In a stuffy hall, the sun’s rays filter in through high windows. Standing to the side of a stage is a woman who, as a girl, danced and sang on that same platform.
Her dancing days are over now. She is a woman, an “auntie” to children, in a place (Actonville, Benoni in Gauteng) where they don’t bother with all that formal and unfriendly Mr and Mrs nonsense. She is Joshika and this is her sister’s wedding.
Joshika has long since taken her shoes off and given up all pretence of looking her best. Her purple sari drags on the floor, hiding her feet that are tattooed with henna. Her make-up has melted; the kohl that lined her eyes is smudged. She offers a tired smile when she sees me, an old friend from college.
“No, it’s not finished, there’s about an hour more to go. It would have been shorter if the priest [who was imported all the way from India to ensure authenticity and maintain standards] weren’t so confused.” She rolls her eyes and sits down. “Don’t wait for me. Go ahead and eat, I’m not sure when or if I’ll get a chance to eat.”
I am only mildly sympathetic and very hungry so I leave Joshika and head downstairs to the dining hall where I find long tables covered in white paper, set with paper plates and cups. There is no need to dress up the tables when the food — vegetarian biryani and dahl with atchar — is so good.
Joshika’s sari and henna-laced hands belie the busy lawyer that she is from Monday to Friday and sometimes Saturdays. This is not a place where she feels in control. Despite attending numerous weddings and having been duty-bound in the planning of many more, she doesn’t know the ins and outs of the prayers and ceremonies that must be performed with ritualistic consistency. She is better off in the office, where she always knows what to do.
Her sister Sheetal is the bride. She sits on a red velvet settee, next to the groom, impassive in her red, ornate sari and holding her neck stiff so that her tiara does not move. Sheetal does not know what is going on either and just does as she is told.
Joshika shields her eyes against the light as she walks me out. I have eaten and need to leave early. Joshika looks up and down the neighbourhood where she grew up in a cluttered, dusty house down Soma Street. She moved out the day she got married. All her friends and family have also moved — but not far.
“My roots are still here,” says Joshika, “I find myself back here almost every weekend, for a funeral, a wedding or some other function.” Though it is just 15 minutes away there are no temples in the formerly white suburb that she has moved in to. No temples and no tea shops stocked with essentials such as pickled sour figs and masala.
“That’s why I come back here so often, and that’s what brings all the others back too.” She waves goodbye and steps back inside. Sheetal beckons to her from the stage. She is needed.
This is Actonville, but it could be any formerly Indian neighbourhood. In the islands that apartheid built, people had to live, marry, have children and die within constructed borders.
Living among your own and learning your place was the lesson of apartheid. Isolated, Indians clung to their customs and way of life. Actonville’s network of streets consist of dead ends so that they never link with the neighbouring black township just metres away.
To access the area you have to turn right into Reading Street, but don’t worry if you miss it you can’t really get lost. The length and breadth of Actonville is a small sweep of the Witwatersrand map. As long as you find yourself passing streets like Naidoo and Seedat you know you are close. Soon enough you’ll find yourself, serendipitously, on Soma Street where the temple is.
Joshika no longer wakes to the sound of Muslim morning prayers emanating from the mosque. Prayers that fill the still air and enter dreams. Mornings in her new suburb are an unwholesome cacophony of car alarms and the click-click of electronic gates opening and closing.
Unlike Actonville, there are hardly ever pedestrians on the streets. Heaven forbid that anyone should ever walk anywhere, it is too dangerous.
Joshika has sacrificed many things to live here. She had to leave aspects of her culture behind her and sanitise her behaviour. It will never do to have large groups of people visit and make a noise. She has a big lawn that would be perfect for putting up a tent for prayers, but she knows that somehow her neighbours would object.
It is not that bad really, just mind your own business, turn down the volume on your car system (the heavy bass won’t impress these neighbours) and for heaven’s sake, don’t hoot —white people really hate that.
In her modern, open-plan house Joshika makes tea the old-fashioned way. She boils the milk, water and teabags in a saucepan on the stove.
“I can make you green tea if you’d like.” She smiles. I don’t want green tea, I’d rather have masala tea — I find it exotic.
Joshika laughs when I tell her that masala tea is now sold at trendy cafÃ