Chapter One

That Roti Girl

Rolling that last roti had zapped all the strength I could muster. Emotionally and physically. It was the last one and then I was finally done. Done. That’s how I felt while painstakingly rolling the dough into a neat round. Everything seems a chore when life is crooked and out of shape. When the tentacles of a cold-blooded sadness get a grip on you, all passion evaporates. Simple tasks have no meaning and everyday activities are a mindless chapter. From the mundane routine of housework, social activities and even the sacred sex, everything transforms from what was once filled with passion to gut-wrenching duty. Pity that life was not as simple. If only I had a rolling pin to smooth out my edges. My mind drifted, and by the time the raw dough began sizzling in the buttered pan my life was flashing before me…

I had three children, a boring life and traded my once perfect body for a load of clinging kilograms. The shapely body that was once a slender forty kilograms had doubled in size, like yeast. Comfort eating was nursing the old hurt. You know that hole you feel in your tummy, no matter how much you eat, you never feel full? Food, glorious food becomes the antidote for the void you think you feel in your belly. That emptiness travels from belly to heart to mind and back again and like an addict you unconsciously pack away everything that’s extra sweet or too salty or overly greasy. And of-course the overdose on carbs. Eating became the band aid plaster for all that pain I had buried inside. Chocolate, slap-chips, dessert, hmmm, rubbish- food was comfort food.

Chronic disease such as diabetes and thyroid problems had mercilessly devoured my health. Negative emotions and disease, whether psychosomatic or genetic, seemed to be running a marathon across the invisible tracks of cells in my body, and who knew which of the two deserved the medal for arriving first, the emotions or the disease?

Dark circles like a shaded art project hung beneath my eyes. My bed time dreams had turned into all-night pillow tears and a dull ache deep in my heart. Passion was long gone. Instead, my emotions were as messed up as my health and I was not beautiful anymore. I hated myself. Self-judgement and self-loathe was to be my greatest saboteur.

That was the greatest nightmare, hidden beneath a fairy tale shared by so many women like me: the perfect life and the happy couple with the pigeon-pair kids. A live-in domestic, gardener and nanny. The accomplished trophy wife and courteous daughter-in-law who can never falter. A tidy house, well-fed bellies and a precisely groomed Missus – that is until reality smacks you in the face and you realize that there are actual bills to pay. So, you can’t look like Kim Kardashian, visiting the nail spa or hairdresser weekly with ‘diamond walk’ bags in hand and put exquisite food on the table, but all this on just the Mister’s salary is another matter altogether. He obviously has to declare his earnings at ‘customs’ which is another pressure point that stokes the fire between us. Eventually, the smiling wife becomes the snarling wife. The happy husband turns into a grumpy old man.

As women, we assume a role that defy all that we are. We lose ourselves in our homes, our communities, and so relinquish our purpose to rolling roti’s and making pretty cupcakes for someone else to devour. Life itself becomes a burdensome task when the humdrum becomes a pacifying daydream. But deep down we feel that restlessness, a malignant pattern of bitterness and self-loathe that leave us demotivated and cancerous to ourselves. Our insecurities reflect in our behavior. We start to lash out our vile tongues to those around us. All this drama because we are unhappy. The fantasy of our roles forces us give up our names, shapes, sanity, and voices. We give up our right to choose, and so we are alive, but dead.

Mindlessly flipping that roti in the pan until it grilled to a golden-brown, I asked myself where had that spontaneous, vibrant girl, that I once was gone to? Which tiny hole did that loud-mouthed, confident girl crawl into? When did my colour start to fade, and when did ‘mundane’ become the adjective of my life? How did I give my power, and myself, away? And the most unnerving question was where did ‘submissive’ find me?

Without any satisfactory answers to those questions, my mind wandered off yet again and manufactured another fantasy. This time it was far eerier than the domestic fairy tale I was ordinarily consumed by. Here I was a barefooted girl with unkempt hair and a tear stained face. My hands were dirtied from the eerie forest I was navigating, and was pushing desperately against it closing in on me. The faster I ran in an attempt to escape suffocation, the quicker the gigantic trees closed in on me. I was trapped, but not alone. In the distance I heard a cackle of witches shrieking with laughter, and the warlock who presided over their malevolence took pleasure in my helplessness. Chaos ringed in my ears. I was just a little girl confounded, confused as to what was happening and why. Again, my tiny brain failed to come up with any satisfactory answers and I felt the passage of air in my lungs constrict, the veins in my limbs stiffen, and my body on the brink of bursting from shallow of breath. The word to describe my situation was ‘done’ but, this being my fantastical mind, a rainbow suddenly grew out of the trenches in that eerie forest and lit the sky with a bright saffron arc that reached far above the menacing trees. A unicorn galloped down it, drawing a carriage that instantly whisked me away to a place safe and sound, and where I could happily join in the laughter.

Whether it was a cruel fantasy or a crude one didn’t matter for it was all I really wanted – a gentle whisper to point me in the right direction. It is what every human being craves – anchoring. We search for crutches to help us feel safe. I was lost and ungrounded. I frantically searched for the glimmer of a lighthouse.

It’s not that I was incapable of leading my life. I had accomplished much too as a mother, a school teacher and a woman. Life, however, doesn’t reveal itself in its entirety so I did the best I could as it unfolded. It was an incredible journey, one that I am grateful for.

At 19, I was a free-spirited and slender girl bursting with a life-force larger than her body could carry. Despite my years, I was of course but a girl still in terms of experience, but also rich in possibility. A whole new door of opportunity opened when I agreed to a proposal of marriage from my high school sweetheart. I was quite possibly the youngest woman of my generation to get married. It was such an exciting time for me and I embraced it whole-heartedly since it was an era of my culture in which dating was frowned upon, even considered a sin. Kissing was thought to make a girl pregnant, and holding hands was a major transgression in my culture so flirting was completely unheard of. Gosh, the myths they made our young minds believe! So, shifting our relationship to a “halaal”, meaning religiously-accepted, seemed the obvious route at the time to be with my sweetheart.

A huge wedding was planned. More than 800 guests attended and were seated in two ballrooms, both bursting at the seams with family, friends, all and sundry who enjoined in the festivities. To share my happy occasion with them, I wore a gown that trailed off the shoulders, white of course because unless kissing counted for intercourse, yep, I was a proud virgin contrary to the evil whispers that judged my free spirit. The wedding preparation had the entire neighbourhood labelled either ‘groom-khutoom’ or’ bridal-party’. Family members were delegated to wash meat, peel potatoes, steam rice for the ‘degh-breyani’ and famous ‘ghaajar halwa’ starters. Those were the good old-fashioned days where caterers were unheard of and even the bride may have had her hands messed in the marinade of the rich mutton breyani that was to be served. Back then we had cooks in the community who were even called ‘The Cooks’. They took charge of the wedding kitchen. The preceding wedding activities included the ‘mehndi’ night, where the grooms party applied henna on the hands and feet of the blushing bride and the best cutlery danced on the dinner tables while little girls danced to Bollywood tunes and fun filled the air.

On my big day, my long hair was tied up like a crown above my head and around it was placed a pretty tiara that held my delicate veil in place. If I didn’t look like a princess, I definitely felt like one. I made two of my best friends maids of honour. My entourage was completed with four flower girls, and a young niece that made for just the cutest miniature bride. The groom too obliged the day by bringing not one, but two best men to celebrate with us. Five page-boys completed the ensemble.

The wedding party needed a stage almost as large as a stadium, and we had one. It was festooned tastefully in orange and black, and I’ll never forget just how magical it felt, walking down the aisle with my handsome dad who handed me over to my dashing groom. Butterflies in my tummy, I’m surprised even now that I noticed the tears rolling down my pretty mom’s face as I passed by her. Her little girl was no longer a little girl at all. I was a now woman. As a mother now, I can only imagine the complex range of emotions my mom had experienced on my wedding day.

Our wedding was as fairy-a-tale as I had ever imagined. Before I could absorb the reality of that magical day, my darling husband and I were on a plane two days later to honeymoon on the sandy beaches of Mauritius. Aah, but the honeymoon was all it was, just a honeymoon. If life could forever be in that space, it would be just a dream. As much as we hate to, we have to wake up at some point.

Going back those thirty-odd years in my mind while now standing over the roti pan, I could see how I once was that young bride, barely out of her teens, and without any clue as to what adulthood was really about. I was rushing toward a novelty that wore off not long after my honeymoon was over. Thereafter marriage could’ve been described as a ‘honey-mood’, but the life within me was flowing generously and I set another hometown record by bearing my beloved baby girl at an age where most girls hadn’t even turned into women yet. With parenthood, yet another young girl’s big dream was shattered as reality set in.

No more sensual stolen moments or deep conversations shared between lovers. “Forever” was just a word we carelessly used to describe our relationship. Once you crossed the threshold and entered the “married” zone, deadlines became the new normal. Breakfast, lunch, dinner – three whole meals had to be organized every single day, not forgetting the mandatory tea party that followed every meal ritually. This meant that creative skills in the baking and desert department had to be perfected. The competition that existed between housewives in that kitchen department was another story altogether so you had to be ahead of your game or suffer severe criticism. And that brought me right back to never feeling good enough about myself.

The baby was real too. She cried in the middle of the onions braising sessions, and that helped me discover that I was a highly-evolved octopus who was using my additional limbs to multi-task a multitude of mundane chores like checking the pots on the stove and changing poo-diapers, and getting her to suck the teat at the same time, feeding time or crying time, whichever it was. Babies have no feeding times or poo times really. They are demanding little creatures that must have what they want now! They unknowingly snatch your sleep, which contributes to a permanent irritability in mothers. They are not like cats, or any other pet for that matter, not even closely resembling those mute Barbie dolls girls play with as kids. No, children are tiny breathing humans and I learnt quickly to dive into this thing called motherhood. It was never easy considering the pressures that newly-weds experience. Unfortunately, with your first-born, because you love with all your soul, they become the target of your unhappiness. The innocent little first-born then suffers the brunt of all the frustration that festers in the hearts of young parents.

I had to grow up rather quickly. Amazing moments were aplenty but the reality of parenthood is rude and unrelenting, sometimes forcing me to depend on anti-depressants just to get you through the pressures of each day. The responsibilities of being a mother and wife became stifling. Love turned to bickering and that escalated over time with a husband and wife becoming opponents in a domestic world-war. Bombs were unwittingly stepped on, limbs were lost, and the clarity of our vision all but dissolved in the smoke. In my experience, peace-treaties are short-lived and everyone has an opinion besides the couple in contract. We were lost in each other, but not in each other’s arms as romance had me believe. I woke up one day, only to realize that we don’t just marry a man or a woman – you marry the whole fabulous family! That’s when marriages really begin to take strain. Not having the experience or platforms to reconcile was bad enough, but suppressing my freedom to speak and express my feelings as a woman, or just a human being, kept my marriage permanently on ice. If we didn’t tread carefully enough, the whole thing would have cracked and mercilessly devoured us and our children. To avoid such travesties, a wedge is driven between both husbands and wives, and they slowly separate even if they still live in the same dwelling.  Tension and tears abound, our beautiful relationship began dissolving until love turned to hate. Sincere living can just as easily transform into merely existing with one another, yet we stayed with each other, holding on longer than we should have in the hope that things would change, that the situation would get better.

Isn’t that why relationships linger on when in essence we can be more honest with ourselves and with our partners? Sometimes, two people are great individuals in their own right, but are not for each other. Two good people can become toxic for each other, and bring out the worst in each. Yet we stay on, swallowing our worst days, employing communication skills as best as we can, and making sabr – which is to say being patient like we were taught to be. Why do we do this injustice to ourselves? I’ll tell you why, mostly it’s only for the sake of the children or to maintain the peace. It’s also because of that limiting belief that nags: Where will I go? What shall I do? Finally, our greatest fear is the insidious notion of embarrassment and failure that is epitomized by five simple words: “What would the people say?”

As if the people are paying our bills. As if the people don’t have their own hideous skeletons in their closets. These ‘people’ who we are so afraid of have drama’s and failures and are defeated too. The fear of being judged by others is the greatest disservice we do unto our natural joy. So yes, as my life flashed before me in the din of sizzling roti, I acknowledged that I had married rather too young. That at nineteen, I should have been living my dream to travel around the world and experience the life that I had always yearned for instead of frying roti’s, doing the same ‘ol, same ‘ol more than a decade after my dreams were squashed. Cooking, cleaning, working, taking care of kids and playing the good wife, the bored wife, the bullied wife.

That one day, however, was drastically different. After cooking the batch of roti’s, I set about my business with a spirit lighter than I had felt in decades. Chores seemed easier and I more passionate. It didn’t matter that my enthusiasm was met with scepticism. I was going to do something for myself that day, even though the gossipmongers about town had been insinuating that my fresh attitude was a sign of something clandestine in the works. Their forked tongues didn’t bother me when I left the kitchen and my soiled apron behind. They may have abandoned me but I had decided to begin silently nurturing myself despite judgement. “Forget about her” they quipped but I wasn’t going to waste my life away in countless afternoons of tea, coconut biscuits and toxic gossip. Where I was going that afternoon was far deeper than any shallow mind was brave enough to venture.

I was meeting an old friend. It was the first glimmer of hope I had had in what felt like forever. It may not sound like much but it was a chance for me to change the story of my life. For the first time I felt brave enough to say “enough!”  because I realized that I had a choice.

Like I said, all we need is a hug and a whisper to point out the right direction when we’re clouded within our own minds. That single whisper can be life-changing. It can breathe new energy into your dead soul, giving you all the courage and motivation to bootstrap yourself, gather your resources, and make choices that serve to rebuild yourself rather than enable your own demise. To feel liberated and to honour myself was my only mission that afternoon. I was on a journey to search for my authentic self and re-colour my life in the way I wanted, on my terms and in my own sweet time.

While sipping their tea, my critics may have asked why such ardent rebelliousness? Because I’ve held up my life and its responsibilities sincerely, but my life is also mine and, if I didn’t take accountability for the direction it was going in, then I would condemn myself to finding my joy only in satisfying everyone else.

I was not going to be a fucking mop!

I met Mateen at the Mugg and Bean, a coffeehouse designed to keep you there with bottomless cups. He was an old school friend who was visiting Johannesburg after many years. The possibility of sharing a cuppa with him was more than reminiscing over simpler, single, years. Of course, we would catch up on where life had taken us, and sharing our stories was also a way to connect once again to the person I had been all those years ago. It was a purer version of myself when so many complications had not led me astray in my life, and where my authentic heart lay. I placed my trust in my reliable domestic helper and left the kids with her before embarking on what I had later understood was an event that inspired the change I was looking for. It began in the most unexpected of ways.

Mateen didn’t recognize the balloon that waddled into the restaurant. I had picked up a lot of weight along the years and his first impression elicited a direct but sincere query as to where had I left my usually striking self?

Ordinarily that may have been received with offense, but the honesty in his tone was nostalgic to say the least and he instantly disarmed me. That was something about Mateen that I had always admired. He was not like the conventional boys I had known back in the day. He was bold. He wore his spine with confidence and his energy was electric. He was a leader who walked his talk and was unafraid to show his loyalty. I could easily say he was the male version of me, perhaps that is why we had always shared a deep connection, whether we were close or far apart. He had the ability to read me better than anyone else. If I was thinking something, it rolled off his tongue, and sometimes before he could speak his thought rolled off mine. Cosmic partners or twin souls is what we were. So, here we were, two old souls, sharing and caring.

I shared not all, but enough for Mateen to understand that I needed help. As a true friend would, he shared himself with me too, and in the wake of our conversation was the whisper I was yearning for. It pointed me in the right direction, not by anyone else’s standards, but sensitive to my situation and what I felt I was craving for in my life. That conversation turned out to be the best gift I had ever received.

In a strange way, I had an inkling that the hand of God was at play. People may have abandoned me but my experiences have always confirmed that God never left me. He heard my every sigh, each desperate plea. He held my hand and guided me to open wonderful new doors that fed my spirit. I had been playing in the park the previous day with my kids when I received a sudden intuition. It felt as if years of my silent and desperate cries were finally heard, and Mateen was sent to direct me on the journey forward. That had been the best day of my life as I made decisions that were to shape my future, and write you this story.

On my thirty-sixth birthday I gave myself the gift of my own power.

There she stood, unpresumptuous in-front of a group of people. Ashika Singh welcomed us to her workshop based on Louise Hay’s “Heal Your Life” philosophies. It was two days of rediscovering ourselves and healing the mind, body and spirit in a holistic way. This concept of healing was completely new to me. Having lost both “me” and “time,” I was not in any position to be sceptical. I didn’t know it then, but Ashika was about to teach me many valuable tools to fill my healing toolbox with. From the very moment I walked into her consulting rooms, I felt safe. I felt a kind of change embrace me. I felt the warm hug of love and freedom. I looked into her comforting eyes and asked my first burning question after she spoke about forgiveness:

“But, how do I forgive?”

She replied, “You don’t have to know how. You just have to be willing.”

End of Sample

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