Hommage à Mouslim

 Par Monique Stegen (Canada) 

 

Photo d'en haut : Mouslim et moi à Niagara Falls (Canada).
Source : Monique Stegen, Canada.

Mon mari et moi avons fait la connaissance de Mouslim alors que nous habitions à Londres dans les années 60. Il était si jovial qu’il est vite devenu un ami. À Londres, à cette époque, c’était difficile d’avoir un téléphone, cela prenait une année ou plus avant l’installation. Donc, c’était chez lui que nous nous rendions pour faire nos appels et moi, surtout, quand mon mari était déjà parti pour le Canada en 1967. Laissée seule à me débrouiller, Mouslim dès lors, était devenu mon conseiller à propos de la vente de ma maison et s’échauffait quand mon mari du Canada exigeât que tout se passât plus vite.

Mouslim, en collaboration avec un autre Mauricien, s’occupait des vols affrétés de Londres à Plaisance. Il avait réussi à convaincre quelques amis mauriciens, mon mari et un Anglais que nous connaissions pour cette démarche et les réunions se faisaient dans notre salle de séjour à Londres. Je me souviens avoir assisté à quelques-unes de ces réunions et si je ne me trompe pas, je faisais aussi le procès-verbal!

 

Mouslim, en collaboration avec un autre Mauricien, s’occupait des vols affrétés de Londres à Plaisance.  Il avait réussi à convaincre quelques amis mauriciens, mon mari et un Anglais que nous connaissions pour cette démarche et les réunions se faisaient dans notre salle de séjour à Londres.

 

Partie de l’Île Maurice après mon mariage, en 1957, et n’ayant pas beaucoup de ressources financières, je n’avais aucun moyen d’aller visiter ma famille à Maurice et cela me chagrinait énormément bien que plusieurs membres de ma famille vinssent en vacances chez nous. Dix ans se passèrent et j’avais la nostalgie de revoir mon île et ceux que j’avais quittés depuis si longtemps. Nous avions aussi une petite fille née en 1960. Maintenant que j’allais bientôt rejoindre mon mari au Canada après la vente de ma maison à Londres, je n’avais aucune perspective de revoir mon île, il fallait s’établir au Canada avant de penser aux voyages. D’autre part, toute ma famille de l’Île Maurice allait émigrer en Australie en 1968.

 

 

Deux billets gratuits pour l’Île Maurice

 

Mouslim est arrivé chez moi, un jour, avec deux billets gratuits pour l’Île Maurice : un pour ma petite fille de 7 ans et l’autre pour moi! Quel bonheur! Je ne sais pas exactement ce que je lui ai dit. Il nous fallait partir vite. Le séjour à Maurice était prévu dans trois semaines. Mon premier voyage en avion et quel voyage ce fut!

Notre première escale était en Libye où des soldats libyens braquaient leurs fusils sur les passagers qui descendaient de l’avion pour nous rendre dans un bâtiment qui ressemblait plus à un bar qu’à un aéroport. Tout était recouvert d’une poussière rouge et nous buvions du Coca Cola tiède. La prochaine escale se faisait à Entebbe, là encore cela ressemblait à tout autre chose qu’un aéroport. Je me souviens que ma fille et moi avons pris une douche pour nous laver de cette poussière rouge de la Libye. Tout fut oublié aussitôt rentrées à l’Île Maurice où nous avions passé un merveilleux séjour comme un conte de fées, grâce à la générosité de Mouslim.

Chez nous, au Canada, il était venu d’abord avec Amina qui avait des problèmes de santé. Ensuite, après le décès de celle-ci, il est venu seul nous revoir et nous avons passé d’excellents moments ensemble. En souvenir de lui, il m’avait donné un rosier filant qui donnaient des fleurs extraordinaires. Il ne manquait jamais de nous écrire. Si je me souviens bien, son anniversaire était la même date que celui de mon mari, c’est-à-dire, le 8 novembre. Que tu reposes en paix, Mouslim! 

--

Mouslim Mahomed Osman is the son of Mahomed Osman.

--

An English version of this tribute is available here: Tribute to Mouslim.

 

Chacha Mouslim: See you in Paradise inshallah!

 By Shafick Osman

(Ontario, Canada)

 

Mouslim Mahomed Osman, England, 1962.
Credit: Amin Osman archives.

   

He probably would have preferred that we write this tribute in English, British as he was, but we feel much more comfortable writing it in (Canadian) French.

He was a key figure in our family, he lived far, far away in London, and when we talked about Chacha Mouslim, there was an element of reverie, because far from the age of the Internet, it was a mystery, something vague when our mother told us about this paternal uncle who quickly became an icon in my memory. The mystery thickened when mother told us, in detail, about Aslam, his eldest son, and Chachi Amina, his wife. But one thing is certain: Chacha Mouslim's family was close to our mum and to my father, and therefore to us! He was our father's elder brother, a bit of a mentor in many ways, and our mother, living in London for a few months with me in 1970, had become close to Chachi Amina. And as Aslam is a year older than us, he was automatically our reference at the time, as I was too young to choose one!

 

Chacha Mouslim was a great organiser and a 'multi-culturalist' too. He had left Mauritius well before independence and had become, in London, an organiser of charter flights from Plaisance. This made him a well-known figure in immigration circles and among Mauritian families who had just arrived in England (...)

 

There is not a person we know who would not describe Chacha Mouslim as a most amusing personality, with an almost permanent air of joviality and as we used to say in Mauritian Creole, enn farser (a joker). He was six years older than our father, but they got on wonderfully. They were really two friends. Even physically they looked alike, but our father was much more of a technocrat than Chacha Mouslim who was more literary than scientific. It was on the advice of Chacha Mouslim that our father decided not to go to Calgary (Canada) but to go to the Toronto area in 1970 because, according to Chacha Mouslim, Calgary was too far north, whereas in Burlington, near Toronto, he knew a Mauritian woman (married to a German) who could accommodate his younger brother. And our father, while having his ticket to Calgary in hand, decided to stay in Burlington. That's how much influence Chacha Mouslim had on him!

 

Tonn swiv li

 

Chacha Mouslim read a lot of the British press and was very interested in international news, and we were once told that we ‘followed’ him in this respect. He had a diametrically opposed opinion to ours on the Palestinian issue and he was also very British in his approach, following closely the debates in the House of Commons in England. And it was he, Chacha Mouslim, who told us that his brother, Sir Abdool Raman Osman, ran a "newspaper" (a magazine or a review, in actual fact) and he ended up saying to us one day, "tonn swiv li" (you "followed" his steps). When he was in Mauritius, Chacha Mouslim took pleasure in reading the local press with the serious tone that we know him for when he browses the newspapers, an attitude that contradicts his everyday jovial and relaxed mood.

Chacha Mouslim was a great organiser and a 'multi-culturalist' too. He had left Mauritius some time before Independence and had become, in London, an organiser of charter flights from Plaisance. This made him a well-known figure in immigration circles and among Mauritian families who had just arrived in England, as he had mastered the whole ‘system’: welfare, nurseries, housing, first jobs, etc. He was in his element in London and was able to make a name for himself. And like an Osman who lived up to his name, he was rigorous and detail-oriented!

About ten years ago, during one of our visits to London, we went to his house and, in a Franco-French reflex, or perhaps as a grandson would have seen his grandfather, we kissed him quite naturally (on his cheeks), and he let out, "premie fwa enn zom anbrass mwa" (this is the first time a man is kissing me!), with a big laugh as usual.

That was Chacha Mouslim! He passed away today, 2 January, at the age of 91, and will remain an icon of the family, my icon. May the God, the Creator, forgive all his sins, may the God protect him in the hereafter, and may the God reunite us in the highest height of Paradise in the next world! Amen!

--
Mouslim Mahomed Osman is the son of Mahomed Osman.

---

La version française de cet hommage est disponible ici : Chacha Mouslim : à Dieu!

A short memo on Guar (or Cluster Bean)

By Amin Osman

(13 October 2021)

 

Guar (Tamil Nadu, India).
Credit: By த*உழவன் - Own work,
Public Domain,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7924074

 

Guar, cymoposis tetragonoloba, is known as Cluster Bean is well known mainly in North India and Pakistan and grows extensively in the semi arid regions. It is used a vegetable, green manure, etc. and for the production of seeds from which the guar gum is extracted. The plant resembles an upright garden bean but grows upright to some one metre high.

The tender seedpods are used as a vegetable, the mature plants are used as fodder and green manure. The seeds extracted from the dry seedpods industrially are used to extract a well known gum, oil, etc.

The guar gum is used mainly in the following food industries: ice cream,yogurt, salad dressing and also in the pharmaceutical industry and is used to control diarrhea, obesity, cholesterol, etc. The crop cycle varies from 60 to 90 days, the bean is 3 to 10 cm, height of the mature plant is about one metre. It is an annual legume.

These are some notes compiled from the internet after a hint from my youngest daughter who met a British Lord of Pakistani origin, Aamer Sarfraz, at a lunch in London lately in company of her husband and her eldest daughter who is studying at Trinity Hall, Cambridge University (UK). He is a most succesful businessman trading in guar.