SHE lives all alone in her small but comfortable house in Cravenly State, Cape Town, South Africa. Each day, she wakes up before dawn with the recitation of Kalma Tayyaba, offers her Fajr prayers, prepares breakfast, leaves for work at 7am (local time), returns home at 4:30pm, gets a quick light supper, and hurries off to teach the Holy Quran at a local Madressah.
This wonderful lady is Fareeda Khatoon Fakei, born in Cape Town, S. Africa in 1950. It may interest you to know that Fareeda is totally blind by birth.
In the early 1940s, her parents had migrated to South Africa from Ratnagir in India to do business or to seek a job. Their second son, Zaheeruddin Fakei, had been born blind earlier, and eight years later Fareeda was born. The family also had a third visually-impaired child, Feroza Begum.
The three blind children grew up with love and great care with their four sighted sisters and two brothers. “Did you ever feel unhappy or different from others?” I asked Fareeda, while interviewing her in the Ida Rieu School for the Blind. She was here for a short visit on her way to India.
“I enjoy my life with what I have,” she replied. “Since I have never been able to see anything, I don’t miss it. Besides, our parents gave us so much love, treating us just like normal children, that we don’t feel different from others.”
At home, Fareeda and Feroza learnt doing simple chores and received basic religious education. As they grew up, the girls realized that they were interested in music. Fareeda wanted to learn singing Urdu ghazal. But where could they learn Pakistani music and Urdu ghazals? There was no such place in the whole of South Africa.
One evening, Mr Fakei returned home with some exciting news for his blind daughters. “Today, I learnt about a boarding school for the blind in Karachi, Pakistan,” he announced. “The school not only gives academic education to blind children in Braille, but also teaches them music and other skills — it doesn’t charge anything.”
Fareeda’s desire for learning music and Urdu ghazals was rekindled. Mr Fakei corresponded with the Ida Rieu School for the Blind and a short time later, Mr Fakei and the two blind girls flew from Cape Town to Karachi in June 1969. Fareeda and Feroza were now enrolled in the Ida Rieu School.
Before this, they had never spent even a single night away from home. But now, they had to live alone in a strange place, among strange people, miles away from their parents, sisters and brothers. However, the girls were so keen in learning music and receiving an education that they soon settled at the school, working hard to learn Braille and music. A short time later, they realized that they were no longer in a strange place and among strange people.
When their father died in 1974, the girls decided to continue their studies in Pakistan until they accomplished their goal. They worked hard day and night and in 1979, both the sisters passed their Matriculation examination with good grades. They also learnt music and other skills. Fareeda mastered the sitar and underwent a switchboard training course, while Feroza became a good drummer and a typist. They memorized ghazals and sang them with music at different functions organized by the Ida Rieu School.
When they went back to South Africa, they realized that conditions were not the same as they had been ten years earlier, and there was no scope for Eastern musicians. However, their training and education received in Pakistan were not wasted. Their first concern was to find work and at last their untiring efforts bore fruit. They got employment in private establishments — Feroza as a secretary and Fareeda as a machine operator.
“Being the only blind person there, do you have any difficulty working in the textile mill?” I asked Fareeda.
“Not at all,” she replied emphatically. “I have no problems while working with sighted men and women. In fact, I’m proud of my job that I have been doing well since 1979. I have no reason to feel different from the other employees. I do my work just like a normal worker. I’m treated equally and paid equally — no more, no less.”
Fareeda embarked upon a gigantic and most important mission that resulted in the establishment of the Madressah-tul-Ammal in Cape Town in the year 1988. In the Madressah, Fareeda and her sighted student, Abdul Karim Sali, started teaching the Holy Quran in Braille to blind South African Muslim students. Before the establishment of the Madressah, blind Muslims in South Africa were not able to read the sacred book in Braille.
Fareeda and Feroza learned to read the Braille Quran in Pakistan. This Holy Book and other reading materials are printed and published by the National Federation for the Welfare of the Blind since 1958.
Fareeda is also a great traveller. With a white cane in hand, she not only moves alone freely and confidently around Cape Town, but also makes short and long journeys by train and air. Without a guide, several times she has flown from Cape Town to visit her friends and relatives in Pakistan and India.
