of this piece at SAWCC’s fundraiser “An Evening of Short Readings.” I thought I’d post the complete essay here, and continue my series of “Family Ruminations.”

Children of a Coup

On June 4, 1979, just a few days before scheduled elections in Ghana, the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council overthrew the government. This was the fourth coup in the nascent democracy since 1957, when Ghana became the first sub-Saharan African nation to achieve independence from colonial rule. At the time, I was five.

Those were turbulent days. The government’s body fell apart and violence replaced peaceable discomfort. Lines at gas stations grew long, schools were closed more often than they were open, and SPAM and Baked Beans came close to gaining the status of staple foods.

In their homes, people were afraid. People hid their gold jewelry in their pillowcases and slept with it under their heads. They double bolted their doors and paid to have watchmen guard the gates of their bungalows at night. Even with the added security, more and more homes were broken into. Men in army fatigue and skull caps banged down doors with rifles and sickles. They tied up the women and forced the men to show them where they kept their money and valuables.

In tough times, foreigners become easy targets. The Indian population in Ghana in 1979, consisting primarily of Sindhi entrepreneurs, felt vulnerable. My family was no exception. Fear seeped into my grandparents and parents and they began asking themselves the difficult question: Should we stay or should we go back to India?

At night, Dada and Papa would huddle together in the dark verandah surrounded by the sounds of croaking frogs and chirping crickets. They would sip on Johnnie Walker Black Label—Winston Churchill’s favorite Scotch—while discussing their options in hushed tones.

Ultimately, economics won the debate. Dada had left India too long ago to think of starting life there all over again and the family business was too well-established and lucrative to be shut down. It just didn’t make sense to just leave.

Papa and Mama remained worried, especially for us, the children and began trying to come up with a solution. India seemed like the best option for us. There, we could get a solid an uninterrupted education—and live with my maternal grandmother and aunt.

This is how I ended up in Pune at age 6, separated from my parents for the next five years. Mama used to visit for longer stretches of time but for Papa, it was difficult to get away from work for more than a few weeks, once or twice a year. He made up for his absence through regular letters.

When the khakhi-clad postman would ring our doorbell, my sister and I would eagerly wrestle for the envelope inked with the words “Air Mail” and plastered with red and green stamps. For us, these letters were warm embraces that had traveled over miles and oceans. We couldn’t wait to open them.

Papa was a natural storyteller. His letters were mini fables that brought to us the details of his world. There is one letter that I will never forget:

Dear Girls,

How are you both? Are you studying hard and obeying your Aunty’s instructions? Are you respecting your grandmother and your elders? I hope that you are being good girls and making your Mama and Papa proud of you.

Here, we are all fine by the grace of God. We miss you terribly and think about you all the time. Work is keeping me very busy and even though I want to come see you, I will have to wait for a few more months before I can travel again. Never mind. Your Mama shall be there before you know it.

Yesterday, I had an interesting experience. I was drinking my tea in the verandah early in the morning. As usual, all the tiny sparrows were flying in and out of the straw lamp shades and the lizards were climbing up and down the walls. All of a sudden, a black crow flew over to the verandah and perched himself on its iron railing. Imagine my surprise when he began to speak to me. I was so excited to hear his voice that I nearly leaped out of my chair and spilled the hot chai!

“I am going to India later today,” he said. “Do you have a message you would like me to deliver to your girls?”

I pinched myself to make sure that I was awake. How did he know that I had two beautiful daughters and that they lived in India?

Sure that I was not dreaming, I replied, “Well, yes, I would like to send my girls a letter.”

The crow cleared his throat and cawed loudly. “I am sorry, sir, I cannot take a letter to them. The only place I have to keep it would be in my beak and it would surely be lost if I opened my mouth. If you have something you would like to say to them, do tell me what it is. I have a very good memory.”

So, my dear girls, I called the elegant black crow over to me and whispered into his ear a long and special message just for the two of you. After I had finished, he winked at me and took off into the sky.

He must be on his way to you all now and should arrive at your windowsill any day now. I told him that your grandmother is the lady in white kaftans who puts delicious food out on the windowsill everyday and talks to all the crows who come to eat her offerings.

His name is Kwame. He is a black as night with a single white feather in his wings. Do look out for him. He told me he was taking a long route from Ghana to India because he had to make a few stops along the way to visit his own children who are living in London (at Trafalgar Square) and Los Angeles (near DisneyLand). So, be patient!

If you want, you can send him a message for me when he flies back to Ghana.

Until the next time,

Lots of hugs and kisses,

Your Papa

After we received that letter, my sister and I used to look at each and every crow that landed on our windowsill very, very carefully. I still do.

It must not have been easy for either of my parents to be apart from us. In a letter to his youngest sister during this period, Papa wrote, “It is a tremendous sacrifice to make to part from your own children when they are at this young age. As a parent, you constantly feel torn and question your decision. How much of their precious years are we missing?”

***

Five years later, in 1984, Papa made the difficult decision to move to the United States. He took his life savings and exchanged a lifestyle he had always known—drivers and gardeners, maid servants and staff who salute you “Good morning Boss,” and a professional position of respect and privilege—for risky real estate ventures and business partnerships, a retail business in the seedy Times Square of the 1980s, and a life of vacuuming, cleaning your own toilet in your office, and public transportation. He did all this so that we could be together again as a family.

Papa must have imagined that Anjali and I were still little babies when he shopped for our bedroom furniture in our new home in suburban New Jersey. When we arrived from India with Mom, we discovered that Papa had planned for us to share a room. He had bought us matching white furniture—two low twin beds, two side-tables, two dressers, and two bookshelves! The room, in many ways, was a replica of our childhood room in Ghana, except that our bed sheets were not baby blue with images from Kim Casili’s comic strip “Love is …”

After having shared a room for the first 10 years of our lives, it was natural that there would be some love lost between me and my sister. We quickly decided that we were going to get “divorced” and I moved out into the smallest room in the house.

“But don’t you want to share a room?” Papa didn’t seem to understand.

When he looked at us, he must have seen the little girls that he sent off to India, not the near teenagers that we were. I don’t blame him.

[Read another Family Ruminations piece here.]