engrish makes me happy

'kenyan'

i was at the department of immigration today to renew my passport. they sell them by the number of pages. something like 24, 32, 48 page options. with the 48 page passport costing a little over 4,000/-

a temporary permit (valid for one year within the EA community) can be purchased for 300/- with 2 passport pictures (costing 200/- for 4 at the booth behind the tent).

there is a man who checks the validity of your documents... he told a somali-kenyan with his 'son' in front of me to go to KRA to get verified, to which the man, upset, responded;

we're being segregated for being somali!
but i thought you said you were kenyan?
yes, somali-kenyan
sir, do you want to talk or do you want to be served?
i want to be served
then go to kra and get verified
but why didn't you send anybody else there? we are equal (he began to walk away) we are equal...

what is to be kenyan? when somalis, dubbed 'foreigners' are rounded up in eastleigh, when the nubians languish in kibera and we are tribesmen before countrymen?

what does it mean to have a blue passport, if you are required to give references, if privilege and education mean none the more responsibility but the opportunity for more wealth.

we fail each other. by not living up to what it should mean to be kenyan. by not starting out with being honourable.

druv and shruti

i don't know druv and shruti but i am at their engagement as somebody's plus one. i woke up at 7am the day before to be at my neighbour's to have her wrap the saree around me. she said she needed me to come before 8:30 because she leaves for work then. i come at 8. she meets me at the door in her jammies and her poor baby is rubbing his eyes muttering to himself.

i had ironed the 6 metres of saree. i now lay it on the bed in the spare room and don the blouse and petticoat. she then wraps, pleats, pins and smoothes folds. and in less than a few minutes, is done.

(mental note: make her cookies to say thanks)

still half asleep myself, i go back next door and lay as still as i can until 11am, when the affair is supposed to start, only to find out on arrival that i had come a day early. (why don't i check these things?)

so i come back the next day, today, in a different saree that i have wrapped around myself and i'm so proud when the ladies ask me who'd helped me. "oh myself," i say casually, beaming inside.


i love to see sarees. i love the way they choose the design and colour of the blouses. i love how the lighter materials like georgette and satin fall on the body.

i'm the only non-indian there (other than the nannies and one very dark man, whom i had mistaken for being black) and everyone seems to know each other so i remain the happy but quiet observer.

the food is aptly vegetarian. though there really isn't any vegetable at all in it. and they serve it on metal plates. the men doing the serving behind the buffet are quick to warn me what's hot and what isn't. though i like chilli food.

i don't know druv and shruti but i congratulate you and thank you for sharing your day with me.

walking home

when i was about 10 or 11, we were still at the bus stop - more than an hour after it had left, my sisters and i. and for some reason, we decided we would walk home. a 12 year old, myself and an 8 year old.

armed with a prayer and our trusty hockey sticks, we set foot to cover what would take a car some 10-15 mins to drive. but instead of the shorter, more trafficked main road, i convinced them, the longer, more serene route would be better. turns out, it would be the route my dad wouldn't drive up and down frantically lookin for us.

we walked for more than an hour. the hold on our sticks-cum-weapons losing force. and the "ugly face(s)" my older sister advised us to put on (distort/contort the face as distastefully as you can) to deter anyone that might harass were giving way to fatigue.

our father finally caught up with us when we joined the main road again, a stone's throw away from our house - mad as hell - at our folly. "you could have been raped!" he yelled - which is true. but by 6.45 when dark was already setting in, we were just glad to be home.

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i walked home again yesterday. this time, as an adult, stranded. or as an adult deciding to take things into his own hands, or should i say feet. and like forrest gump, i just started walking.

i walked for about an hour and a half before i considered what i might look like. that i must look desperate or out of place because a kindly young man, stopped to offer me a lift and instinctively, i declined. it was only when he drove off that i realised, he might have been sincere. bless him. bless people who do kind gestures.

as the road began to climb on that last stretch home, it hit me - this sadness - the solitude of doing it all on my own. the realisation that no one - in the duration of that walk - was looking for me.