I use their MiniCards to promote ShootCake, my food photography sideline. The MiniCards are really bitty and supercute in that way all diminutive things are. When they were going to be included in the goody-bags at an event I was photographing, I realised their lilliputian dimensions would also be their disadvantage in the mash of larger business cards, tissue paper, and samples.

A card-holder seemed like the best presentation solution and I came up with a concept that referenced my work and allowed for the card itself to be showcased.

They’re easy to knock together if you have a cutting machine and the design software that talks to it. I altered a camera-shaped dingbat to fit the dimensions of the card, mirrored it to create a flip-open mechanism and inserted a vertical cut for the card to slot through.

I’ve been fielding a few queries to go commercial with these but my minions are as lazy as I am. If you have access to a Silhouette Cameo, I’ve made the cutting file available for you to download here*. The file allows for six card holders to be cut out of one standard 12×12 scrapbook paper sheet.

*
Camera-shaped MiniCard Holder by Saaleha Bamjee is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

You can rewrite your script at any time but there’s just something about new years and Mondays that import impetus and gravitas to reinventions.

I have just a few resolutions this year;

• To drop the kilogram-equivalent of a small child.
• To respect food.
• To focus on writing and photography.
• To start my day earlier.

I’ve been accepted into Rhodes University’s part-time MA Creative Writing programme. Over the next two years I will have flare guns directed at my reluctant-writer ass by course deadlines and supervisors.

While I’ve always considered my greatest strength to be the ability to fit into whatever skin is demanded of me, my scattered focus has been to my detriment.

My energies have been stretched across too many frames. I’ve not been writing as I should and I am bereft.

I’ve decided to downscale my freelance work to include only existing copywriting/web management obligations, the ShootCake project and the occasional social media workshop facilitation I do for frayintermedia.

I know this MA will only be as good as the hard work I put into it, but it does offer me a tangible creative process and an end in sight.

I’m hopeful.
 

As a regular, non-violent, level-headed Muslim, it’s tiresome having to apologise all the time.

So, here follows my blanket apology. There will be none thereafter, ever again.

I apologise for terrorism, for violence against women and children, for halaal restaurants that don’t serve alcohol, for child-marriages, for women wearing black cloaks, for women covering their hair and faces, for women not being allowed to drive, for death by adultery, for not eating Christmas gammon, for closing our stores during Friday prayer, for carrying water bottles into public toilet stalls so we can wash ourselves after we’ve done our business, for halaal stamps on toothpick boxes, for bad breath during Ramadaan, for being boring at office parties, for praying so goddamn often, for crazy preachers obsessed with vegetables and vaginas.

If I’ve left anything out, I apologise for that too.

After hitting Send, I felt incredibly selfish. As one respondent wrote, it was, indeed, a rant.

This woman was speaking from a place of pain, anger and betrayal. She’d been brutalised by men who used Islam to grind her into nothing.

I was speaking from a place of anger and annoyance. My faith had been maligned and I was tired of feeling like I had to defend it whenever a Muslim commits an atrocity.

But a Muslim had committed an atrocity.

And I’m reminded of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and his teachings to command good and forbid evil.

Growing up Muslim in a pluralistic country, it’s easier for us to see where culture and faith mesh or collide.

Had I been born in India, Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, would the lines be clear?

Therefore there is one more apology in order.

I apologise to those women who’ve had their lives bludgeoned by men who use their religion as a club to subdue and dispirit them, who’ve been subjected to brutality and horror and who are in dire need of our compassion and voices.

–

I wrote this poem after watching The Stoning of Soraya M.

Spotted at the paint section of Builder’s Warehouse, Glen Eagles.

“Paint my faith,

You should paint my faith.

It’s the picture of a thousand cheesecloths”

(Apologies to Michael Learns To Rock)

Muslin/Muslim typos amuse me.

I often wonder who’s more unfortunate; the muslim having the paneer strained through them or the person who has to eat it after.

There have been more pictures than words of late, and I’d have turned this entire space into a photo blog yonks ago if it didn’t mean I would be giving my procrastination djinn the rope to strangle my muse.  But for now, while Table Mountain mellows and irons out my thinking, pictures will have to make do.

Looking towards Cape Town from Milnerton beach

Cape Town Stadium about to be hailed back to its mothership

The Turkish bulk carrier Seli 1 ran aground on Table View beach in September, 2009

Click here to read my 2006 Capsule Cape Town account.

In-between the googolplex in lottery wins, monster erection guarantees, bank phish and the miscellany of bot-generated indictments on human desire and greed, it was with great delight that I came across this gem;

dear importer

Have a nice day !
Lately we have a nice nite water pen , Kpen-050 and i suggest to you at the first time . Please kindly check the below details .

It must have been exceptionally difficult for our independent readers; Hamish Pillay and Shubnum Khan (both writers, much-loved and lauded) to score the entries.

As our circle tends to draw close and tight, it was important for no names to be attached to any of the submissions. The resulting scores were based purely on technical skill and an imaginative interpretation of the brief.

Entry #2 bagged the  overall top score; Mohammed Irfaan Imamdin‘s telling of impulsive rebellion.

Honourable  mentions include; Farzanah Adam, Mohammed Chohan (see his noteworthy graphic below), Waseem Dawood, Shameema Dharsey, Asif Firfirey and Aasia Fredericks.

All the entries will be compiled into a pdf for download.

“She constructed interesting and meaningful sentences.”

–

(Winners of the pac-man moleskine giveaway will be announced after January 24th.)

Force formulating/following resolutions into a more tangible and active space.

Just roll the dice each day and do.

1. Journal
2. Pick up the phone
3. Write 1000 words
4. Sweat
5. Get off of the internet
6. Follow a recipe
7. Check something off of the list
8. Learn two new words (one Arabic and one English)
9. Follow a design tutorial
10. Give something away
11. Remember God outside of ritual
12. Brainstorm and map the next big idea

Download the template here (sign-up required).

I’m giving away a limited edition Moleskine commemorating Pac-Man’s 30th anniversary.

The person who’ll claim this 240-page ruled 13x21cm notebook will submit 400 words titled “High Score” to saaleha(at)gmail(dot)com before midnight (ZA time) on December 31st, 2010 January 15th, 2011.

Your entry could be poetry, prose or any sort of experimental text play; the interpretation is wide open.

The winning submission gets the notebook, and if there are enough of them; a selection of the best entries  will be compiled into an e-book that will be made available for download.

Insert coin.

There’s this party trick I do. I poke a single friend in the ribs and their eyes roll back dramatically when I say, “Oh he’s naaice, how bouts a hook-up eh? eh? ”

It was at a Heritage Day picnic with Kaye and the gang when it finally occurred to me that I was really just a fedora-wearing interpretation of Yenta.

I am now everything I used to blog snarkily about in my pre-sg33k days.

Friends, it appears that this Bamjee woke up one morning, brushed her teeth, looked up to the mirror and found Auntyjee staring back.

Lord knows how many of you have since been afflicted by my poking, tjatjarag ways.

This, therefore, is my blanket apology.

I am unequivocally stating that my meddlesome poking was not an indictment of the general health of your happiness. There were no implications of half-personhood due to one not being married or attached (doesn’t that word in this context make you think of tumours?).

My God, you are all wonderful, whole, sparky individuals. I have no doubt that should you feel yourself gravitating towards the confetti-lined path to grocery lists and socks-on-the-floor (sex too, sometimes), you will encounter one equally wonderful, whole and sparky.

And if you’re just not interested in that sort of thing, I promise to find a new party trick.

I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this concept somewhere before, Nando’s perhaps?
I hope you like this adaptation.
It’s something of a Mayet family tradition to have prawns for Eid supper.
What are your standing menus?

Click here for some tips on how to deal with the feast’s aftermath.

*May every year find you in Goodness (Kaye’s translation)

–

Shubnum’s novel Onion Tears touches on these issues of South African Indian identity.

I always thought I’d be writing books, not designing them.

My first reaction on seeing the announcement was, “Nee vok.”

I have no idea why I was channeling an Afrikaans man at something-past-eleven this morning.

I was so chuffed at making the short-list, that I sketched out no scenarios beyond having my design right up there alongside the freakishly talented (they might be mutants) Fatima Cassim, Yusuf Dajee and Shubnum Khan.

I’m still a bit shell-shocked at the judges’ decision, though I am grateful for this crack at building my design profile.

An ileum-deep thank you goes out to those who included my design in their nominations and to my great friends; whose faith in me is unwavering even when I’m not much of a believer.

While the idea of having all my stuff in one place seemed sensible at the time, it now feels like chyme; chewed up and sludgey.

So, I’m going back to the old formula:

Food here,

Fiction here,

Poetry here,

while blogging of the old Electric Spaghetti variety will continue right here.

Following on in this spirit of simplification, I’ve decided to take down the Books&Bikya page. It really hasn’t gained as much momentum as I’d have liked (partly due to me not finding enough time to grow the community).

Perhaps the project will see some future resurrection but until then, I do thank you for your support.

I’m certain you will all stay committed to upcycling and de-cluttering.

Had I popped into this world Y-chromosomed and cocksure, I may have been named Dhul Qarnain.

My folks settled on Saaleha; pronounced Saw-li-ha with the h sound emanating from the throat, exactly like when you have to hock up that annoying bit of phlegm.

The name Saaleha means Good even Pious. My parents hoped.

The original spelling of my surname has an H after the A, but for reasons unknown, it was filled in like that on my birth certificate and I’ve seen written examples of my dad spelling his the very same way. I have no idea what my surname means. I want to believe that Bhamjee/Bamjee means something more than “One who opened up a shoe shop in the Oriental Plaza”.

My forefathers were not even Bhamjees to begin with. They were Patels, but apparently, there were just too many of those coming in on the ship to South Africa. So someone had the foresight to adopt the Bhamjee name, thus consigning to me a lifetime of having to explain that we’re not related to the Bhamjee’s Shoes people or that uncle who was involved in the dodgy soccer ticketing business.

The magical webbiness of the internet brought me not only love, but the unique (and blessed) opportunity of meeting another Saaleha Bhamjee (her surname spelt with the H).

My own dear doppelganger and friend, the other Saaleha (of course to her, I am the other Saaleha) thought me terribly potty-mouthed when she first visited my blog. I’m a lot more mellow these days; ask Noorjehaan who was expecting a trigger-happy chain smoker on our first meet. I must have been really angsty.

Saaleha is also a writer, and we’ve even collaborated on a script for a radio drama series. You can see how our names and similar vocations would generate a bit of confusion.

To ameliorate this, I hyphenated my surname after I married. But even though I was presenting myself as Saaleha Bamjee-Mayet, it was still quite muddling for some. The guys down at Adgator got our blog codes mixed up and it’s happened where I’ve received emails not meant for me (disappointingly, nothing risqué).

During our time in Egypt, I decided to pop my dad’s name in the middle of mine. It was one part memorialisation and two parts pragmatism. I dropped the Mayet from that as it just seemed like too much to chew down (though I’m still very much Bamjee-Mayet at heart). Should I ever publish, I will do so under the name Saaleha Idrees.

According to the Department of Home Affairs, I am still, officially, Saaleha Bamjee.

You can call me whatever you want.

TBC.

 

(note: ‘fitnah’ with an empty mouth ‘taa’ could translate as ‘sedition’, whereas ‘fitnah (fi6nah)’ with a rounded and full mouthed ‘taw’ could translate as ‘perspicacity’.)

I wonder if I would have truly known my mother’s strength had my dad not been taken away.

Widowed at 27, she shouldered her world so squarely, so boldly. She is my daleela, my minaret.

I turn 27 this year, nowhere near the woman she was then and the woman she is now.

Moon-breaths dictate this ebb and flow of my repose.

It has been just three months and the miracle biology in my belly has rendered my profile alien but soothing.

My fingers probe the extra flesh and for some seconds I am rewarded by a stirring; ah, there is work being done.

Yeah, that chicken was pretty damn good.