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Mrs Shirin Lalani is the oldest lady – quite likely even the oldest person – in the Ismailia community in Uganda as of April 2012. I have known her ever since she was friends and Kamariani to my mother in the Ismaili Ladies majlas in the late 1950s. Now I see her in the

jamatkhana every time I go and she comes, which until recently was everyday and now at least thrice a week. We always talk. I meet her at different places with her sons Tiku, Salim and Sikander. She uses a walker. Today, at mid-afternoon, she greets me at the door unassisted. She explains the walker is an insurance against falling down. As we do the introductions I begin to place her apart from her gifted children: Of course she is sister of the famous advocate AK Ismail of the George&Ismail and later Korde&Ismail firm. Then all the sisters come tripping to mind and the other brother Madat. From AK Ismail’s family I recall his wife Shirinbai, the first Asian lady advocate in East Africa and her son Akber, the advocate, a childhood friend of mine in the Rubaga Road area. The Ismails and Lalanis lived in the charmed Rubaga Road-Namirembe Road-Bakuli Road triangle, where we also lived. Shirinbai on her side had no problems at all placing me, reciting the names of all my siblings, my fa-ther’s name properly as IV Jamal, but she even knew the names of all the Jamal-Pradhan brothers – Hasham, Valli (my grandfather), Ahmed, and Ebrahim. She knew my mother’s family – Premji Dhanji – and she was friends with my mother as well as my aunt Khatija. She knew who I was married to and all her family. She even knew about the handicap of my daughter. A person in the old tradition, with all the connections clicking in. It was im-possible to think she was going to be ninety in February! She said around 200 guests would be coming to the party and I was invited. She was dressed up like she was going to the jamatkhana – short-dress suit, a string of pearls,

Mrs Shirin Lalani: Dignity at ninety+Passed away March 23, 2014Interviewed at her apartment on Mackinon Road, Nakasero, December 5, 2011 and updated at April 2012Children: Farida (born 1942), Sikander (1944), Kamal (“Tiku”,1947), Salim (1949), Nirmin (1954). Karim (1962). 14 grandchildren (5 boys and 9 girls) and 7 great-grandchildren Father Kassam Esmail family: Abdallah (AK Esmail born Mbale 1915, died Kampala 1951), Fatma (Mrs Gulamhussein Chatur Tarmohamed, born 1917), Shirin (herself, born 12.2.22), Madat (born 1924, died 2011), Sakar, Nurbanu, Malek, Khatoon, Gulshan

make-up, hair combed down. I asked jokingly if she was going out. She said no, with a glint in her eye. The home too is spick&span. There’s a large French window from which trees almost enter the indoors. She says she wouldn’t move elsewhere and she likes her independence, looked after by three servants, with a car at her disposal. The maid brings just-fried samosas.

Shirinbai started by giving me the names of the seven generations of her family with Ugandan connections. She always referred to her husband as “Sikander’s father” – rather than as my husband, let alone, Nazarali. That’s how the honours were in those days.

In her own wordsOn my husband’s side we can count seven generations in Uganda, and I think that must be a record. I remem-ber meeting the person of the first generation – Hirbai Dosa who was my husband’s great-grandmother. It was in 1942 when my daughter Farida was born. Hirbai was then 102 years old, so that means she was born in 1840. I doubt any female of that birthdate came to East Africa in those days! One of Hirbai’s sons was Rupshi Dosa, who is our ancestor. There

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were two other sons – Hirji and Khimji. Rupshi’s son was Kuverji, then Nazarali, my husband. We had six children. If we trace down from Kamal (Tiku) we have his son Nadeem. He had a daughter last year, Alisha, born in Kampala. So that’s the seventh generation Ugandan.

I was born in Masaka on 12th February, 1922, so my birthdate is 12.2.22. My father was a businessman. He came to Uganda in 1913, first settling in Jinja and then Mbale. I was number three in the family, after my brother Abdallah (AK Ismail) and sister Fatma,

Mrs Gulamhussein Chatur, your friend Amin’s mother. After me there was another brother Madat. I started school at Aga Khan School in Masaka. I completed up to JSL – SS 3. After that the choice for me was to go to Kampala for my continuing education but I just couldn’t contemplate doing that as it would have meant leaving my mother behind in Masaka. So I stayed home. My brothers made sure I received lessons through tutors and by bringing me reading material. My mother taught me to tailor clothes. My father passed away in 1944 of a heart attack. He was in his 50s. Both of his brothers – Gulamhussein (Sultan

Sawaria’s father) and Ibrahim - also died in their 50s. To go past the 50s was considered something rare then.

I got married in 1942 to Nazarali Lalani. My husband worked as a legal clerk in the firm of my brother AK Ismail. For a while my husband associated with my fa-ther in his coffee business, from Kalisizo. My husband was friends with the DC. KD Gupta was the govern-ment’s education administrator. My husband secured a plot of land from the DC with his help for an Aga Khan school.

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Around 1937 my husband came to Kampala to work with Sultani in his cycle mart and in a couple of years branched out on his own in the same line. At the side he ran a bus company – with just one bus! It plied between Kampala and Masaka. Any Asian could get a free ride anytime. Just about then the Imam Sul-tan Mohamed Shah made a farman encouraging our people to go into Congo and Rwanda. My husband left for Rwanda with my younger brother Madat. That started our family’s long association with the countries to the west, an association that continued with my own children. My husband was the sole agent of Crocodile hoes from Japan. He was in and out of Rwanda and Uganda for five years. Our home was just off Rubaga Road, where you lived, on the cul-de-sac, where also the Jafferali Lalji Mangalji family lived.

In 1957 my husband set up the clothing company called Continental Store in the Motor Mart building on Kampala Road. I helped in the women’s tailoring de-partment. The Ismaili women were switching to short dresses on the farman of the Imam of the time, so there was plenty of business. I was the tailor of choice for outfitting the brides and bridesmaids of our community in the late 1950s. I could say practically all the fash-ionable girls of those times got their taffeta wedding dress done at our shop. It had to be taffeta. I used to cut from pattern. The high-ups of the muzungu society used to shop at our store, including Lady Cohen, wife of the Governor. She was very partial to hand bags and would order up by the half-dozen. We ran that business for four years and then moved to Rwanda. We were there till the genocide in 1994.

We started out in the trucking business, with two second-hand lorries. We were transporting out coffee to Uganda and on to Mombasa. Soon enough we also owned a petrol station. Tiku did a mehmani to Hazar Imam around 1965 and asked for his blessings for his intention to join his father in business in Rwanda. They spoke half in French. Hazar Imam said that he should complete his secondary education and then go

west. Salim came two years later. He started branches in Congo. Sikander came out to Uganda in 1971 from London and Belgium. In 1972 he came to Rwanda.

At mid-1970s I and my husband were living in Lon-don, with Sikander handling the business in Rwanda. He expanded it several-fold. My husband was under treatment for a heart condition. I remember his last moments distinctly on 22nd February 1977. We had attended jamatkhana ceremonies on three consecutive nights. The doctor had instructed him not to eat heavy food, so he passed the jooro to me. On returning home from the third majlas he went to sleep early. He woke me up at 4.30 am to say he was feeling hot, and in fact not well at all. I called the doctor. My husband said he felt like vomiting, so I went to fetch a bowl from the kitchen. When I returned he was lying down with his eyes closed. I called out to him but he didn’t answer.

I returned to Kigali soon after the burial. Sikander was beginning to branch out by now into electronics and iron sheets. Tiku had gone to Congo and Salim was in Kivu. We were wiped out in the 1994 genocide eve-rywhere – Kigali, Kivu, Bukavu, Goma. Sikander had four trailer trucks, a dozen trucks and several mini-buses that he lost in daylight robberies. All our savings went – and all around us the genocide was happen-ing. There was the stench of blood everywhere. My daughter Nirmin was with me with her two daughters. The embassies were organizing convoys for anyone needing to get out with them. Sikander said we should evacuate immediately to Nairobi by plane. We ended up in a hotel. Nirmin went to UK from there as she had British rights; Sikander went to Belgium, and I to Canada to tie up my citizenship rights. I stayed in Canada till 1997 till I acquired my Canadian citizen-ship. I came to Uganda that year to celebrate my 75th birthday and stayed on.

The XC Bday partyIt was the Party of The Decadee – already in February 2012. It wasn’t because of the food, the drinks and the décor but for the warmth shown to Shirinbai by all those invited – nearly 200 people – and the fam-ily members. Many speeches were made. Shirinbai sat through all that, totally involved. One of the highlights was a mes-sage from H E the President, read by Hon al-Hajj AM Kirunda-Kivejinja. An album was created by the author and designer Chris Ssegawa and was circulated amongst the guests after midnight and all those present signed their messages. Pic-tures are those taken at the party or days immediately following.

Mrs Lalani with the message received from HE the President on her 90th birthday.

[Mrs Lalani was awarded Uganda’s Golden Jubilee medal in October 2013. She suffered a major stroke

on February 13, 2014 and passed away peacefully on March 23, 2014. Prayers for the rest of her eternal

soul. Ameen.]