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Abstract
Indian Delights, a beloved cookbook for many in South Africa’s Indian and Indian descendant community holds a special sentimental and cultural nostalgia. Not only does the cookbook document Indian culture through food practices; it is simultaneously a valuable model for recalling practices of resistance within the tensions of racial and customary constraint for Indian women in South Africa in the twentieth century. This text uses visual ethnography to speculate on Indian Delights as a “disloyal” or “infidel” treatise for soft spatial practices—one that is shaped by collective, domestic, and joyful forms of space-making that disrupt the conventional making of architectural form.
Notes
1 Goolam Vahed and Thembisa Waetjen, Gender, Modernity & Indian Delights (Cape Town: HSRC Press, 2010), 16–21.
2 “Soft” architecture is a concept framed in the author’s PhD dissertation, “Soft Architecture: Afro-Asian Spatial Practices,” (KU Leuven, 2020–24) under the cosupervision of Prof. Hilde Heynen and Prof. Hannah Le Roux.
3 “Soft” architecture relies on diasporic agility in new cultural terrains, as expressed in Anooradha Siddiqui’s work on migration and Hilde Heynen and Andre Loeckx’s remarks on architectural patterns of displacement.
4 Zuleikha Mayat describes the multicultural nature of the Durban inner city prior to the Group Areas Act as a “chow chow pickle jar” in her column Fahmida’s World in the Indian Views newsletter, as sourced by Vahed and Waetjen, Gender, Modernity & Indian Delights: The Womens Cultural Group of Durban 1954-2010.
5 Zuleikha Mayat, The Women’s Cultural Groups Book of Recipes on Indian Cookery (Durban, South Africa, Women’s Cultural Group, 1971), 4.
6 Vahed and Waetjen, Gender, Modernity & Indian Delights: The Womens Cultural Group of Durban 1954-2010, 30.
7 Rehana Ebr. Vally, Kala Pani: Caste and Colour in South Africa (Cape Town: Kwela Books, Social Identities South Africa Series, 2001), 214.
8 Nirvani Pillay, “The Porridge People of SA,” TamilCulture, March 3, 2017, https://tamilculture.com/porridge-people-south-africa.
9 Vahed and Waetjen, Gender, Modernity & Indian Delights: The Womens Cultural Group of Durban 1954-2010, 35.
10 The increasing Indian population in Durban led to discriminatory laws devised over a period of six decades. The Immigration Restriction Act of 1897[i] attempted to put a stop to the progress of Indians by prohibiting trade from the main trading streets and confining Indian commercial activity to certain areas. By 1903, Durban had developed a structural order that defined the city along racial lines. A dual city developed consisting of a ‘white’ city and an alternative ‘black’ city[ii]. Despite all the restrictive legislation against Indian/Black livelihood and business, the city continued to develop through the sheer resilience of traders and residents. The Indian population came together to form a collective group identity establishing a sense of ‘Indianness’ amongst themselves[iii].
[i] The Immigration Restriction Act (Natal) and subsequent amendments in 1900, 1903, and 1906, imposes an educational, health, age and means test against Indians other than indentured workers, seeking admission to the country, or entry to the Transvaal and Cape. This act stops all further immigration of free Indians into the colony. See “Anti-Indian Legislation 1800-1959,” South African History Online, https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/anti-indian-legislation-1800s-1959.
[ii] Goolam Vahed and Len Rosenburg, Dirty Linen: ‘Other’ Durban 1870–1980s: Research of Currie’s and Surrounds (Durban University of Technology, 2014), 1–20
[iii] ‘Indianness’ was an identity adopted by other racial groups. For instance, prior to the Group Areas Act, Black South Africans practicing Islam were relocated to the Indian area of Chatsworth. They not only shared religious values, but also embraced other traditions, such as food, dress, and festivities. Personal communication with Goolam Vahed, author of The Making of an Indian Township (Durban, University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, November 2013).
11 Zuleikha Mayat, Fahmida’s World column, as cited in Vahed and Waetjen, Gender, Modernity, and the Indian Delights.
12 Vahed Waetjen, Gender, Modernity & Indian Delights: The Womens Cultural Group of Durban 1954-2010.
13 The Group Areas Act (No. 41 of 1950) and its numerous amendments divided the South African population into racial groups for the purpose of segregating them into distinct residential areas.
14 In “Section 2d: The Art of Stuffing Vegetable” in Indian Delights, there is an anecdote describing the coming together of Italian, Portuguese, and Indian housewives at the Indian Markets in Durban. Indian, Portuguese, and Chinese market gardeners sell their produce at the markets. Indian Delights, 138.
15 Interview with Dr. Maureen Joshua, of South Indian descent, in her home in Durban, 2022.
16 The National Party was a political party in South Africa from 1914 to 1997, which was responsible for the implementation of apartheid rule.
17 Karthigasen Gopalan, “Memories of Forced Removals: Former Residents of the Durban Municipal Magazine Barracks and Group Areas Act,” New Contree 70:8 (2014): 195-218.
18 The Slums Act 1934 was aimed at improving conditions in locations by expropriating Indian property. By proclaiming certain non-white areas as ‘slums,’ these areas could be condemned and people forcibly removed from their homes.
19 Vahed and Waetjen, Gender, Modernity, and the Indian Delights, 80.
20 The names of the thirteen founding members of the WCG are compiled by Vahed and Waetjen in Gender, Modernity & Indian Delights: The Womens Cultural Group of Durban 1954-2010: Zuleikha Mayat, Zuby Seedat, Tehmina Rustomjee, Bibi Mall, Zohra Moosa, Bilqish Vawda, Laila Vawda, Khatija Vawda, Zubeida Barmania, Fatima Osman, Sayedah Ansari, Fatima Meer, and Devi Bughwan.
21 Vahed and Thembisa Waetjen, Gender, Modernity & Indian Delights: The Womens Cultural Group of Durban 1954-2010.
22 Vahed and Thembisa Waetjen, Gender, Modernity & Indian Delights: The Womens Cultural Group of Durban 1954-2010, 65.
23 Sucharita Sarkar, “Stories’ Digest: Narrating Identities and Cultures through Food in Blogs, Cook-Books and Advertisements in India,” Storytelling: Exploring the Art and Science of Narrative (Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2013), 97–115
24 Vahed and Waetjen, Gender, Modernity & Indian Delights: The Womens Cultural Group of Durban 1954-2010, 16–21.
25 Anne Bower, Recipes for Reading: Community Cookbooks, Stories, Histories (University of Massachusetts Press, 1997).
26 Zuleikha Mayat, The Women’s Cultural Groups Book of Recipes, 4.
27 Rehana Ebr. Vally, Kala Pani, 214.
28 Vahed and Waetjen, Gender, Modernity & Indian Delights: The Womens Cultural Group of Durban 1954-2010, 16–21.
29 Song Tao, Jana Scholza and Naiyi Wang, The Care Pavilion (The Global Game: Remapping Collaborations, London Design Biennale, 2023).
30 Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi, “Writing With: Togethering, Difference, and Feminist Architectural Histories of Migration,” eflux architecture, July 2018, https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/structural-instability/208707/writing-with/.
31 Armaghan Ziaee writing on Reza Shah in Transnational Modernization and the Gendered Built Environment in Iran: Altering Architectural Spaces and Gender Identities in the Early Twentieth Century (1925–1941) (University of Cincinnati, 2018).
32 Fatima Meer was a founding member of the WCG, but also a South African writer, academic, screenwriter, and prominent anti-apartheid activist.
33 Using Arendt’s definition in the Human Condition (1958, University of Chicago Press) of the “crucial labour of the housewife” who cooks out of necessity versus work, reproducing cooking practices as a way of creating a product, or performance of making.
34 bell hooks, “Homeplace (A Site of Resistance),” Yearning: Race, Gender, and. Cultural Politics (Boston, South End Press, 1990), 41–49, and bell hooks, “Choosing the Margin as a Space of Radical Openness,” Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media (1989).
35 Indian Delights is a form of Frichot et al.’s “lively archive,” and Wieger’s work on kitchens as the site of continuous collective struggle over reproductive rights in Frichot et al., Architecture and Feminisms: Ecologies, Economies and Technologies (Routledge, 2018).
36 Sarkar, “Stories Digest, 97–115.
37 Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi and Rachel Lee, “Article 1 of 11: On Diffractions: Feminist Architectural Histories of Migration,” Canadian Centre for Architecture, Published in 2021, https://www.cca.qc.ca/en/articles/issues/30/of-migration/81045/on-diffractions-feminist-architectural-histories-of-migration.
38 Siddiqi and Lee, “On Diffractions.”
39 Khuri kitchri recipe in Indian Delights, 359.
40 Hilde Heynen and Gulsum Baydar, Negotiating Domesticity: Spatial Productions of Gender in Modern Architecture (London, Routledge, 2005), 30.
41 Tina Smith, District 6 Huis Kombuis (Cape Town, Quivertree Publications, 2016), 8–10.
42 Irina Davidovici and Katrin Albrecht on Flora Ruchat-Roncati’s life and work, “Article 7 of 11 Convivium: Flora Ruchat-Roncati’s Practice,” Canadian Centre for Architecture, 2021, https://www.cca.qc.ca/en/articles/issues/30/of-migration/82042/convivium-flora-ruchat-roncatis-practice.
43 Mariam Rashid et Al., “Praxis of the Undercommons: Rupturing University Conviviality and Coded Formations of Diversity,” Globalisation, Societies and Education 21:4 (March 2023).
44 Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti, “Al Madafeh—The Living Room: The Right to Host,” Permanent Temporariness (Stockholm, Art and Theory Publishing, 2018): 363–73.
45 In an interview with Rabia (author’s grandmother), she tells a story of cooking a kalya using her neighbor’s recipe, however when tasting it she noticed that it didn’t have the same special taste as it did when she ate it at her neighbor’s home. She mused that it must be missing an essential ingredient.
46 Talk by Nabeel Essa and Tanzeem Razak on their project Drawing Memory into Being for the Venice Architecture Biennale 2023 for the Venice Biennale Lecture Series hosted by the Gauteng Institute of Architects.
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Amina Kaskar
Amina Kaskar is a South African architect, having obtained a Masters in Architecture from the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in 2014, Johannesburg and completed a Masters in Human Settlements from KU Leuven, Belgium in 2018. She co-foundered Counterspace, a collaborative architectural studio dedicated to architectural projects, exhibition design, art installations, public events curation and urban design. During her time at Counterspace, 2014-2020, Counterspace was commissioned to design the Serpentine Pavilion 2020 and was listed in the top 100 architecture firms in the world by Domus Magazine. She has also been involved in various curatorial projects with the Women’s Living Heritage Monument and The Cradle of Humankind. She is a lecturer in the Wits School of Architecture. She is part of the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER). She was awarded the Global Minds scholarship to complete a PhD at KU Leuven.