Chapter 3

Journey from Past to Present: The Book of Secrets

In The Book of Secrets - published in 1994 - Vassanji once again narrates the
experiences of the Shamsi community in East Africa in colonial and postcolonial times.
The focus is on the interaction between the Shamsis and the native Africans as well as the
colonial administrators (both the British and the Germans). As in The Gunny Sack, the
setting is largely East African countries in this novel too, but the sweep of the action is
larger and swifter. The narrative has multiple points of view and a complex backward-
forward movement. It has an obvious teasing complexity at the structural level, such as is
missing in The Gunny Sack and No New Land. Through various secrets a recollectable past
is created and is juxtaposed with the prsent. In fact, the novel is the journey from past to the
present.

It is a retired Goan school teacher Pius Fernandes, an expatriate in East Africa, who
gets from one of his pupils a diary - the book of secrets - belonging to Alfred Corbin, the
British administrator in the colonial times. This diary enthuses him to join the various loose
ends in an attempt to comprehend the connections between the present and the past. With
the help of the diary entries, visits to the places mentioned in the diary, meetings with various
persons, official documents. Appendices, memoranda, letters written by Corbin and his
wife to Richard Gregory, an expatriate British poet-teacher, and his own observations and
reminiscences, he constructs the history of nations, communities and people almost
simultaneously. The structure of his history is symmetrical: the novel begins with a prologue,
followed by two sections, the first having two parts, and the second, three, each supplemented
with a Miscellany, and ends on an epilogue.

The story of the novel is worked out at different levels, each skilfully dovetailed into

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the other. On the individual level, it is the story or history of Mzee Pipa Nurmohamed,

referred to Pipa throughout the novel-an urchin from Moshi in German East Africa

(Tanganyika, or Tanzania now)-and his family. On the social level, it is the history of the

Shamsis and other Indian expatriate communities-the Goan Christians, the Gujrati Hindus-

the British and German colonialists, the expatriate British, the Arabs, the half-castes and the

native Africans. On the political plane, it shows political developments during the colonial

and postcolonial rules in East African nations such as Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda, with

references to England, India and even Canada. Thus, the personal history coalesces with the

public and the past and the present interact in peculiar ways.

The story of Pipa is at the centre of the novel, for Pipa enters the novel quite early

and the novel ends practically with his death in Dar-es-Salaam. It is from German East

Africa (Tanganyika) that he comes to British East Africa (Kenya) with the sole purpose of

fixing the date of his marriage to Mariamu, the niece of the Mukhi Jamali. Unwittingly and

unwillingly, he falls a prey to the vicious machinations of the German and later of the British

administrators, and does some sort of spying work on behalf of the both on the eve of the

Second World War, and luckily escapes a sure and brutal death, when exposed as a double

agent. His marriage to Mariamu leads to complications in his life. He creates a ruckus on his

wedding night as he finds his wife already deflowered, allegedly by the British ADC Alfred

Corbin in whose house she lived for some days. But he soon reconciles himself to this sad

occurrence. Mariamu gives birth to a son who is fair and has grey eyes. Pipa is tormented by

the thought of his fatherhood. The thought continues to haunt and bewilder him even after

Mariamu's mysterious murder which is the main secret of the book. After the War, he is

relieved of his spying work. He moves to Moshi in the German side, and then finally settles

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in Dar-es-Salaam. In spite of his second marriage to Remti and having children, he remains

devoutly attached to the memory of Mariamu. He keeps the Englishman's diary securely

hidden, as

It was memento, it was absolution. It harboured the spirit of

Mariamu. By giving it to him - as he believed she had- by
taking it from him when he did not have the courage to do so
himself, she had chosen him over the other, had finally given
herself to him. He should feel complete, and in a manner he
did. But he felt possessed. If the book contained the spirit of
Mariamu, she had not died. If through it she had chosen him,
he could not cast it aside.'

When Mariamu's apparition mysteriously appears before Pipa, he begins to converse with

it. He assigns a whole room to the mementoes left by Mariamu - a box with the Englishman's

diary and his pen. Nobody is allowed to enter the room where he reads the diary and tries to

discover the secrets contained in it, particularly about his fair son's fatherhood. The narrator,

Femandes, calls him a "latter-day Orpheus" (p.228), a well known mythical Greek hero,

who underwent strenuous difficulties and intense sufferings and sorrows to keep the memory

of his beloved Eurydice alive. Financially, he continues to flourish until the new rulers

decide to take over all the rented properties of the migrants, without paying any compensation.

The loss of his and Remti's only son and the confiscation of his property prove to be fatal

for him. Unable to bear the loss, he dies all of a sudden.

The story of Akber Ali, the fair son of Mariamu, is as much interesting and mysterious.

Smart and handsome, Ali is quite ambitious. By marrying the daughter of a big businessman

in Dar, he acquires name, fame and money. But soon he falls in love with a Shamsi beauty

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called Rita and elopes with her to London. In London, his is a literally rags-to-riches story.

Through sheer ingenuity and diligence he comes to be the owner of a big finance company,

enters international trade in real estate, and becomes a business tycoon. But, then, he deseits

Rita in preference to Rosita, an Argentinean woman with British ancestory. During his stay

in London he meets Corbin, now retired from the British Colonial Service after having

served as Governor in Uganda. We come to know nothing about their conversations. It

remains a mystery if Corbin accepts or even acknowledges him as his son.

It is in the story of Akber Ali that the story of the narrator, Femandes, fits in. A

teacher from Goa in India, he serves the Shamsi Boys' School. He gets Corbin's diary from

one of his pupils and does his best to unravel its secrets. He is intrigued to find his own life

connected with the past life of Pipa, Ali and Rita, one of his favourite students. The arrival

of Rita from London makes him connect the present and the past. He hands over the diary to

Rita, promising not to divulge its secrets. We learn a lot about his loneliness in an alien

country, his fondness of Rita, his liking of the British expatriate poet-teacher Gregory and

his nostalgic feelings about India.

The dislocation and migration of the Shamsis to Africa is elaborately dealt with in

this novel, as in The Gunny Sack and No New Land. The coming to Kikono in British East

Africa (Kenya) of Abdul Jamal Meghji, the son of Jamal Dewji of Lamu, his settlement as

a shopkeeper and his subsequent rise to the status of the Mukhi of his community reminds

us of Dhanji Govindji's story of migration in The Gunny Sack and that of Haji Lalani in No

New Land. In The Gunny Sack, the narrator tells us : "There was a mukhi wherever there

were a few Shamsis. And the muklii would put you up"."' In The Book of Secrets, the narrator

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says : "Where there are two Shamsis, the adage says, let one be the headman, father and
priest - the mukhi - and let the other form the congregation. That is, let them without ado
start a mosque" (p.27). The suggested idea is that the cultural, social, political and economic
authority and symbol of the community come to vest in the Mukhi. The roots of the Shamsi
community are detailed quite swiftly and matter-of-factly by the narrator Femandes in the
novel:

In Mombasa, Akber Ali was apprised of some family history.

His mother's grandmother, he learned, had gone as a girl from
Jamnagar, India, first to Zanzibar, then married in the ancient
Swahili town of Lamu. It was from Lamu that her son - his
great uncle Jamali - set off in the company of a British explorer
and founded the town of Kikono, where Mariamu, his mother
was brought up, latter married and where he was born, (p.221)

It is significant to note that behind the migrant communities' dislocation are primarily

economic or political factors, or both. Corbin discovers this fact in his conversation with

Mukhi Jamali :

I asked him what his people sought in this country, in the

wilderness, so far from their own country and culture. "Peace
and prosperity" he said. I repeated his words. "Yes, sir", he
asserted "with your protection. We seek but little. Already
we have contributed to the Uganda Railway." (p.49)

The narrator in The Gunny Sack, too, underlines more or less the same motives which lie

behind the dislocation of the immigrant people : "Among the trading immigrant peoples,

loyalty to a land or a government, always loudly professed, is a trait one can normally look

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for in vain. Governments may come and go, but the immigrants' only concern is the security
of their families, their trade and savings.""* In The Book of Secrets, the Shamsis are shown to
be preoccupied with their own family and community interests, their safety and economic
well-being. When the War starts, Jamali and his people deliberately shift to a neutral prayer
They do not want to offend either of the warring parties, the British and the Germans. Their
loyalty is confined to themselves as they desperately want a safe haven during the troubled
times of war.

The thought of immigrants being perpetually dislocated is brought home by the

author again and again. The work at Sheth Samji involves Pipa driving a blindfolded camel
running the oil mill. The metaphor of the camel walking in circles is used to relate the plight
of a man who, like the camel, does not know where he is going and where his destination is.
It is subtly employed to bring home the feelings of homelessness among the immigrants.
"We were intensely aware of our homelessness", (p.274) rues the narrator at one point.

The tenor of new policies of the new government in Tanganyika and the consequent
assaults on the dignity, status and identity of the diasporas lead to the second-generation
migration. Most of the migrants leave for England, the USA or Canada. Fernandes' fellow
expatriate teachers also opt out. The rich become paupers overnight. They go to other alien
lands, almost empty-handed. It is ironic that only a few make the conscious decision to go
back to India, the land of their ancestors. It is characteristic of Indians that they create
"India", whether they are in London or Toronto. In the initial days of Africanization, the
new generation of Indian migrants think they will adapt to the new conditions, but they soon
lose hope and faith. The narrator in No New Land recalls in a similar context:

... as the changes became more extreme, as newer and stranger

ways were imposed, the idyll of a new Africa began to appear

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 as shaky to those of the younger generation as it had always
appeared to the older... The "Uganda exodus" showed a way
out for Dar's Asians.^

Some migrants liice Fernandes' friend Steve Desouza, unable to bear the spirit of

intolerance shown by Africans in the post-colonial period, decide to quit. The forced farming

proves to be too much for Desouza, as for Gregory. To make matters worse, Desouza is first

betrayed by his fiancee, a Goan girl, which makes him a cynic and somewhat ascetic. Then

he is slapped by a boy's father for caning his son. Some of his students meet with fatal

accidents, one after the other. He feels irrationally responsible for these tragedies. These

little misfortunes, together with the belligerent mood of the liberated Black society, makes

him really sick and tired. One day he is found in bed, "shivering, starving, and almost dead

(p.315). During December holidays, he goes back to India, never to return.

Vassanji mixes fact and fiction adroitly in this novel while dealing with the colonial

and the postcolonial history of the East African countries, Kenya and Tanzania. He uses

main historical events as an essential background to impinge upon the lives of his fictional

characters and events. The suppression of the Black natives by the colonialists and the

subsequent violent reaction to it by the natives in movements like Mau Mau have been

depicted vividly. The consequences of such a volatile historical event as World War I have

been clearly brought out in the lives of Pipa and Mariamu.

Among the members of the settler communities, it is Pipa who forms an interesting

relationship with the colonial administrators. Unwittingly and unknowingly, he comes to

play in the hands of the crafty Germans whose Arab agent Hamisi uses him to send some

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crucial letters of strategic importance secretly to some German agents in the British East

Africa. When Maynard, the ruthless British ADC, learns of Pipa's activities just before the

beginning of war between the German and the English colonies, he threatens him to work

for the British. Pipa has to acquiesce in, and thus, becomes a double-agent. When either of

the warring side suffers during the brief war due to the alleged leaks of information, the

likes of Pipa become suspect. The Germans want to eliminate him. The English actually

arrest him, and intend to kill him. Luckily, he comes out safe from their custody. Thus, the

novel dramatizes the way the diasporas are victimized by the ruling classes in every manner

possible.

Pipa's whole life gets painfully and inextricably linked with Corbin and Mariamu.

He loses self-respect and self-assurance as he moves from one compromise to another. He

tries to reconcile to the loss of his wife's virginity before marriage. Then he tries to make

compromise with the fact that the child his wife has borne is not his. But he fails in his futile

efforts at such compromises. He continues to be pained and haunted by these two dark spots

in his life. Corbin's diary, given to him by his wife Mariamu, becomes a sort of battlefield

where every time he goes to fight, he gets defeated. The secrets of his life remain unexposed.

He lives and dies in pathetic conditions. His is a glaring example of the White man's

victimization and exploitation.

Vassanji shows how native culture comes to be subverted in the hands of the alien

rulers who claim to have "arrived" to civilize the "barbarian" people under their rules. It is

significant to note that even the mild and somewhat generous Corbin, too, shares the colonial

view that Indians and Africans are uncivilized and that it is the duty of the civilized Whites

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to civilize them. He believes that they have been sent to Africa and other colonies for civilizing

the backward communities ;

He was there to administer in the name of his king and nation,

to bring the land into the twentieth century in as painless a
way as possible, in the belief that the British Empire with its
experience of ruling other lands and with its humane system
was the best nurturing ground for an emerging nation, for
backward Africans and Orientals to enter the society of
civilized peoples, (p.31)

In the Governor's Memoranda for PCs and DCs (1910), the native policy is explicated on

the same lines:

It must certainly be their endeavour to lift the natives to a

higher plane of civilization; but this can only be achieved by
gradual methods and by observing existing conditions, (p.31)

Corbin's diary entry of 23-24 June shows an awkward attempt made by the colonial master

to make his mission known to Mariamu, a poor, illiterate girl of the Indian community :

... I found myself explaining the political map of Europe to

her - the countries, the languages - drawing crude comparisons.
How to explain my reason for being here, leaving that fairyland
to come to this darkness... where I have no one of my kind.
To help you, your people, I offered. She looked nonplussed.
On orders from my Sultan, then. That, she understood, (p.80)

This diary entry is significant in the way it shows the gap between the levels of understanding

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of people of two different races and nations. In her innocence or ignorance, Mariamu fails to

understand why a person like Corbin would willingly give up his "fairyland" to help the

people of this dark land. She understands him better when he refers to his Sultan on whose

orders he has come here. Even an ignorant person like her knows that the Whiteman's

presence in the dark land cannot be entirely without a selfish motive. In fact, Whitemen like

Corbin and Maynard wrongly dub all the natives as savages. Though they have somewhat

patronizing attitude towards Indians, they still think of them as backward, ignorant and

superstitious orientals. Harish Narang, while discussing the novels of Ngugi waThiong'o,

castigates the colonial thinking that denies cultural attributes to African and other so-called

undeveloped societies :
After colonising Kenya - as also some other parts of Africa -
the British asserted that they had come to bring enlightenment
and progress to a people who had no social, political, economic
or cultural traditions. Not only was this an obviously false
contention, but it is also contrary to the very origin and
development of a society - any society.^

What Narang suggests is that every society has its own system of growth and development.
Among the Gikuyu community in Kenya (British East Africa - the centre of action in The
Book of Secrets), several customs have interesting background and import. Piercing of ears
signifies the advancement from childhood to boyhood; circumcision of both boys and girls
marks their 'coming of age' and raises the social status of a father; nature worship suggests
the people's intimacy with natural phenomena. Unable to appreciate such subtle cultural
nuances, the colonialists indulge in dismantling the indigenous systems, giving rise to natural
public anger and protest. Narrativizing such colonial practices is, however, "an act of
liberation from the bondage of anger."

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 In The Book of Secrets, Corbin objects to many customs and rituals being followed

by the Shamsis and the Black natives. He considers them as savage practices. At one point,

he stops an exorcist using his whip to relieve a girl (Mariau) of a devilish spirit. The maalim

openly tells him that he should not interfere in matters which he does not understand. When

Corbin asks the Mukhi of the mystery of the drumming in the night, he says : "You see, sir,

the villagers were driving out the devil of fever. Another girl suffering horribly" (p.72). In

sheer frustration, Corbin feels helpless and uncertain : "He let out a sigh and made an ordinary

observation : adminsitration's all right, but how the devil do you deal with another culture's

ghosts?" (p.72). During his stay, he tries to steer clear of all controversies. Maynard who

takes over the charge of the area from him proves to be ruthless. He meets savagery with

savagery. In an unremorseful tone, he tells Corbin : "We set fire to the huts, waited outside

for the niggers to emerge. I myself bayoneted them, men and women they came running

out..,. No mercy, I said..." (p.2I). His hatred for the natives is intense and deep, and he

explains his savage nature by remarking casually : "This is a savage country, it makes a

savage of you" (p.21).

The interaction between the Indian migrant communities and the whites is carried

through both English and Swahili. Some of the English expatriates learn Swahili and

communicate with the natives through this language. But as a result of cultural differences,

different races remain almost segregated. The account of a Sunday party at the Sports Club

in Dar brings out clearly this sense of segregation :

Indians had been invited and came in two large groups, one
of men, another of women, and they stood apart
uncomfortably, huddled in their groups, watching the

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 Europeans... A man stood up and made a speech, and the
presentations began. The servants and the Indians at the back
gawked. When the ceremony ended, sandwiches were served,
and drinks. The Indians were concerned about ham and beef,
and one of the mzungus came and talked with them. A little
later a fresh tray was brought for them. "Cucumbers, bread,
no harm here", the men said, and ate, but the women were
shy and soon left. (p. 194)

This particular incident clearly depicts the various aspects of the diasporic living. There is a
characteristic isolation of male and female groups among Indians in the public (signs of
patriarchal set-up); there is the visible separation between the Indians and Europeans; the
sense of inferiority, partly self-created and self-imposed, as Indians prefer to stand with
servants at the back; and, then, there is the difference between eating habits : vegetarian
versus non-vegetarian meals, with reference to religious taboo of eating beef among the
Indians. One, of course, cannot ignore the European's hospitality in offering an alternative
and preferable food to the reluctant Indians. In a larger context, the passage shows the novel
drawing attention to the inherent problems in the way of accommodation and the other
culture-specific problems.

The fact to be taken into account is that the White colonialists are also a part of the
diaspora in Africa. Though most of them are conscious of their temporary stay here, they
make conscious efforts to make adjustment and accommodation. Corbin is generally tolerant
and accommodating. He treats Mukhi Jamali with deference. He treats Pipa fairly well. He
almost falls in love with Mariamu, and perhaps never forgets her. He tries to be of help to
Akber Ali who is allegedly his and Mariamu's illegitimate son. When Mukhi Jamali dies,
he, in spite of his preoccupations as D.C., sends word to Khanoum, Jamali's African wife.
His meeting with Khanoum brings out his generous nature.

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 The relationship between the Indian migrants and the Africans, as depicted in the

novel, is not free from problems born of culture, racial and religious differences and political

exigencies. The Shamsis, being practical and business-minded, lose no time in making

necessary adjustment and accommodation. The earliest migrants which include Mukhi Jamali

learn native languages, mix up with local people and even marry native women. Jamali has

the native wife in Khanoum and has half-caste children.

But despite the cultural mix-up at the familial level, the problems persist on the
community level between the Indians and the natives. In the colonial era, these problems
remain dormant. The fields of operation being different, there arise no serious disputes or
violent clashes between the Indian shopkeepers and the native tribal people who are mainly
porters, soldiers or farmers. The members of both the communities, despite apparent
apprehensions, depend upon one another for their daily needs. The exploited, over-worked
and under-paid African porters are always thought to pose a danger to an isolated Englishman
or an Indian. The under-currents of tensions between Indians and Africans come to the
fore when Khanoum finds herself deserted by the Indian community after her husband's
death :

Without her husband, or material means, Khanoum was

ignored by the community that she had embraced so
wholeheartedly. The status she had held was forgotten. And
so she turned away from them, bitter and sad, but not defeated.
She had an Indian boy in her keep and them half-Indian
children of her own; she was their Mama. (p. 192)

To hurt her self-pride and self-respect some elders of the Shamsi community approach her

to give the child to some Indian family, if she so desires. She reminds them that once she,

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too, was the leader of the community, looked after its welfare, helped run its mosque, buried

its dead and welcomed new arrivals. "Does this black self lessen in value now that its brown

partner is gone? Has my soul lost anything, or my honour? Eti, have my abilities as woman

and mother been diminished?" (p. 197) she asks in a heart-rending tone. One day two Indian

women, with a letter from Pipa, come to take the boy to his father in Dar-es-Salaam. They

tempt the boy to go to his father who is rich and with whom he will have great future. When

Khanoum sees that Ali, too, has become interested in going to his father, she herself allows

him to leave : "Go and be with your father. You have a future with him." (p. 198) Ali goes

with the promise to come back, but she knows she is not going to see him again. Years later,

one of her grandsons whom the narrator meets during one of his fact-finding journeys

regarding Corbin's diary expresses his hidden anger against the Indians. Being half Indian

and half African, he must have experienced the agony of being in a diasporic situation of

being neither here nor there. He tells the narrator:

"...I don't like the old man speaking the Indian language,
singing their song. For what the Indians did to my
grandmother. They did not recognize her when her husband
died, they took away her adopted son and let her die in
poverty." (p. 181)

Such episodes show the mutual distrust between the two communities. Two years before

independence, Pipa is coerced by one of the emerging leaders of freedom struggle to part

with some money. Pipa, the miser as he is, refuses to oblige him. The remarks of the teacher-

leader shake him out of his wits."It's his right. You know, Pipa, come independence and

we'll send you back where you came from" (p.276). The words are a potent of the shape of

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things to come for the Indian community after the independence. They malce Pipa react
indignantly:
I come from Moshi. My mother and father - I don't know
where from. Many places perhaps. Where will you send me?
Tell me so I can prepare. And you will give the store to
someone who will give free cigarettes to lazy teachers - and
perhaps God will supply your country with free presents, (pp.
276-277)

Though the leader relents a bit and tries to placate Pipa, the inner feelings and intentions of

the would-be rulers, thus, become public.

The Book of Secrets shows the well-entrenched mutual feelings of dislike and hatred

in the minds of both the Indians and the Blacks. Indians in Africa show their colour prejudice
Q

while dealing with the blacks even today. In the novel, even the enlightened narrator

Fernandes displays his aversion for the Blacks while referring to the freedom struggle being

waged relentlessly by the natives in the neighbouring Kenya :

Times were moving fast for all of us. In Kenya, the Mau-Mau
war was on, and there were fears it would spill over into
Tanganyika... To the shopkeepers, the British government,
the Queen at its head, was absolute ruler. How could the
mighty British give way to the African, the servant? (p.264)

Obviously, the Indians, representing the business class, prefer stability and like to be ruled

by the British. The Blacks want self-rule, and hate Indians for being the British agents for

furthering their interests. But still there are people on both sides who are above such

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prejudices. When there is talk of independence in Tanganyika, they are filled with new

hopes and cheerful confidence. Fernandes welcomes the exciting times and comes to sport

the bright collarless 'khanga' shirt, which makes Gregory to remark : "Have you become a

man of people now, Pius?" (p.273). But the initial euphoria of the Indians soon gives way to

apprehensions. After achieving freedom, the new rulers and their followers, with their extreme

unfairness of approach and racial discriminatory policies, prove that they are no better than

their colonial masters. They usurp the centre of power to push to the edge the already

marginalized. It is this sameness of attitude of the colonial and the post-colonial that has

been quite disturbing. And in fact, there is now a strong claim to "the effect that there is and

was no such historical pha.se and phenomenon as the 'colonial' outside the 'post-colonial',

and that two are virtually one and the same thing." The manner in which Tanzanian

(Tanganyika) government imitates the dictatorial socialism of China by seizing the properties

of Indian immigrants without paying any compensation, and by imposing forced labour,

cultural codes of conduct, etc. creates chaotic conditions for the Indian diaspora. The 'Uganda'

exodus, together with these incidents, force many Indians and other immigrants to migrate

to the United States, Canada, India and other countries. Hassan Punja and Pipa both die

when the news of nationalization of rented properties spread in Dar-es-Salaam. Their deaths

are symbolic of the death of a dream, a hope and a way of life :

Naked we come and naked we return, the Shamsis sang in

their funeral hymns but that teacher, Mwalimu who became
the president, didn't have to hurry them along.(p.312)

It is not very strange that the Indian diaspora has always passively borne the brunt of racial

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oppression. Racism, in the words of Dan Glenday and Ann Duffy, "is an inherently political

phenomenon and race relations are essentially group power contests". To diminish racism,

the migrants need to politicize their response by vesting their interests in political parlies

and state institutions, and thus consolidate and demonstrate their political power. Unluckily,

the Shamsis do nothing of the sort.

The idea of dislocation, marginality and the loss of identity are interrelated. When

people feel dislocated, they fee! marginalized and also fear for their identity. In the colonial

world of Africa where the real centre of power is formed of the expatriates (the British or

the Germans), the Indian and other migrant communities are somehow able to keep their

culture-specific identities intact. There is no doubt that the threats to their modes of living

are many and real, but they face and overcome them boldly and tactfully. The English

missionaries Miss Elliot and Mrs. Baily have worked on many a native Africans to make

them Christians and, by and large, have succeeded in their so-called "civilizing" mission.

But they fail with the Indians and call them "half-savages" :

At least the African you can mould. But the Indian and the
Mussulman are incorrigible in their worst habits and
superstitions. They will always remain so... The African
yearns for our top hat and elastic-side boots, but the Indian
will never let go his dhoti and will forever remain half-naked.
(pp.39-40)

When Corbin sends Mariamu to the Missionaries after having rescued her from the whip of

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the exorcist (the maalim), the proselytizers are at their game again. But Mariamu is soon
sent back to the community on the orders of the administrator. Miss Elliot laments her
failure to convert the girl: "She was such perfect material for conversion" (p.86). Significantly,
the administration in both German and English East Africa remains largely neutral in matters
of religion and culture. As such, no real identity crisis exists for the migrant communities in
the colonial period.

The migrants are able to cairy on with their culture-specific activities. Indians observe
their traditions and perform their rituals faithfully. The Shamsi Muslims regularly go to the
mosque to pray. They do not forget their traditional meal of 'chapati' and vegetables. They
organize religious and other festivities, perform the 'garba' and the 'dandya' and, in fact,
they do everything that would distinguish them as Indians. Even the Englishmen like Corbin
are attracted by the colours and sounds of their dances and songs, the beat of the dhol and
drums, the screaching of the harmonium and the flavour of Indian food. It is ironic that
whereas Corbin is interested in enjoying the Indian food sent to him at the end of festival,
his servant Thomas, an Indian convert, discourages him from eating it, calling it "Heathen
food" : "All the same, sir, 1 will bring English food. Christian. I give this witchcraft to the
police." (p.44).

The Indian Shamsis are always zealous to guard their religious identity. Cultural
memories "do not allow the individual to snap ties with the past."" They set up mosques
and insist on prayers. Friday prayers are special for all of them. In order to commemorate
the sixty years in office of their spiritual leader Suleiman Pir, they decide to celebrate the
event as a jubilee. Thousands of Shamsis from different parts of the world come to Dar-es-
Salaam, the site for the celebration. They contribute millions into a fund meant for new
schools and homes for every family. The children born during the year are given names

116
connected with the celebrated event such as Diamond, Almas, Jubilee Begum, Jawahir, etc.

When Suleiman Pir passes away, the whole community weeps in unison. He had been around

so long that nobody ever thought that he was mortal. For forty days the Shamsis pray and

wail for the man who "advised them on everything, from what was a good thing to eat for

breakfast to the hazards of too much tea-drinking, from throwing away the burkha-veil to

adopting English in schools" (p.266).

It is through one's beliefs, prejudices and superstitions that one's cultural identity is
clearly revealed and established. Many Indians, for instance, still strongly believe that people
are possessed by evil spirits. They have faith in supernatural powers. Hence, the Indian
Shamsis in the novel have their exorcists or maalims who play active role in their day-to-
day life. Corbin is shocked to see an old maalim whipping the poor girl Mariamu in the
belief that she is possessed. He orders the maalim to stop and take the girl away, much to the
rage of the family members and others present on the occasion. Mukhi Jamali approaches
Corbin the next day and pleads for the release of their daughter from the custody of the
missionary ladies. When Corbin complains of maltreatment of the girl, he tries to explain :

"Bwana Corbin. You don't understand... excuse, please. It

was not she but a shetani, a spirit. The shetani had to be driven
away..."

"Do you believe in all that stuff.. .spirits?"

"But of course, bwana. Everyone does"... (p.70)

The conversation between the two men belonging to two different races and cultures

underlines two different approaches to life and its problems with a cultural context. Mukhi

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Jamali provides details about the incidents involving spirits. He narrates how Mariamu,
under the spell of the evil spirit, behaves strangely, attacks her own mother and uses filthy
language. One day the lamps inside the mosque flicker out. Deathly silence follows. All the
people get frightened. The next evening when one of the incarnations of God, the man-lion,
is recalled, a scream is heard. People get out and run away. They come to Mariamu's house
and find the girl sitting "wide-eyed on the floor, indecently, laughing hysterically" (p.71).
Then the maalim is called to cure the girl. The Mukhi refers to another case, that of a girl
suffering horribly under the spell of the devil of fever. Corbin's reaction to his irrational
talks is on the predictable line. He refuses to believe what he says. Yet, ironically, the same
exorcist who treats Mariamu is summoned to cure Corbin when he suffers from a strange
high fever, chanting verses of the Koran and other incantations, some in an unfamiliar dialect.
There is another instance of superstitious behaviour of the Shamsis. The Mukhi narrates the
horrible experience of the labourers picked up by man-eating lions at Tsavo. The horror is
compounded when the realization dawns upon others that the "tormentors were not real
lions at all but the spirits of those who had perished in the desert" (p.50).

The appearance and disappearance of Mariamu's apparition to Pipa is in itself an

unresolved mystery. It dramatizes the Indian belief in the immortality of soul and the existence
of life beyond death. The novel gains in mystery when Mariamu's apparition converses with
Pipa: "... she was not only a voice, an image in the past. She spoke to him in the present, as
when she said, "Oh, but how easily men forget. You are happy now,." (p.217). At another
time Mariamu pleads with him to let her watch him and the boy, her son Ali. When he asks
her the embarrassing question : "Did you and the mazungu - (p.217), she disappears. When
he mentions her appearance to some of his acquaintances, he is told about the community
belief in the existence of spirits.

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 The Shamsi community, like any other community in India, is basically patriarchal,

and male hegemony is the hallmark of its traditional cultural identity. Despite apparent

changes in the outlook of some forward-looking, educated Shamsis, the ordinary Shamsi

looks at the status of women as one of 'property', belonging to the individual male as well

as to the institutions of family and community. It can be easily discerned that nothing much

changes for the Shamsi woman even in an alien land where cultures and races freely

mingle. It remains a taboo for Indian girls to enjoy privacy with boys, and they are expected

to prove their virginity on their wedding nights. Men, on the other hand, could get away

with lechery. In The Dark Side of the Nation, Himani Bannerji explicates a woman's fate in

such a society :

Any deviance from the domestic patriarchy of family

(extended into wider kinship networks), from strict
heterosexist codes, is a pathway to shame and punishment.
This may range from censure to physical violence and social
ostracism by the community. Women, and involved men, who
help to bring about sexual disgrace may even be killed.

In The Book of Secrets, there are several episodes which reveal the contours of the

cultural identity of the traditional, patriarchal society, and the way the challenges to it are

seen and met. That Indian Shamsis in Africa are obsessive about their girls' virginity becomes

clear from the public shaming of Mariamu. On the wedding night, Pipa has sex with his

wife Mariamu and is exhilarated by the usual male idea of virility : "The deed was done,

twice. Come morning he would show the soiled sheet, banner of his triumph..." (p. 105).

But soon he is horrified on realizing that his wife had already lost her virginity and that he

119
has been befooled. He shouts for Mariamu's uncle, Mukhi Jamali, and says: "So you thought

you would cheat Pipa, you! Take your whore back, Jamali!" (p. 105) He disgraces his wife in

public. Later, of course, he becomes remorseful, and is reconciled to the situation. He gives

up the idea of divorcing Mariamu which he can as per the Islamic traditions and patriarchal

injunctions. His constant love for her, even after her death, redeems him of his outrageous

behaviour.

The tradition of overprotectiveness of girls of the community leads to many a tragedy-

big and small. The Shamsi girl Parviz falls in love with a Hindu bookkeeper named Patani.
One night of festivities at the Shamsi mosque a couple of youths who have been spying on
the lovers catch Parviz red-handed emerging out of Patani's room. They force her to appear
before the congregation at the mosque and confess her sin. She is shamed in public. Patani
is roughed up in his room the next day by some hooligans of the community. His belongings
are ransacked. The whole incident becomes a leading story in The Herald, resulting in an
unsavoury controversy over the use of the words "Shamsi thugs" (p.259). The matter does
not end here. Parviz is insulted with indecent comments and innuendoes wherever she goes.
One day a woman says behind her quite audibly, "If I were she I would jump into the ocean
and die" (p.260). The next day Parviz drowns herself into the sea. The shock of the incident
shakes up the whole community, and people begin to find faults with their behaviour and
traditions at large ;

What happened, why so fast?A quick judgement, a quick

death. What have we done? What happened to "Forgive and
forget", the motto of the forties that we so conveniently
adopted? What happened to mercy. She will haunt us, this
girl, we will never be sure of ourselves. She has judged us.
She mocks us. In that, she lives, (pp. 260-261)

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The elopement of Rita with Ali causes a sort of scandal in the community. Rita and Ali both

have to patiently bear the angry reaction of their community. In London, they face a virtual

social boycott in the beginning. Their families back home in Africa feel humiliated and

scandalized. Ali gets the divorce from his wife with great difficulty. He marries Rita in a

mosque. Though Rita's parents become instrumental in getting Ali a formal divorce, they

never forgive Rita. With a sense of great hurt and anguish, Rita recalls :

... I had no contacts with my parents, even my brothers and

sisters. My parents never forgave me. I wrote every week, I
pleaded, wept over my letters. Please, I said, please, please
listen. What is done is done, I cannot undo it, forgive and
give me your blessings. They did not reply. That hurt a lot.
(p.283)

Unlike her husband, Rita, well-awakened and well-educated, remains a conservative Indian

at heart. She continues to attend the Friday prayer in the mosque. Despite being deserted by

Ali, she remains loyal to him. She is happy with the fact that she is still called Mrs. Ali,

though Ali no longer lives with her and her children. She goes to the extent of suppressing

the bitter truth about All's doubtful lineage. She meets Fernandes, once her teacher, and

persuades him to part with the diary containing the truth about Ali and his mother. Like a

loyal Indian wife, she makes all-out efforts to save her husband from public disgrace. She

calls him 'he' in the traditional way of an Indian wife, and remains silent on All's involvement

in some shady deal in the Falklands war, as Fernandes notes ;

Ever a traditional wife, you like to call your husband "he",

Rita. And what about the Falklands, Rita? Was this the

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 Argentinian connection through Rosita, some service rendered
in the war? She declines to comment, (p.292)

It is significant to note that Rita is not the only girl who disappoints her parents and hurts
their traditional mind-set. Some other girls from the Shamsi community, too, break off with
their orthodox past and elope with men and reach London. Rita tells the narrator :

One had run away to marry a Hindu from South Africa; she
lives in Harrow now and they own a grocery store. Another
girl, from Kariakoo, ran away with a boy from the Jafferi
sect-a crime much worse than mine. She is divorced and lives
with her daughters in Toronto, (p.283)

Such deviances from the domestic codes of community are regarded as pathways to shame,
and punishment in forms of stony silence, social ostracism and even physical violence by
the community.

The upwardly mobile males, when backed by patriarchal customs like polygamy,
often become rakes and sometimes even misogynists. AH, who marries Sherbanoo to acquire
status in society, develops illicit relationship with a young girl Rita and elopes to London.
The higher he rises in financial position the lower he falls in morality. After marrying Rita,
he becomes attached to a teacher named Alice. Rita narrates her shocking experience :

How I wept, made scenes. Wrote home. Her name was Alice.
She came from Spain but had an American mother. At LSE,
and a little older than me. If I had heard from my family, I
would have left. But I didn't. And he gave her up. (p.285)

But there is no end to All's escapades. He begins more openly to have flings with women.

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Finally, he chooses Rosita, an Argentinean girl, somewhat younger than Rita. Many men in

the traditional Shamsi community continue to feel superior and subordinate their women.

They believe that wives have to be fertile and could be maltreated for not bearing sons.

Though identity remains more or less stable, it undergoes perceptible changes at

times. With the change in the value-system, nothing remains the same. Vassanji shows in

this novel how the traditional Shamsis shed many of their inhibitions. They begin to insist

on the education of their girl-children. They open the Girls' School for the purpose. They

want their boys to be well-educated, for which purpose they arrange the best faculty and

infrastructure for the Boys' School. Teachers come from India and England to provide quality

education. The forward-looking Shamsis give up their insistence on "purdah/burkha" for

their women. The new generation of Shamsi boys and girls is all set to acquire modern,

liberal outlook. The girls openly discuss tabooed topics like films, romance, love and sex.

The Hindi film songs are a craze with them. They talk openly about film stars like Garbo,

Betty Grabble, Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor, Gary Cooper, Gene Kelly, Carry Grant, Rita

Hay worth and Nargis. The lines from Hindi film Anarkali - "Yeh Zindagi usiki hai ... (The

world belongs to the one who loves...)" (p.242), hummed by the young girls, reflect the

new mode and mood of living. Rita, in particular, is a model of a liberated woman. The

narrator reveals one particular instance when Rita, by her liberated manners, invites trouble

for herself:

Rita's father had been a bank clerk in Zanzibar, now retired.

What progressiveness that background (similar to mine)
signified, perhaps was cause for her boldness, was why she

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 stood out. I know that once she was mobbed on market street
for wearing a sleeveless dress and high heels, (p.244)

That Rita is unlike any other traditional Shamsi girl exemplifies in her elopement with an

already married man.

The Indian diaspora, on the community level, thus shows a remarkable ingenuity to
look progressive and forward in spite of their conservatism in certain religious and cultural
matters. In order to fit themselves in the complex social structure of their adopted lands,
some of them, particularly among the second and third generations of Shamsis, speak Swahili
fluently. They also begin to learn English and play cricket. For the welfare of their community,
the Shamsis arrange to open dispensaries, welfare organizations, community councils, sports
clubs, youth organizations, and other such associations. For entertainment Dar-es-Salaam
comes to have theatres where current Hindi films are shown. Films from England vie with
Hindi movies there. In Girls' School opened by the Shamsis, there is an air of openness and
modernity.

In the colonial East Africa (both British and German territories) the immigrants —

Indians and Arabs, etc. — and other "expatriates"'^ form a complex relationship with both

the colonial masters and the black natives, and experience the feeling of what Homi K.

Bhaba calls "in-betweenness" and of belonging "nowhere". The Book of Secrets does not

overtly narrativize the identity-crisis born out of such feelings, but brings out in subtle

manner the undercurrents of the inevitable consequences of racial interactions. The diasporic

situation of "inbetweenness" can be guessed from the continual drift in the life of Akber Ali

and the complex feelings of love and hatred in the mind of Young Jamali - the two characters

of mixed parentage. The gap between his world of spiritual values and the sheer materialism

124
of London — where he migrates — makes AH a drifter. He continues pursuing girls, changing
jobs and wives, and seems to be in quest of his real identity, as becomes clear from his
meetings with Corbin, his alleged father. His tender feelings towards Pipa, after the death of
his step-brother, are indicative of his roots, howsoever fragile, in the land and the community
to which his mother Mariamu belonged. It is clear that he cannot altogether dispense with
his spiritual heritage. The case of Young Jamali, the son of the Indian father and the African
mother, is almost the same. Though not as lucky as Ali in material terms, he shares with Ali
a nagging sense of uncertainty, of belonging to "nowhere".

The poet-teacher Richard Gregory, representative of the White expatriates in

Tanganyika, expresses the diasporic sense of loss in an alien land beautifully in his poem
entitled "Brown Man" (referring unmistakably to his friend Femandes, the narrator of the
story):

He will endure
in sweet tan innocence
inert untouched
hardy transplant
in the region's new sun...

While I
pale and larva soft
wither
in African heat. (pp. 317-318)

This brief poem brings out in vivid terms the poignancy of alienation felt by an expatriate

who realizes his inability to cope with the changing political scenario in the newly independent

country in which he feels suffocated. Salman Rushdie says that "exiles or emigrants or

125
expatriates are haunted by some sense of loss, some urge to reclaim, to look back ..."

Though Gregory is haunted by a sense of loss, he does not have the urge to look back. He

has been in Africa for decades and has voluntarily and deliberately chosen to live in an alien

land. He is not a part of the colonial power structure. That he considers himself to be a part

of natural inhabitants of the land is clearly portrayed in a highly emotive scene. At the

funeral rites of Pipa's son who dies of a deadly illness, he is seen "wearing a suit, wiping

sweat from his face, also mouthing the kalima along with the others" (p.280). This chanting

of "kalima" is significant in that it is indicative of emotional bondage, of willing adoption

of alien customs, and even of symbolic accommodation :

There are certain events that make you a part of a place. This
was one of them, for Gregory : the death of a child in a
community he had served. What point in asking him, taunting
him, at the Barbers' Club : Mr. Gregory, after independence,
where next - South Africa? Where but Dar? (p.280)

When the new rulers, in their excessive zeal to claim loyalty from the diasporas, ask them to

renounce their former citizenship, Gregory gives up his British passport. His action

comes as a surprise, at least to his friend Fernandes, as one is not used to seeing

Englishmen renouncing England. Gregory's calm but sardonic response is characteristic of

his personality :

"I've lived here most of my life, now", he said. "This is home..

Besides, if something were to happen to me and I got kicked
out, England, that bitch, would always accept me - but not
you, Pius. Wrong colour, (p.305)

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His subsequent experience with the new dispensation in independent Tanzania turns out to

be thoroughly bad and proves to be fatal for him. The neo-colonial'^ masters, in the manner

of Mao's Red Guards, ordain every student and teacher to cultivate vegetables in the plot of

land given to every school. Twice a week, during the dreaded "shamba period" at Boys'

School, overtaken by the government, every boy and teacher uses spades to dig the earth.

The whole digging-scene, as recalled by the narrator, himself a teacher and the involved

parly, is reminiscent of slavery times in the colonial period :

Mr. Kabir, the Math teacher, bent over almost double under
the weight of two spades, Gregory holding a machete as if in
pursuit of a robber or beast; grey, bearded Desouza with hoe
for a staff, eyes on the hill ahead, a latter-day Moses; and
boys, digging, persistently digging... (p.308)

During such a "shamba period", while digging deep, Gregory falls into one of the three-foot

deep ditches. He has had sunstroke and narrowly misses the sharp end of a hoe. He is

dragged out and carried to a hospital near to his house. He is discharged from the hospital

the next day. But the incident leaves him frail and aged. He is readmitted several times in the

hospital with dizzy spells. He does not recover, slowly decays, and dies.

Gregory's last meeting with his friend Fernandes reveals the agony of his mind torn

apart by two bets of cultural values, contradictory feelings and a sense of utter loss and

perhaps nostalgia. Fernandes finds him, "hunched, with a pained look on his face as if the

world had come crashing down around him and he was in the midst of the debris..." (p.310).

Under the influence of alcohol and the pressure of overriding emotions, Gregory gives vent

to the sense of void and futility he has experienced for long :

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 "Tell me, Femandes — Pius — if you had to do it all over
again, would you? Dammit, spend a lifetime to teach, I mean...
farther away than you ever imagined. Would you?" (p.310)

The soul-stirring words make Fernandes think about their achievements in life. He, too, is

assaulted by the negative feelings, perhaps for the first time. Meanwhile, he finds Gregory

weeping and wiping his eyes. He tries to comfort him and lies down beside him until he

sleeps in his arms. He experiences a strange loneliness at this time :

Of that moment I remember a feeling of dislocation, a sense

of empathy; a feeling of being utterly alone, with another
human being in my arms. The sound of waves in the distance.
An occasional car on the road outside, (p.310)

This is not altogether strange that the sense of loneliness and alienation is equally shared by
Gregory, a White expatriate and Fernandes, an Indian migrant. Femandes' experience in
Africa is typically diasporic experience of a sense of loss, bewilderment and frustration. His
journey from India, his homeland, to Africa in 1950 started on a euphoric note. Together
with his companions Steve Desuza and Kuldip Singh, he comes to settle in Dar-es-Salaam
and dedicate himself to his chosen profession whole-heartedly. He harbours no cultural or
identity problem in the beginning. His interaction with the Shamsi Indians, the black natives
and the whites brings out the best of historian in him. His tolerance of other races, his
objectivity and fairness turns him into an appropriate narrator of a text of which he is an
inseparable part and to which he contributes a sub-text - his own story/history.

Though Fernades is intensely aware of the new threats to the diasporic identities

from the new rulers after the process of decolonization is set in motion, he shows no sign of

128
panic. He never thinks of remigrating as do others in his position. In unambiguous terms, he

says : "I of course had chosen to throw in my lot with the new nation" (p.274). The pain he

finds on Gregory's face, he realizes, is that of the exile, "not for the loss of home but for the

loss of his inspiration" (p.275). Obviously, he shares this pain with him. When Gregory asks

him pointedly if he would like to be a teacher again and repeat this life, he finds himself at

his wits' end :

I was dumbfounded, and for the first time the thought came
to me : What exactly had we achieved? Some satisfaction,
yes, in having brought up a generation - but what comfort
that, in lonely old age? (p.310)

It is an insightful remark. It reflects a greater deal more on the ideological order of a new

society than on an individual experience. We are made to realize that there is something

seriously amiss somewhere in the new dispensation. The trend of regimentation and

Africanization, however noble and pious in its intent, is resented and comes to be seen as a

symbol of victimization of the settler communities. The indiscriminate forcing of manual

labour on the young as well as old teachers in educational institutions in Tanganyika has its

long-term negative impact. Gregory falls a victim to the misplaced nationalism. Like him,

others too see no reason in regimenting activities, and prefer quitting the country to slaving

and dying in disgrace.

Femandes is a representative of the victimized diaspora in times of socialist regime

in independent Tanganyika. The Shamsi Boys' School where he has taught for years is

nationalised. He finds drastic change in the outlook of the school authorities as well as the

129
students. When he is made to retire, he feels lonely. He feels he should have left after

Gregory's death. But his problem is that he does not know where to go. "Only filial duty

would have taken me to India, but by then both my parents were dead", he reflects. He feels

the city where he first landed forty years ago has so grown on him that it is an extension of

his self. "I will never shed it" (p.316), he declares.

In this way, Fernades tries to negotiate the identity crisis and meet the challenge to
both his existence and cultural identity. He seeks solace in the fact that a number of his

former students are still there to recognize and respect him. He makes his choice out of love

and not out of compulsion :

I am not one to dwell upon paths not taken, to speculate on

what might have been. Here I am, where I have arrived; this
is my credo. Gregory would say. To live is to risk, and so you
did not live. To which my schoolgirls of 1950 would put a
more filmic gloss : "The world belongs to the one who loves",
(pp.316-317)

Like other diasporic protagonists of Vassanji, Fernandes, too, remains hopeful. Fully aware

of the threats and challenges to his life, status and honour, he is ready to take up his new

part-time teaching assignment. He is excited at the new opportunity of teaching boys and

girls of mixed race, "bright, with fresh hopes and promise, whose up-to-date experiences

and outlooks are bound to challenge and rejuvenate even this old teacher" (p.332). These

words signify an affirmation of faith in the future and a sort of promise of accommodation,

necessary for relocation, integration and involvement. Fernandes' resolve not to return to

India signifies his readiness to bear the tensions of isolation and survival. Vijay Mishra says

130
that one of "the overriding characteristics of diaporas is that diasporas do not, as a general
rule, return."'^

Through Rita's account of racial discrimination and oppression in London, Vassanji

parallels racism of the Black Natives in independent Africa with that of the Whites in a

developed country like England. Though details are not given, there are casual references to

the maltreatment of the migrants in London. Rita tells Fernandes :

I took shorthand-typing and had work within weeks. They

treated you like servants, then... but I don't think we minded,
not at first, not that much... We worked late, were asked to
clean up, had our bottoms pinched; a girl was raped, another
became pregnant, (pp.283-284)

Ali, too, has to bear the brunt of racial behaviour. Though proud and handsome, he begins
his career by being a waiter. As he keeps his spirits high and exploits every opportunity, he
soon succeeds in his ambitions and becomes a highly rich and powerful person. However,
other immigrants are not so lucky as he is. A few even "gassed themselves... in error or
deliberately, who knows" (p.284). Even Rita feels ill at ease, and regrets her coming to
London : "Did I have regrets? Yes.Who wouldn't? From Dar's favourite girl, coddled and
pampered, to this—a drudge" (p.284).

All's meteoric rise in an alien land is one of those pleasant diasporic experiences

which make other potential migrants to sit up and take note of. His ability to quickly adjust

to new surroundings in a foreign land is remarkable. He reminds us of Jamal, a successful

lawyer from Africa in Canada, in Vassanji's A'o New Land. AH and Jamal are both aggressive,

131
go-getters and goal-oriented. Nothing deters them from moving ahead on the path of success.

Unlike Jamal, however, Ali is ruthless in his approach to life. He takes to western language

and culture with nothing short of vengeance-perhaps it owes much to his white blood in his

veins. Rita recalls :

He was indomitable. However tired and defeated and broken

down he was in the evening, the next morning, there he was,
the prince—or deposed chief's son, as some believed, he never
made clear. Oh, he could have sold them the Taj Mahal.
Especially when he wore his astrakhan... He learnt the English
accent, the real thing; proper. And he was learning Spanish.
(p.284)

From being a poor waiter, he moves to be the manager of the Museum Cafe, to the share
holder of Mr. Eisen's company which he ultimately comes to own. He moves his family to
the posh area. Beach Grove in Hampstead. He remains undaunted in the face of negative
publicity—"nouveau riche" (p.289), "a son of an oriental chieftain" (p.290), etc. He would
say ; "Noweau riche, so what... it is still riche; weren't the Normans nouveau once? And
didn't the English live in caves once?" (p.289).

The London society, of course, influences All's moral values. Being a half-caste, he
is not bothered about his past identity. He becomes derisive of Indian ways. He begins to
avoid the mosque and consider himself to be outside the community. He has his flings with
women. He moves quickly from Alice, his Spanish teacher, to Rosita, a glamorous
Argentinian with British ancestry, deserting his decaying wife Rita with whom he eloped to
London in the first place, leaving behind his first wife Sherbanoo in Dar-es-Salaam.
It is characteristic of Vassanji to give expression to the socio-political changes that
shape the lives of the diaspora in different countries. He parallels the cases of racism in

132
Africa with those in developed countries. He shows in concrete terms how history influences
cultural and social systems. In The Gunny Sack, there are elaborate references to the historical
events — the Maji Maji revolt, the Mau Mau upsurge, riots in Kenya, the violent reaction
against Indians in Uganda - that changed for ever the lives of the Indian communities in
Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda. In No New Land, too, there are references to these events. In
The Book of Secrets, the focus remains on the main characters - Pipa, Corbin, Ali and the
dead Mariamu — even though there are references to the winds of change on the political
plane that shake the whole migrant communities. Interestingly, there are Mzee Pipa and
Pipa store in The Gunny Sack as also in The Book of Secrets. Salim Juma, the narrator in The
Gunny Sack, has the same strong historical sense as that of Pius Femandes, the narrator in
The Book of Secrets.

It is remarkable how in the novel the individual, social, historical and political levels
are linked together through the story or history of Pipa - Mariamu - Corbin, three main
characters of the story. To forge a complex of these links Vassanji has used various narrative
devices - the diary entries, Femandes' explanatory narrative, letters, recollections of the
past. Appendices, memoranda and the omniscient narration by the author himself. All these
devices "go on to make the text a magnificent tapestry of narrative devices - all in an effort
1R
to capture the history of a community..."
What Vassanji has shown through the simple story of the Shamsis in The Book of
Secrets is that the colonial past is not an aberration : the colonial situation recurs through
time, as becomes evident from the colonial behaviour of exploitation and victimization of
the diasporas by the new rulers in South Africa. Corbin's diary - which has captured souls of
people and their secrets in its pages - becomes a metaphor for never-ending mysterious
relationships that come to develop between persons, races and nations, as also between the
past and the present.

133
 NOTES

1. M.G. Vassanji, The Book of Secrets (Toronto McClelland & Stewart, 1994), pp. 203-

204. The subsequent references given in the text in parentheses are from this edition.

2. See the myth of Orpheus in Mythology : Notes (Indian rpt.; Ludhiana : Kalyani

Publishers, 1993), pp. 93-95

3. M.G. Vassanji, The Gunny Sack (Oxford : Heinemann, 1989), p. 10.

4. Ibid., p.52.

5. M.G. Vassanji, No New Land (Toronto : McCelland & Stewart, 1991), pp.24-25.

6. Harish Narang, Politics as Fiction : The Novels ofNgugi Wa Thiong'o (New Delhi :

Creative Books, 1995), p.39.

7. Urbashi Barat, "From Resistance to Reconciliation : Narrativizing Colonialsm in

Vassanji's The Book of Secrets & Gooneratne's The Pleasures of Conquest", Re-

Markings, 2, No. 1 (March 2003), pp. 28-29.

8. According to a news report, a Durban-based cashier of Indian origin "insulted" the

Black VC. of a technical college "by not putting the change in his hand after serving

him, but instead placing it on the counter". See The Tribune, 25 Nov. 2004, p.20.

9. Harish Trivedi, "India and Post-Colonial Discourse" in Harish Trivedi and Meenakshi

Mukherjee ed. Interrogating Post-Colonialism: Theory, Text and Context (Shimla :

Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, 1996), p.233.

10. Rick Ponting, "Racial Conflict: Turning the Heat Up" in Dan Glenday & Ann Duffy

ed. Canadian Society: Understanding and Surviving in the 1990s (Toronto: McClelland

& Stewart, 1994), p. 112.

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11. Jasbir Jain (ed.), "Introduction" in Dislocations and Multiculturalisms (Jaipur: Rawat

Publications, 2004), p.xii.

12. Himani Bannerji, The Dark Side of the Nation : Essays on Multiculturalism,

Nationalism and Gender (Toronto : Canadian Scholars' Press, 2000), p. 169.

13. According to C. Vijaysree, an expatriate lives in alien country for some time, with the

possibility of returning to his country. He may opt to become a permanent immigrant.

However, there is no essential difference between an expatriate and an immigrant as

"no clean break from one's culture has ever been possible or real. A total delink is

only a myth." See his "The Politics and Poetics of Expatriation : The Indian Version(s)",

Interrogating Post-Colonialism, p.221.

14. Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London : Routledge, 1990), p.l.

15. Salman Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands (London : GrantaA^iking, 1991), p. 10.

16. According to Harish Trivedi, the neo-colonial admits of no difference in attitudes of

the colonial and the post-colonial. See his "India and Post-Colonial Discourse" in

Interrogating Post-Colonialism, p.233.

17. Vijay Mishra, "New Lamp for Old Diasporas Migrancy Border" in Interrogating Post-

Colonialism, p.75.

18. Harish Narang, "Nations within Nations : Canada, India and Tanzania in The Book of

Secrets", Indian Journal of Canadian Studies, 1 (1998), p.74.

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