Nani Daji

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Naniben was born on 9 June 1921 in the village of Bodali, Navsari, Gujarat. Her parents, Nana and Bhiki Soma, of Koli caste, had five daughters: Nandi, Ratan, Mithi, Nani and Luki. In later years, Nandi and Ratan married and migrated to South Africa, with Mithi and Luki staying in Gujarat. Nani, however, would travel very far, leaving her homeland and family behind, never to see her parents again.

Nani’s village home was a humble house with a thatched roof. It had only two rooms, one for sleeping and one for cooking and eating. Outside, there was a washing area and the toilet was a hole in the ground. They had cows for milk and grew juwar (wheat) that Nani and her sisters would grind by hand using a mill-stone grinder. Having a buffalo cart to deliver milk enabled Nana to earn an income, which meant Nani was educated and could read and write in Gujarati. This was unusual for girls in India at the time.
 

Gujarati men had been migrating to New Zealand to work since the early 1900s, and in 1928, seventeen-year-old Vallabh Daji from the village of Tavdi made this journey. Vallabhbhai, with a group of other Gujarati men, boarded the SS Marama in Mumbai and arrived in Wellington on 3 January 1929. Their occupations were noted as ‘domestic’ and ‘labourers’. These early settlers lived in poverty and endured great hardship but they survived through their sheer determination and perseverance. 

In 1945, at age thirty-four, Vallabh left Wellington for Mumbai on the SS Strathaird. His nationality was noted as ‘British Indian’ and his occupation had now become ‘fruiterer’. In India, Vallabhbhai married our mother Naniben Soma. In November 1946 a daughter, Ruxmani, was born and then in January 1948 a son, Jerram. Vallabhbhai left his family to return to New Zealand. Several months later, in mid-November 1948, Nani boarded the SS Malajo in Mumbai with around forty other people from Gujarat, including Nani’s brother-in-law Naran Daji. 

The four-to-six week voyage stopped at Colombo, Fremantle and Melbourne en route to Sydney. The men shared a very large cabin, the women and older children another. Nani and her young children were in a small cabin below deck with a bunk, and with the two children she could not go above to the eating area. During the journey Nani lived off the snacks she had brought from home and fruit that was brought down to her. In mid-December, when they arrived in Sydney, everyone disembarked and stayed at India House before being put on seaplanes to New Zealand. However, Nani, speaking only Gujarati, was stranded with her two children for a month until a good samaritan put them on a seaplane, arriving at the floating dock at Mechanics Bay in Auckland. She was finally reunited with her husband.
 

Nani, though she could not speak, write or read English, began working at Vallabh’s fruit shop at 813 Mount Eden Road. On top of caring for her children and cooking, she also did chores for Vallabh’s brother Naran, and a few other Gujurati men who, as new immigrants, came to live at the shop. 

Nani’s upbringing was of a strict nature (her family being all girls), and she was very strong willed. This was to her advantage when one day she was held up at gunpoint by a man in the fruit shop, who stole almost all the money out of the cash register. She was frightened but seemed to remain calm. After the man left the shop, she called out for help, going next door to tell another shopkeeper what had happened. This man called the police and Nani was able to give a good description of the robber. The incident made the news, and her photo appeared in the daily paper. Earlier that year, she also had to deal with the tragic loss of her first-born child in New Zealand; Savita, suffering from tuberculosis, passed away on 7 April 1951, aged fourteen months.

 

In the early 1950s, our family moved from Mount Eden to a fruit shop in New North Road, among a block of other shops. There was a storeroom, a very small living area with a fireplace and old worn-out furniture, a large kitchen, coal range, two bedrooms and no hot water. Outside was a long-drop toilet and a tin shed with a copper for washing and heating water and a tin bath. A large spatula-like wooden spoon was used to move the washing about and Nani would hand-wring the clothes. She would be up daily at dawn to tend to all the chores. In later years Vallabh had a fruit hawker run in Otahuhu and Papatoetoe, meaning Nani was left to run the shop virtually on her own.

 

Joining Ruxmani (Ruke) and Jerram came the Kiwi-born clan: Arvind (Owen), February 1951; Babu, March 1952; Ramesh (Ramus), November 1953; Manu, December 1954; Arjun (John), October 1957 and Prakash (Peter), July 1960. Our family became friendly with a neighbour who we called Aunty Jessie. She gave us our European names and whenever Nani was away from home, giving birth to her children, Aunty Jessie would come and do the washing and other chores. In return she was given fruit and vegetables, and so the Daji generosity began. When Aunty Jessie’s daughter Lesley started school, Nani also sent her son Arvind along even though he was only four. Aunty Jessie also took Nani to see her first Indian movie in Queen Street.

 

A few doors up from us lived an Indian clothing retailer, from whom Nani was able to buy clothes on credit, always ensuring that we children were tidily dressed. Nani would also send frilly nylon dresses to her nieces in India and velvet fabric, in those days all the rage, to her sisters to make sari blouses. In return, they would send Nani saris. So Nani was always immaculately dressed, and Vallabh, too, was always dapper, donning his suit on outings. 

The clothing retailer was President of the New Zealand Indian Association in the 1950s, and when dignitaries from India came to visit, Nani was asked to cook her traditional Indian curries. In her footsteps, I was taught to cook at the age of ten. Although I only did it because I had to, I grew to enjoy cooking so much that later I taught traditional Gujarati cooking at night school. And so Nani’s recipes from her homeland live on in many New Zealand households today. In recent years Nani also took great pleasure in teaching her sons to cook these curries, always without recipes or measuring.

Nani was the type of person who rarely showed her emotions and kept religious beliefs to herself. She did, however, hold fast to her traditional ways. In bereavement, households do not cook meals until after the funeral, so Nani would always take vegetable curries and rotli (flat bread) to others during these times of grieving. Over these years, some of my brothers had life-threatening illnesses, pneumonia, diphtheria and rheumatic fever—Arvind spending nearly six months in Auckland Hospital. Nani travelled every day by bus to visit him, walking across Grafton Bridge, until her prayers were answered and he was well enough to return home.

 

Sundays were visiting days and in future years became the day to watch Indian movies. Sunday mornings meant Gujarati school for us children, where we learned to speak, read and write the language and learn about our culture. 

In 1962 the fruit shop was closed along with all the shops in the block on New North Road, leaving the Daji family without a home. Thankfully, an upcoming Indian lawyer, through capitalisation of family benefits and the Housing Corporation, helped secure a loan for a new home to be built in the subdivision of Fonteyn Street in Avondale. In March 1963, we moved into a small four-bedroom home with a kitchen, lounge, fireplace, toilet and bathroom. To Nani it was a dream come true and she would never leave this new home.

 

A neighbour taught Nani knitting and without a pattern she would knit jumpers and cardigans for everyone. Gardening also became a fond hobby of hers, and she grew a variety of Indian beans, papri and chori, which were shared with family and friends. Vallabh worked for a short while at a fruit shop in Grafton and Nani also at a fruit shop in Point Chevalier. Then Vallabh got a job at Donaghys Rope and Twine and Nani joined him there. 

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During this time, Nani got news that her eldest sister Nandi was very ill, so after twenty years she returned to India in 1971 to see her eldest sister one last time. She could only spare a few weeks from her job and family. 

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The Indian Gujarati community was a very small and close-knit society in the early days and most families knew each other so marriages were arranged by relatives. Nani was sent a photo of the son of her brother-in-law Naran, and approached a family in New Zealand who were looking for a husband for their daughter. After the girl agreed on the match, Nani and Vallabh got Naran’s son to come out from India and the wedding took place in the Gandhi Hall in Victoria Street. Nani even arranged for my sister-in-law from Fiji to marry in the same way as she had for Naran’s son and Nani’s youngest sister’s son in 1983. Vallabh was always out and about, and Nani knew most of the community so when a family wanted their children to marry they approached her to see if she knew of suitable partners. Nani would liaise with the opposite family and then the children would meet, and if all was okay they would marry. Many New Zealand marriages were arranged by Nani, and she attended a great number as well.

 

All of Nani’s seven boys became hockey players, playing for New Zealand Indians and Auckland Province teams, and some went on to coach as well. The youngest, Peter, would represent New Zealand in 1979 and captain the New Zealand team in 1991. I played netball at school and in 1965 played in a Gujarati girls’ netball team. However, at the age of thirty-five I followed my daughter Jayshree’s example, learned to play hockey and found my passion for the sport.

 

Vallabh retired at the age of sixty from his job at Donaghys, and made his first trip back to India, staying for around six months. Some years later he fell ill with a heart condition so Nani retired from work to care for him. Vallabh passed away on 25 August 1978 at the age of sixty-seven. Nani, wishing to visit India after Vallabh’s passing, decided to take a trip in November 1979 along with me and her granddaughters Jayshree and Shaline. We travelled first to Fiji to visit relatives, then on to Los Angeles (Disneyland), the United Kingdom, to visit nieces and nephews who had migrated there from Africa and India, had a few days in Paris before arriving in Gujarat. This was Nani’s first long visit to her homeland after thirty years. With her family, Nani toured India, going to Agra, the Taj Mahal, Jaipur, Ahmedabad and then staying in Gujarat for a few months, taking time to see relatives. But she dearly missed her family, and returned to New Zealand, which she now considered her home.

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Nani was still active until she had a fall in mid-January 2004, passing away on 3 February 2004, at age eighty-two. Nani was a very generous and loving mother and grandmother, a strong-willed person with a sense of humour, quite outspoken yet rarely showing her emotions, and, yes, stubborn at times too. She endured tremendous poverty and hardship for the betterment of her family. 

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Wealth was never her goal; instead she was always providing for her relatives in India and helping those around her. Life for her was about people, and love for her family. Nani was a true matriarch and had the love and respect of all around her. She played a huge part in her grandchildren’s lives and they in hers, many spending time at her house after school and during school holidays. Whenever something was happening in the family the first question was always, ‘What’s Dadimai going to say?’ She always enjoyed having gatherings of her large family at every opportunity and we were happy she was around to see her first great-grandchildren born. 

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 Today her family are now third-generation Kiwis, multicultural, with many interracial marriages. Despite intermarriage commonly being frowned upon in earlier days, Nani loved us all with all her heart. Her legacy of love, strength, humour, determination and a strong family bond lives on in all of us.

 

By her loving and only daughter, Ruke