Divia Thani Introduces the May 2022 Magazine Issue
31 March 2022
My family wasn’t great about family holidays. Because my father lived in Nigeria while my mom raised my sister and me in India, our summer breaks were always the same: London, followed by Lagos. We’d fly on the last day of school and return the night before it reopened, always in mid-June, somehow perfectly timed to when the monsoon decided to burst through the clouds. This drastic change from three months of heat was indeed a shock to the system. I remember the summer when Big Ben stopped working due to a heatwave, how Hyde Park would be crowded with young people sunbathing on the grass in their shorts and swimwear (my mother disapproved), and my astonishment at the absence of air-conditioning. ‘It never gets this hot in London,’ people would remark on the street, fanning themselves with newspapers and indulging in ice cream.
We never participated in this celebration of warmth; we were far too busy meeting relatives and crossing everything off my mother’s shopping list in between. Once, we spent five hours tracking down a pair of Egyptian lamps she spotted in a store window when we passed by on the bus. ‘I know it was somewhere on this street,’ she said, ‘or perhaps it was the street before this one? Did the bus go left or right?’ Eventually, we found them—white and gold sphinxes with tasselled shades that served as conversation starters for many years after that in our Mumbai home—until my cousin from Singapore, staying with us while on holiday, shattered one while attempting to help by dusting.
My parents lived apart, but separation was a long-running theme in my community. My family fled Sindh, in Pakistan, for India during the brutal Partition of 1947, leaving behind everything they had. They arrived in India with almost nothing, leading them to search for job opportunities worldwide—Africa, the Caribbean, the Far East—anywhere that would welcome their skill set with no capital investment expected. This is why the Sindhi community is scattered globally, having established homes in diverse places such as Japan, Chile, the Channel Islands, and Dubai. Consequently, my summers were never about escaping; they were always about reconnecting with faraway family we would otherwise never have a chance to spend time with.
Only in the past two decades, after my father moved back to India, have I insisted we embark on proper family trips—just us, with nobody to meet on the other side, simply exploring new places. We’ve visited old forts and enjoyed safaris, lounged on beaches, and dedicated weekends to our health and wellness. This summer will bring us back to London after several years. Now all grown up, my sister and I will take the lead, planning shopping excursions, concerts, restaurant reservations, trips to the countryside, and visits to spas in Europe. I’m excited for us to experience a different side of the city. However, I am fairly confident that we will still encounter Londoners in the street, fanning themselves and indulging in ice cream, assuring us that it usually never gets this hot.
