Shiri Sunderji

Shiri's wedding

The quote below is taken from the book "THIS IS MY LIFE - Gujarat, East Africa, Canada - A FAMILY BIOGRAPHY ", a personal biography by Naznin Hebert which is also a lively, poignant life history of both sides of Naznin's large family.

(The book makes great reading and is available for a modest price of $10 plus shipping from Naznin nazninh@gmail.com

Living in a tropical country, the weather is always good except for the monsoon rains. So, Maa did a lot of the cooking on a charcoal sagri (barbecue), on the veranda. One afternoon, a relative came to visit with her daughter who was about the same age as Gulzar, Maa’s daughter. The common practice in our community is, when people visit, to always offer refreshments. Maa asked Bai, mummy’s younger sister, to make bhajia, which are vegetable gram flour fritters that are deep fried. Bai set up the sagri on the veranda and put her wok on it with oil. The oil must be hot to fry the bhajias. As she was doing that, Gulzar, who was 5 or 6 years old, and her friend were playing tag around. Gulzar slipped and fell chest first into the wok. Bai tried to break the fall by putting her hand in front but was too late. Gulzar was burnt 80% of her body from her chest down to her stomach, and Bai got splashes of hot oil on her arm. I will not go into the details that followed, but we can all imagine the pain that everybody felt after the incident, the physical pain, the mental one, the suffering and the guilt. The doctor who lived two houses down from their house, paid a visit almost every day to dress Gulzar’s wound himself. For a while it was touch and go. The doctor thought that she would not make it. But she did.
After the accident, Bapa said to Maa that Gulzar was an unlucky name and that they should change it, because it sounded too much like Gulshan who had passed away earlier in a tragic car accident. They asked Gulzar what name she would like, and she chose Shiri.
Today, Shiri is 84 years old, lives in Vancouver, has two children and five grandchildren. She still, of course remembers the accident and has scars on her body, up to this day. On a happier note, there were two weddings that took place in the tin roofed house, Mummy’s, and Bai’s. I can visualize all the hoopla! Weddings are huge in our community. All the visitors, the food, the cooking, the music, and family getting together.
A lot of joy and laughter.