THIS year, on the occasion of my daughter’s 18th birthday, we proudly continued a rite of passage where Tamil women pierce their noses to wear the beautiful Mookuthi (nose pin) to signify their passage into adulthood. My daughter takes her place alongside her grandmothers and both great-grandmothers, who continued the grand traditions of generations that came before them.
To celebrate this momentous occasion, I decided to announce this proud moment to the world on social media via Facebook by juxtaposing pictures of my daughter alongside pictures of my mother and grandmothers, who proudly wore the mookuthi.
The picture that I shared of my paternal grandmother, Amurtham Varden, was that of her green identity card, a photo that my mother kept as a remembrance when Amurtham passed in 1983.
Even though I have written extensively about the story of indenture in South Africa, I