In Harare with Guni Ramji

The previous column stopped where Guni Ramji, his friend Minhas, and I were embarking on a drive from Bulawayo to Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, 400 kms away.

I didn’t know I was walking into a beautiful love story when Guni said, ‘Let’s visit my friend Ibrahim Rahman’. We were in the town of Kwekwe, some 220 kms from Bulawayo.

Earlier we had stopped at Shangani where Guni had visited the shops of two of his lady friends, both of whom gave us a warm welcome. Back on the road, he pointed out to me sites of open-cast gold mines where mining is done by digging terraced pits and not by tunnelling, and confessed that he had obtained seven licenses to mine gold from areas around Bulawayo. The profits he hoped to get from his coffin business would go into developing the gold mines. ‘Guni,’ I told him, ‘I’m awed by you.’ He told me, ‘Unless you dare to dream, you don’t even get to start.’

Ibrahim Rahman was filled with joy to receive us. He hadn’t had a visitor from India in years. He happily treated us to cold beer and snacks in his photo studio. Rahman had come to Bulawayo from Panvel, Maharashtra, in 1946. He had married a young woman of Indian origin and later established his studio in Kwekwe. It was after four decades that he returned to Panvel, to conduct his son’s wedding. Then he went looking for the sweetheart of his youth, Hasina, whom he used to call Hasi and from whom his migration had parted him forever. He somehow managed to find her house and rang the bell. An elderly, beautiful woman opened the door. He asked her, ‘Aren’t you Hasi?’ She stood shocked. She said, ‘Only one person in this world called me Hasi. And that was Ibrahim Rahman who went away to Africa.’ Ibrahim said, ‘I’m Ibrahim Rahman’. Bursting into tears, Hasina embraced Ibrahim. She asked, ‘How did you find my house?’ With eyes brimming with tears, Ibrahim repeated to me his reply: ‘The heart doesn’t lose its way.’

Later, I told Guni, ‘That was a great love story.’ Guni said, ‘You make it into a film. I’ll invest.’ ‘No, Guni’ I said, ‘It’s so pristinely beautiful I daren’t even touch it.’

Back on the road, with the car running as if guessing Guni’s every wish, he told me about himself. ‘I need money. Lots of money. And I keep getting it and spending it. And I keep making more. I do not wish to hoard money. When the need arises, God will show me the way. If I don’t make money, then God will teach me a lesson. When my father died, we three brothers divided the property among ourselves. One brother took away part of my share. I didn’t say a word. He continues to be a welcome guest at my house. I wasn’t defeated by what he did. My wealth grew. His wealth grew too. I’m happy. Let go, that’s what I say. I’m not possessive about my businesses. I don’t do my work watching the minutiae of profit and loss. I do my work and the rest comes. People say I don’t work and am just playing around having a good time. But to me it’s the same. I’m having a good time even as I work. Money-making happens on its own like the wind and the rain. I don’t crave. I let go.’

We spent the night at a resort owned by Guni’s brother Jai at Mazwikadei, near Chinhoy National Park. Mazwikadei is the name of the local river. Guni told me how it got its name. A young girl from a riverside village fell into the water and disappeared. Her body was never found. But, the story goes, sometimes she suddenly rises from the water and asks bathers, fisherfolk and canoe-travellers, ‘Mazwikadei?’ How did you find me?

In the evening, Guni unleashed himself into the resort bar. He kept the bearers giggling with a stream of outrageous jokes; sold a few old cars he had in custody in Bulawayo; even sold a readymade wedding suit to an about-to-get-married young man at a big discount. He confided to me it had remained unsold in the shop for over a year because fashion had changed. It was then that it dawned on me that the sale of the cars and the suit to buyers who hadn’t even seen them, let alone examined, was not just the outcome of Guni’s persuasiveness but something else too. It was trust. Later, Guni told me, ‘Yes, we do business on trust. People trust each other. But unfortunately, they even trust Mugabe!’

Our first day in Harare started disastrously. Before checking into my hotel, we had gone to the Malawi embassy to file a visa application for me, with the car parked on the street outside. We returned to find the car’s rear window broken and Minhas’s mobile phone and camera which had been left on the back seat gone. Because Guni had locked the boot where my luggage was, I escaped; there were signs of attempts to break it open. ‘Thank God,’ Guni said, ‘they didn’t take car!’ There were a few people standing about and idly looking on. Guni said, ‘Let me assure you, one of them is the thief. He’s having fun watching us.’ At the police station, the policeman comforted us, ‘You’re not alone. Yours is the sixth case of car robbery today in this area, and it’s only 12 o'clock.’ Minhas consoled himself by turning on sad Hindi film songs on the radio.

It took us some time to replace the broken window. Finally, we reached the hotel I had selected by consulting ‘Lonely Planet,’ my favourite travel guide, and a surprise awaited us. The hotel was an elegant bungalow on an ample, well-laid-out property with neat lawns and shade trees. Lounging upon the sofas and chairs of its lobby were women who were surprisingly minimally dressed, which was hardly typical of an urban African. Guni seemed taken aback. He asked me, ‘How old is the edition of “Lonely Planet” you carry?’ ‘Two years,’ I said. He didn’t reply. We approached the desk where the receptionist, a giant of a man who seemed to have just walked out of a WWF (World Wrestling Federation) show, stared at us. We asked for the room tariff, and the amount he mentioned was for an hour. By then, some of the sleepy ladies had approached us and laid their hands upon our shoulders in a show of friendship. Guni whispered, ‘Are you absolutely sure you want to stay here?’ I said, ‘Let’s get out before the wrestler is annoyed by our un-business-like attitude.’ We quickly made our way to the car. A few ladies followed us with discount offers. Inside the car, Guni said, ‘This was one of the best economy hotels in Harare, and that’s why ‘’Lonely Planet’’ listed it. The owner has been forced to sell out or turn to sex trade as a result of the economic havoc Mugabe wreaked.’ Guni found me a room in his friend Amrit’s hotel, whose African manager’s name was Jealous. I asked him if the name had another meaning in the Shona language. Jealous laughed and said it meant exactly what it meant in English. His parents had just liked the sound of it.

The next day Guni told me, ‘I’ll take you to the ashram of a master who was a friend, philosopher and guru to all of us. He taught me how to let go. He was from south India. You might know something about him that we don’t know.’ It was thus that I came to know about Swami Nishreyasananda of Harare (1899-1991), a monk of the Sri Ramakrishna order, hailing from Thrissur, Kerala, who went to Africa in 1959 to spread Ramakrishna’s message and over the next thirty years became a beloved mentor and friend to thousands of Indians, Africans and white people of Rhodesia ( now Zimbabwe) and neighboring countries. His wisdom shines through whatever little is left of his writings (mostly correspondence). The story of his wanderings and work which took him from Kerala to several Indian cities, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, France and finally to Africa, is an amazing one. His personal library at his ashram, United Cultural Institute, took my breath away by the sheer breadth and brilliance of its eclecticism spreading over fiction, non-fiction and spirituality. Guni told me, ‘We Gujaratis are essentially traders. He taught us how to be humane while buying and selling. He was a deeply secular man. He didn’t ask us to worship anything. Instead told us to keep goodness uppermost in our mind and remain loving and optimistic. And, he said that only when you completely let go God will take over.’ When we were back in the car, Guni told me, ‘Paul, you have come from Swami’s birthplace, and I want to tell you that it was my brother Jai who lit his funeral pyre.’ I was surprised to see Guni’s eyes were wet. He had forgotten to let go!

Next day as I was sitting with Guni, Jai and their friends at the club bar, a dapper, middle-aged African with a jovial and gracious face walked in and courteously asked everyone’s permission to join. He was greeted loudly and cheerfully. He ordered himself a beer. Then Guni told him, ‘Z, meet my friend Paul from India. He’s a writer.’ We shook hands. Guni continued, ‘Paul, this is Justice Z of the Zimbabwe Supreme Court. Watch out when you commit your next crime! You’re under his thumb!’ Z smiled. When the beer arrived, Z tipped the waitress and kissed her hand ceremoniously. She burst out laughing, thanked him, courtesied with equal ceremony, and walked away, happy. I hid my confusion. Was Guni cooking up a story? Is Z really a judge of the Supreme Court? I wasn’t used to members of the judiciary who behaved like normal people in public. I whispered to Guni, ‘Are you pulling a fast one on me? Is he really a judge?’ Then Guni told me he was one of the two black judges of the Supreme Court of Zimbabwe, the other two being white. All of them were in the bad books of Mugabe for not bending to his wishes, but Z all the more because he had held Mugabe’s ‘fast-track’ land acquisition unconstitutional. I soon discovered that all at the table were Z’s friends. He was simply enjoying himself. Guni’s four-letter jokes kept flowing and when they were about the judiciary Z laughed all the more. The discussion had turned to polygamy and monogamy. I told them about the now-extinct practice of polyandry in Kerala, and how the lady’s partner of the day was supposed to leave his footwear on the veranda as a sign to warn other partners that she was occupied. Z was fascinated. He said, ‘Oh! How I wish I could be a visiting husband! But is it a must that if I see footwear on the veranda, I must go back? Couldn’t I take a chance?’ I said the men of those days were trained for disappointment. They always went back. Z guffawed and said, ‘Every paradise has a hole!’

By the time I was ready to leave Harare for Mozambique, Guni had walked me through an astoundingly varied and endearingly human array of his friends. It’s too long a story for this brief piece. The experience was enriching and humbling. When the time came to say goodbye to Guni, I knew I was parting from a great friend and a marvellous human being. The last thing Guni did for me was to connect me to a German businessman in Mozamique, who eventually became my saviour in what was the hardest part of my African journey.