Day 334: Very Verulam

The word MAD crops up several times in my brief phone conversation with a lady whose name is Ragini. ‘When I heard you on the radio, there was just something in your voice. You’re MAD, but I just had to phone the station and ask for this MAD person’s telephone number. They said there was something in my voice that made them believe that you wouldn’t mind if I had your number. They also think that you’re MAD, by the way. When I heard that you haven’t stayed with an Indian family yet I was quite surprised. I still think that you’re MAD, but I’ve spoken with my family and we decided that we want to offer this MAD person somewhere to stay. Where are you at the moment? Where can we come and fetch you, you MAD person?’

That is how Ragini, Victor and Panjie enter my world. By the time they arrive to collect me from the Lawrensons I have prepped myself for the mother of all lectures from Ragini . . . at least I’ll have Courtney’s book to record it all.

And then Ragini blows me away when she says that she is usually quite reserved and careful with people. She does not easily let others in, but something in my voice spoke to her. She also had no resistance from her husband, Victor, or her mother, Panjie . . . and it helped that she dropped the kettle full of cold water that morning – it is an old Indian belief that you’re going to receive a visitor if you drop something. And so they whisk me away to Verulam. My tastebuds already anticipate the curry.

Meeting Panjie is like connecting with a sanctuary. The former headmistress with a penchant for scrabble insists that I call her Ayah, grandmother. I think she is very grand, this small-framed woman who has such an elegant way of moving. Ayah was expecting my arrival and has been cooking all day. She even got a family member to make rotis.

Once their most pressing questions about my journey are out of the way I learn a little about the family. Ragini has been working for the same printing company in Durban for thirty years, while Victor makes and installs kitchen cupboards. But that’s not what he wants to talk about. Music – that is his passion. He sings and plays a number of instruments. Somewhat of a local celebrity, he has his own music studio at home and has friends over for jamming sessions. I enjoy hearing all this until a microphone is shoved at me and words appear on the wall. I can’t sing! But karaoke it is, and we end up laughing so much as I try to keep a tune. Ayah, especially, is amused by her new granddaughter’s lack of talent.

I also learn that Victor is a Catholic, while Ragini and Ayah are Hindu – Ragini in a non ritual-practising way, but Ayah, who normally follows a vegetarian diet, is currently observing the Tamil fasting month of Purtassi. I guess it helps that they have two kitchens.

On my second night we have a typical Verulam lamb curry with bread. I am offered an array of cutlery but say that I also want to eat with my hands as they do. What follows is a lesson in how to eat with your hands in the most effective manner. I keep getting it wrong and have juice not only around my mouth and soaked up in the bread, but also all over the table.

Verulam is opened up to me as Victor puts his work on hold to be my tour guide. ‘This is how we do things for family,’ he says and I am deeply touched.

We visit the documentation centre that has a special display – 150 years of Indian settler history. The walls are covered with images of indentured Indians. If it is true that every picture tells a story, then this wall of photos tells the journey of an entire people.

When we return home Ayah invites me to spend the day with her at the Verulam Day and Frail Care Centre. It is National Week of the Aged and she’s volunteering at a day of fun for the senior citizens. Victor is going to be performing as well. Before we leave she asks if I will wear a sari and takes her time to arrange all the folds just so. I also have to wear an underskirt and choli. Then she says that it doesn’t look right without jewellery and earrings and goes about decorating me like a Christmas tree. Dot and all! I feel like an Indian princess. ‘Let’s see how you walk in that . . . ‘

I take slow, easy, meditative steps. She is so proud of me. ‘You don’t walk like a Westerner at all. They usually take such long steps and walk too fast. You are doing it perfectly!’

Instead of helping with the sandwiches, I am more of a distraction to the volunteers. They ask me to walk up and down in the beautiful sari and Ayah keeps introducing me to people. I meet the patients, staff and the director of the centre, Pravin Patak.

He is excited about this official National Week of the Aged and tells me that his passion for caring for the elderly came about by chance. Back when he had a trucking business in Dannhauser he was one day called out to Chatsworth, where one of his vehicles had had a breakdown. It took several days for the problem to be fixed and while he was in the area, he stumbled on an incredible group of youngsters of the Sai Baba order who ran a home for the aged. He decided to volunteer for the duration of his stay . . . and realised that it was his life’s calling.

Back in the hall there is traditional dancing and I pretend that I’m on the set of a Bollywood movie. We laugh as we all interpret the music so differently – it is beautiful to see people from different religions and cultures mingle like this. I feel Verulam under my skin.

On the last day with my Nair/Pillay family, I am collected by Pravin Patak and his family to attend a mixed faith (mostly Hindu and Sai Baba) meeting at the Veda Dharma Sabha. Ragini and Ayah insist that I wear a Punjabi dress. They dress me up beautifully and give me a sheet of dots to choose how I want to decorate my face. I feel comfortable and calm in this outfit.

When the woman leading the service sees me enter she beckons for me to come and sit next to her. I am gifted a red Aryan prayer book by Pravin so that I can follow the service. We light a fire and then pour water in the palms of our hands. There is a routine, an order. Right. Then left. As we say the prayer we touch our other senses (chakras) with water. Then we pick up some herbs, spices and plants and sprinkle them onto the fire.

There are only about ten of us in the inner circle that have the chance to participate actively in the ritual. At first I am terribly nervous that I’ll make a mistake, but slowly my self-consciousness evaporates and my mind is filled with my heart. In this community I find such a sense of space and of being contained at the same time. I feel satiated.

A woman approaches me. Her soul is old. She says to me, ‘Your aura is spectacular and magnetic.’

She adds that I might well be a sannyasin. She says that she can see I am practising detachment and that I am probably further down this road than most. She also says that I still have a long way to go. ‘You must have done something good in your previous lives to be here now.’

One of the last places I visit is the Verulam Regional Hospice. I go into the field with Sister Jenny, carer Rose and social worker Wonderboy. What surprises me is the economic diversity of the patients in their care. Illness does not discriminate. We go from a widow with MS to a seven-year-old who has cancer of the eye.

The family who will stay forever in my heart lives at the end of a rural road. On a farm. We meet an HIV-positive man and his wife, who takes such good care of him although she, too, is HIV-positive. We meet their primary caregiver, their daughter, who is in matric. The lump in my throat threatens to escape, but this is not the time or place. Jenny deals with all this in an empathetic yet professional manner. She is calm and speaks in a soothing voice of which she seems to have vast reserves. As we leave the daughter asks for more supplement-enriched food. I hug her. There is such strength and courage in this young girl.

Back at the Hospice centre the staff practically fall over themselves to share their lunch with me. I look down at the fusion food – a bit of Indian, a bit of Zulu. A bit of sweet, a bit of sour. Some spicy, some mild. And just a dash of madness.

By the time I left this special family we had agreed that there must have been some MADness involved that got me to their doorstep. In my eyes, what really would have been MAD is the fact that we would never have met if I hadn’t followed my dream.