Agakhan Boys Primary School, Dar es salaam
AGAKHAN BOYS PRIMARY SCHOOL, DAR ES SALAAM 1960'S
MEMORIES OF DAR
Disclaimer Most of the incidents related here occurred in one form or other. The names have been changed in certain cases to protect their privacy.'
By: Al Jiwani
a.jiwani01@gmail.com
Mr. Rawjee was the Headmaster of the Agakhan Boys’ Primary School in Dar es Salaam in the early 60’s. Though short in stature, he had a loud booming voice which made you listen to each word he spoke. The school catered for young children from Standard I to VIII. Each class had about 25 students. Everyday, there was an outside assembly in the courtyard where announcements were made after a short prayer. Most students were thinking of the recess break around noon when they got to play a few rounds of cricket. The record of runs and players were kept from the previous day as the atmosphere was quite competitive. Across the two fields stretching out, stood the Agakhan Secondary school. Although technically, it was the start of Standard IX, the official name given was Form I. After four years and graduating in Form IV, the students progressed to ‘A’ levels before going to university. Competition was fierce at all levels beginning from the primary school. Acceptance to the secondary school was by merit and the final exams results determined who would proceed further.
One Friday, after the early morning assembly, Mr. Rawji ordered all Std VIII students to remain behind. The final entrance exams were coming up and he wanted to tell the students the importance of studying hard. Across the city, all students in this grade had to write the admission exam to be then selected for the secondary school. Mr. Rawji pointed to the building across the fields. There was a soccer field followed by a cricket ground closer to the secondary school. In between were three tennis courts and a basketball playground. He boomed loudly, “Do you see the school across the fields there?” Nobody answered. He repeated, “Can you see the building over there?” The students then answered, “Yes, Mr. Rawji, it’s the Agakhan Secondary school”. After a short interval, an audible voice said, “I can’t see it Sir”. There were a few snickers but were soon silenced as he walked towards where he heard the voice. The students spread out leaving Mehboob Chatur alone in the middle. He was a head shorter than the other students in the class. It made sense that he would not be able to see the building being surrounded by taller boys in front of him. He knew what was coming to him as he wrapped his arms around his head to soften the smack he was about to receive. He had this unfortunate trait of saying the wrong things and got punished more often than others. The rest of the class teased him that he was not growing taller because of being thumped on the head so often.
It was a common practise for teachers to hit students who did not behave. This was a third world country where disciplining young kids, especially boys, was tolerated by parents too. If by chance you mentioned at home that you were zonked, chances are, you would get another beating and being told, “If you behaved properly at school, the teachers would not do this to you”. Most Asian parents were businessmen running small shops across the town called ‘Dukawalla’. Being second generation coming from India, their education was limited and spoke limited English. They also worked long hours and didn’t have time to deal with issues at school. However, the students were generally well behaved and were expected by their peers to get good marks. At the end of each term, the students were required to have their report card signed by their parents. It was one thick binder covering all the grades from Std I to Std VIII. Most parents would just sign where their children showed them to, without really looking at the marks or comments from the teacher. After a few years of this signing off, some students ended up forging the parents’ signature and leaving the binder in class to be given to the teachers the next day.
The soccer field next to primary school was surrounded by an oval running track. At one side it was straight, and some students would play cricket using a tennis ball. Many would end up playing in the country leagues years later. Here it was a fun time to enjoy the recess break. The other past time was playing marbles. A favourite one, called ‘Win it or Lose it’, brought out the gambling spirit even at this young age. A coin was placed halfway into the sandy ground. A short distance away, students would take a shot using a marble thrown along the ground to knock off the coin. If you managed to knock the coin off, you got to keep it otherwise you lose your marble. It looked like gambling was instilled in youngsters even at this age. Of course, a fight would sometime start if there was a dispute when the marble hit the coin but didn’t actually knock the coin over.
A few students, who were not academically inclined, did their own line of earning a few shillings here and there. The most successful was Shiraz Manji. He clearly thought outside the box unlike the others who were content with playing cricket and throwing marbles. He found a niche in scalping tickets at the local cinema theaters. The Asians favourite affordable entertainment was going to see Bollywood movies. New releases with actors like Dilip Kumar or Rajesh Khanna co-staring with Mumtaz or Meena Kumari were a big hit and tickets for the weekend shows always got sold out. Being a youngster, he accompanied his parents at no charge, sitting snugly between the two seats. He noticed that there were always people looking for tickets and were willing to pay two or three times the original price.
While the rest of his friends were busy playing cricket and throwing marbles, he managed to get his household aide to accompany him to buy tickets early in the week for the week-end show. During the weekend, again accompanied by his aide, he would sell those tickets at more than twice the price. He got ambitious and got other aides to sell more tickets especially for new Bollywood hits. He was generous in dolling out part of his profits to his aides and they were happy to oblige in this venture. Soon, he owned a new bike while his friends came to school walking. Many of these entrepreneurs, who were not interested in studies, ended up doing quite well in business ventures later in life in western countries.
For those who did well in the final qualifying exams, they were accepted in the new secondary school across the fields. The Form I teachers were mostly recruited from India. They had good knowledge of Math and Science but were not very well versed in the English language both oral and written. Mr. Basu was one of them. A slim, tall person with receding hair line, he taught Maths with a heavy Indian accent that made many students chuckle during his lectures. As he explained solving equations using variables x and y, one of his famous lines was, “If you take the value of x and insert in the equation, you end up getting the value of y which can be positive or negative”. After class, the resident clown, Kassam Jinnah, would mimic what he really sounded like, “Ifu tak the valu of sex and insert in the ejacuation, you end up getting the valu of y wich can be pasative or nagative”. This would get the whole class giggling with many ending up in tears rolling down their cheeks, One day, closer to the first term exams, Mr. Basu happened to come back sooner after class had ended and heard the impersonation followed by loud laughter. The whole class got an ‘F’ in the report card for that term. Initially, it was a shock for all to get a failing grade. However, it was really the third term results which were recorded in the final report card. After class, although homework assignments were not overlooked, playing all kinds of outdoor games was the thing to do. With no TV or any social media at their disposal, the kids found their own methods of having fun. It ranged from flying kites, rolling a bicycle wheel using a stick on its rim with no tires and making wooden toys made of thread bobbin rolls to name a few. Although serious pranks were rarely done, a group of friends in the Red-Cross flats knew Shamshi, who had a reputation of crossing the line. It was common for kids to have a catapult made from a V-shaped wood remnant. With rubber from a discarded bicycle tube, it served the purpose of hitting fruits on trees or tin-cans lying on the ground using small pebbles or rolled up hard cardboard.
This Red-Cross area in suburb Upanga housed rows of adjacent townhouses with an open-door policy, as most people in the area were from the same community. One evening, Shamshi was walking alone having visited his aunt. Maybe he was just bored and he wanted to shoot at a target worthy of his skill. At the end of the last row of these flats, stood a four-storey building. As he passed by, he decided to take aim at one of the light bulbs protruding in the balcony. It so happened, he succeeded and ended up blowing off a light bulb. He ran into the first open door townhouse close by and exited from the other side. Unfortunately, the owner of the blown off light bulb saw him running away. Later that evening, he visited the house where Shamshi had entered and said to the owner that your son did this as he ran in here. The owner called out his son Aly, who claimed innocence as he was playing tennis at that time. However, to settle the matter, his father replaced the bulb as a goodwill gesture. Aly suspected Shamsi for this incident and he was not welcomed to join the group anymore.
After doing well in his studies in Form III, Aly was given a bike as a birthday gift from his father. This allowed Aly to roam more areas in the suburbs and also to visit Kariakoo where his father’s shop was located. The only drawback was his sisters pestering him to deliver messages to their friends around town as there were no telephones in most houses. His elder brother had got himself a Honda 125cc motorbike after starting a job downtown. Occasionally, Aly was allowed to take a short ride around the block. In return, he had to do some chores for his brother like cleaning the motor bike and sometimes polishing his shoes. One summer during the holidays, his brother had gone for over a week to Zanzibar, an island off the coast. The motor bike stood outside the house covered in a tarp and locked. However, Aly couldn’t resist the temptation to take it out for a spin. After making sure his mother was busy in the kitchen, he grabbed the key and took off towards the Ocean View Road. This was a long-winded road leading all the way to the ferry terminal opposite the harbor. Initially, he rode carefully as he enjoyed the breeze from the seashore. Helmets were not usually worn, and he felt a gush of exhilaration as he started speeding up. Soon he was at almost full throttle when the bike suddenly shut off. To this date, he is not sure whether the bike ran out of gas or that the higher powers were not ready to have him up there yet. Not being able to restart the bike, he had to wheel it all the way back home.
Although Swahili was the official local language in Tanzania, all school subjects were taught in English. The reasons were obvious. Most educational books were written in the English language. The final qualifying examinations prior to going to a university were administered by Cambridge University based in England. Finally, most teachers and principals were recruited from abroad. However, Swahili was one of the compulsory subject to be taken at a secondary level. For some reasons, the Asians were either very good at it or were pathetic. Although they excelled in all other subjects, Swahili was a dismal failure. The classes were even split into two. Most local Africans and a few Asians from the interior were grouped together in one class while the rest (so called Muhindis) were put in another. The teacher in this class happened to be an Asian by the name of Mrs. Alibhai. You would think that having a teacher of the same background would motivate the students to learn the language. No chance. It was a hopeless case.
One day they were acting so unruly that she punished them all by taking them out to the fields outside to cut the grass using sickles. After an hour of cutting, someone had a bright idea of playing a musical dance called ‘Dandia’. This was performed during the Asian community festivals. It involved having two parallel rows with the same number of participants on both sides. During festival times, each would have a foot-long stick held in their hand.
Once the music starts with a traditional drum beat, participants would simply strike the stick of the persons on both opposite sides, at the same time move to the other side, turning around in the process. During actual ceremonies, there would be a live band playing songs in English and Hindi.
There was no hesitation from anyone to start playing ‘Dandia’ right there in the middle of the field. The sickles, though three foot long, served the purpose of the traditional sticks to strike each other. The music was improvised by singing along popular songs that were played during the festivals. The metallic sounds of sickles clashing added more exhilaration to this whole bizarre scenario. Looking back, it must have been working hard under the hot sun, for over an hour, that made the students forget that they were in the fields being punished to start with.
It was related much later that nobody had seen Mrs. Alibhai that furious. She almost fainted seeing her class, under punishment, dancing away merrily in the middle of the fields. She was in the staff room when the caretaker came over advising her that there was a dancing party underway in the fields. All the students were soon taken to see the Headmaster, Mr. Shabani. He had replaced the Englishman, Mr. Greenshaw, a year ago as part of the restructuring process initiated by the Government. Each of the student was given six of the best on their buttocks with a wooden cane. It hurt a lot as they had never been punished to this extent. Maybe it was more than six strokes as most students forgot how to count after three. There was some consolation that a sickle was not used instead. Most of the Asians ended up getting the lowest mark ‘9’ in Swahili for the final ‘O-Levels’ exams administered by the University of Cambridge. It was the only black mark on the report card with top marks on all other subjects.
The following year, Mrs. Alibhai emigrated to Canada where Swahili is hardly spoken or taught.
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AGAKHAN BOYS PRIMARY SCHOOL.
AGAKHAN BOYS PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS.
AGAKHAN BOYS PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS.
