Articles Tagged Awaaz Magazine

Dear Harpreet and Clement Ah, young love! The thrill, the joy, the agony. It was written in the stars, it was sung on the wind, it was meant to be. When romance is in the ascendant, nothing else seems to matter. Congratulations, youngsters. We can only wish you well. May your love blossom, mature and […]

There it is, tucked away in Nairobi’s Highridge area: the strangest of shopping malls. Like some bizarre human-sized rabbit warren, full of confusing corners, surprising staircases and odd little businesses in basements, on roofs, in the car park. You almost expect Alice to pop up somewhere in this wonderland – expect that Diamond Plaza, or […]

Mahmood Mamdani always makes sense. He is a rare voice of reason in East Africa, where unadulterated vitriol and uneducated diatribes are often the norm when discussing this thing called ‘The Asian Question’. When something as shocking as Kampala’s April riots disturbs us, it is soothing to read an insightful reflection by so thoughtful a […]

There is a fable that is widely heard in Kenya. This fable has two versions, depending on who’s telling it. If it’s a Kenyan South Asian doing the recounting, then it goes like this: Kenya’s Wahindi are born business-people. Excelling at business is in their genes. They can make any venture work, and can wring […]

In which language do you think? When I was ten years old, it became clear to me that I generally think in English. Many years later, the repercussions of this seemingly innocuous discovery became apparent. Since then I have tussled with the idea of ‘my’ language, and its loss. ‘My’ language is Punjabi. But Hindi, […]

Fusion music has taken over. Whether it’s in Hindi films, the pop charts, or even semi-classical experimental music, it’s only in if it’s of mixed parentage. The most popular filmi tracks of today sound like rock anthems. The sassy, globalised new generation wants music that’s hip and cool, in your face, funky and fitful. And […]

Bollywood: the world’s most energetic film industry. Every year, it churns out more than a thousand movies, sells more than 3 billion tickets and generates well over 1 billion dollars in revenue. Bollywood: home of some of the greatest movies made anywhere in the world. Surendra Kumar, India’s current High Commissioner in Kenya, is a […]

It took a long time to build what South Asians have in Kenya today. Dana April Seidelberg called us ‘mercantile adventurers’: for more than 2,000 years we have been arriving on African shores as traders, investors and artisans, part of the age-old Indian Ocean trading triangle with its corners in India, Arabia and East Africa. […]

Awaaz has done a great deal to set the record straight about South Asians in Kenya. For too long, we were the ‘in-betweens’, the ‘unmentionables’ who were expected to know their ‘place’ (the duka). Eloquently, methodically, Awaaz has been filling in the missing gaps in Kenya’s modern history. Its achievement cannot be overrated, and it […]