Of a missed chance to have a chat with literary great Pheroze Nowrojee again

I missed out on a momentous event in Nairobi this week. This was the dialogic launch on Thursday of Pheroze Nowrojee’s Dukawalla and Other Stories at the Goethe Institut.

I would have loved to be there, for quite a clutch of reasons.

But, unfortunately, the invitation to the event found me in Kampala, where I was participating in the launch of a national survey of the state and status of Kiswahili in Uganda.

I will tell you soon about this fascinating and ambitious undertaking by the East African Kiswahili Commission, which will cover the whole of the East African Community area, from Burundi to South Sudan.

One often wishes that one had the gift of “bilocation”, the ability to be in more than one place at the same time.

Obviously, for us who have been blessed to have books and writing as both our career and hobby, every opportunity to savour and chat about a creative work is an occasion for celebration.

'DELICIOUS' SHARING

I am sure the sharing at the Goethe was delicious, with not only the text from one of the most eloquent users of language among us, but also with the lead of our literary luminaries, Khainga O’Okwemba, who chaired the session, the firebrand Tony Mochama and Prof Chris Wanjala, who initiated the dialogue.

Maybe we will talk more about the event and the book when we have the details of how it went. But the featuring of Pheroze Nowrojee (right) in a literary event just so excited me that I could not stop the recall of a few events past and episodes shared with this remarkably versatile scholar, lawyer, activist and literary artist.

Regarding this last trait of Nowrojee, I cannot resist the temptation to reiterate my humble pleasure and surprise at how frequently we “professional” literati are overshadowed and dwarfed by the creative triumphs of colleagues in supposedly non-literary specialisations.

Lawyers, like Nowrojee and retired Ugandan Chief Judge and poet James Ogolla, may be close relatives in the service of the word.

But what excuse can we plead before literary geniuses like surveyor Matthias Mulumba or medical doctors, like the late Margaret Ogolla and, even closer to us, our own Surgeon Yusuf Dawood?

I suppose the most surgical response we can give to these phenomenal “outsiders” is that, like religion, literature is universal to all and it is the business of all who care about humanity and life. After all, literature is not only about life. It is life expressed.      

Anyway, at a personal level, the Nowrojees, Pheroze and Shukran, are friends whom I seem to have known and admired nearly all of my life in the scholarly and academic struggle.

I believe it dates back to the University of Dar es Salaam days, but I cannot quite align the years. Anyway, Pheroze needs no introduction to any knowledgeable and caring Kenyan.

His name is written large in, among many other honours, the annals of the history of the precious Constitution by which we are ruled and governed (and I use “precious” as a deliberate signal to those who might be tempted to be light-hearted about it).

But for those of us who have been privileged to know these quiet-spoken yet uniquely assertive people at a personal level, the publication of texts like Dukawalla and his earlier A Kenyan Journey are of particular significance.

The texts are a generous sharing with us of important human aspects of their lives and those of their community that may not be readily visible or understandable to us but which are crucial to our communal harmony, or cohesion as we officially call it.

Indeed, Pheroze Nowrojee is sharply aware of the importance of such writing, and in the process of expressing it, he articulates for me what I think is one of the best statements of a writer’s responsibility.

“Our ancestors did not leave eloquent writings,” he said at the launch of A Kenyan Journey in 2015, “but they left eloquent lives… It is our duty to read those lives, and turn their sacrifices into the national narrative and the national purposes they died for.”

DELIGHTFUL REUNION

Come to think of it, I realise I have not seen or heard from the Nowrojees for quite a while! I told you of the delightful reunion we had at the official launching of the Joseph Murumbi art collection at the old Nairobi Provincial Headquarters building, next to the Posta Headquarters.

But that is how it is with people you love and value, especially as we advance in seniority. You trust they are getting on with their quiet, sane and stable lives, and time and grace take care of the rest.

I was going to suggest that, for even more insight into Nowrojee’s personal, literary vision of our countries and their citizens, one should also look at his poems, published over several decades, and reviewed in our columns in 2014 by my friend, Prof Chris Wanjala.

But I hesitated because of a rather embarrassing personal recollection.

I cannot quite remember the details, but I once miserably failed to keep an appointment with Pheroze Nowrojee, a few decades ago.

He had, I think, in his characteristic humility, asked me to have a look at some of his verse and then meet him for a chat. Well, the rest is humble confession and admission of a sin of omission. In other words, I did not show up, and I cannot think of any good reason why I did not.

Did we ever talk about it in subsequent encounters? I doubt. But the ease and good-natured ease with which Pheroze and Shukran have always treated me reassures me that they held, and hold, nothing against me.

Still, I cringe now at the realisation that I missed a chance to claim that I might have contributed a mite to this wonderful writer’s success.

Prof Bukenya is a leading East African scholar of English and Literature. [email protected]