In ten superbly crafted stories, Zaheera Jina Asvat takes us into the
private, individual worlds of a varied cast of characters and exposes
the complicated weave of emotions so often concealed under the veneer of
everyday lives. The stories provide a re-thinking of conventions and
roles, enabling readers to challenge the social phenomena within the
world that religion and culture govern. These stories are earthy,
feeling portraits of people struggling against an oppressive system
within post-apartheid South Africa. Bhajee's concern is a stolen
electricity meter on his property, which cannot be replaced because a
fictional Mr Ka Ching Ching is the registered owner, and Suhail Mangel,
as a victim of xenophobia is worried that his family has cursed him. A
Maulana thought to have a marriage potion in one story and in another a
dying parrot that brings bad news. Then there is the woman who in
Covid-19 lockdown is trying to fathom her broken marriage, a family
fighting for inheritance in the face of religious law, the cat who is a
bringer of gifts for her depressed owner, the daughter-in-law who
questions her role as wife and mother, and the woman who cannot conceive
and is offered the option of a surrogate in the form of a second wife.
In this collection, the colourful characters cast their paths through
the threads of their own fictional lives, as distraught and jubilant and
uncertainly fragmented as any among us, the living.
