Later the growing professional and commercial classes were passionate about the arts and began societies such as the Oriental Arts Circle in Kenya. At first the working classes of builders like the bricklayers, stone masons, railroad and road workers were the producers and consumers of folk art. Community based literature in mother tongue entertained, and it provoked conversations on the social and political concerns of the day. These arts anchored the diverse immigrant communities to their cultures, religions and history. Later creative writing appeared in local newspapers such as the Indian Voice in Kenya and plays in vernacular were enacted on makeshift stage in community settings especially during festivities. The arts were first performed in small groups. Since the days of building of the railroad in East Africa (1896 – 1902), Asian Africans have been creating poetry, music, drama and telling stories. I know of Asian families who not only spoke in Swahili at home but also wrote letters in Swahili using the Indian script. To others especially the Khojas living at the coast, and on the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba, Swahili was a second mother tongue. Long before the independences of Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika in the 1960s, the latter language had become a mother tongue to some such as the Bhadalas who were among the earliest sailors and settlers from India. I have always admired Asian African writers who write in their mother tongues -Gujarati, Urdu, Hindustani, Punjabi, Konkani and Swahili. Sultan Somjee | Diaspora - Literature | 14 February 2015
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