TRUTH BE TOLD
THE PLACES WE CALL HOME
Dr Zuleikha Mayat.
By DR VICKI BISMILLA
Dr Zuleikha Mayat, the doyenne of South African Indian culture and keeper of ancestral stories of settlers from India in South Africa, has just published her twelfth book, The Odyssey of Crossing Oceans.
The book follows travellers in the 19th and early 20th centuries from Arabia to India across peninsulas and oceans and from India to Africa across the Indian Ocean, some to work, some to stay, but all to contribute to the countries in which they arrived with hard work in order to create better lives for their descendants.
The indentured Indians amongst them served as labourers in sometimes harsh and deadly conditions; others, the merchants and traders, started fledgling businesses providing familiar spices and goods from back home.
Dr Mayat tells their stories in her unique, personalized narrative that brings her readers on board with the families through choppy waters.
Born in a small South African town in 1926, she dreamed of pursuing a career. But the local school was only an elementary school and those who wished secondary education had to leave and find student lodgings in larger cities, which was not an option for girls.
She completed secondary education by correspondence passing her matriculation board in 1945 with honours.
In 1947, she married Dr Mahomed Mayat, an internationally acclaimed obstetrician who encouraged her to pursue her studies. They settled in the large metropolis of Durban where she completed courses in journalism, embraced writing and journaling and travelled with her husband to global destinations where he taught at medical conferences.
At home, she became busy with charitable pursuits, enjoyed motherhood and joined the antiapartheid movement protesting the racist government of South Africa.
But tragedy struck in 1979 when their car was hit by a drunk driver. It was all the more heart-wrenching because it occurred in apartheid South Africa. Even though her husband, as a medical doctor, had saved countless lives, his life was lost in a bizarre turn of events.
The first ambulance to arrive at the dusty, dirt road was an ambulance for white people and the driver was not permitted to transport an Indian to hospital. They had to await a nonwhite ambulance by which time Dr Mayat’s beloved husband’s and her dear sister’s lives ebbed away.
Devastated and heartbroken, she relied on her faith and the strong support from her mother and family to get through the sorrowful aftermath.
Dr Mayat attributes her pursuit of higher education, her writing, her tireless charitable work and her human rights activism to the encouragement she received from her husband. He told her, early in their marriage, that while he was busy at work she should, “Jump into life and soar,” and not confine herself to the house. She says that made her feel like she was “on a trampoline” and she embraced that intellectual freedom with gusto.
She, together with close friends, formed the Women’s Cultural Group in 1954. Their goal was to raise funds for struggling families to send their children to school. In apartheid South Africa, school was free for whites but not for nonwhites. So the women awarded bursaries to children and youth to attend elementary school, complete high school and then post-secondary.
The initial way that millions of Rands were raised was for the women to collect recipes from their own repertoire and from the wives and mothers across the South African Indian diaspora, resulting in the brilliant first edition of Indian Delights. This book became a coveted possession and thousands of women gave the book to their daughters and daughters-in-law as the first gift on their wedding day.
I still have mine, worn, dog-eared and lovingly handled through my fifty-one years of marriage!
Over the next 60 years the group published five major (and several collected) editions of Indian Delights each as delightful as the next, all available online and all still loved by not only Indian communities but across ethnicities.
All proceeds go to student bursaries (over 500,000 copies sold). As Dr Mayat fondly says, “Once you’ve tasted Indian spices there’s no going back”.
But recipe books were only the beginning . Dr Mayat has published seven other books, including Quaranic Lights (a book of short prayers ideal to keep at one’s desk (1966); Nanima’s Chest, about exquisite crafts brought from India to South Africa (1981); A Treasure Trove of Memories, chronicling lives of Indians who left India to create communities in South Africa (1996); History of Muslims of Gujerat, tracing the arrival in India of Middle-Eastern traders (2008); Dear Ahmedbhai Dear Zuleikhabehn, a poignant collection of letters between Zuleikha and her brother’s friend the late Ahmed Kathrada from his prison cell on Robben Island where he was incarcerated with Nelson Mandela (2009); Journeys of Binte Batuti, in which she, like the 14th century travel writer Ibn Battuta, regales us with stories of people she met in remote corners of the world (2015).
Dr Zuleikha Mayat is an icon in South Africa. Search results range from book reviews, human-rights activism, radio interviews and web talks. Her passionate speeches are especially fiery when she challenges audiences to speak up against human-rights abuses. When asked “How would you like to be remembered?” she talked about the joys of working with people from many backgrounds, ethnicities and religions.
Her advice to young people is, “Look for opportunities for what you can do for yourselves and for others”.
Certainly a woman of substance.
Indian Delights is available online. For inquiries about her other books, contact WCG Books P.O. Box 1148 Wandsbeck, Westville, Durban 3631, South Africa, or The Women’s Cultural Group at womensculturalgroup@gmail.com.
Dr Vicki Bismilla is a retired Superintendent of Schools and retired college Vice-President, Academic, and Chief Learning Officer. She has authored two books.