Scope of Fatima Nagdee’s personal diaries (May 1938, and the years 1941-1945):
Family and home: children’s health, clothing, schooling, cooking, housework, especially washing and ironing, and problems with employing domestic workers.
Ahmed Nagdee’s alleged faults, eg meanness, bad temper, etc.
Interaction with family and friends, and events in children’s and grandchildren’s lives - visits, news of births, deaths, marriages, birthdays, religious observance, etc.
References to the family business, rents etc.
Trips to shops, expenditure on clothes, dressmaking, provision of food and basic needs of all the family.
References to books read, frequent visits to cinema, movies seen.
Comments about letters received.
Occasional references to political meetings and to “the movement”, mostly in connection with her children.
Short-term stay with relatives in Cape Town during 1943, after her husband would not allow her to remain in their home and she was forced to leave her children temporarily in Johannesburg.
Family correspondence: The material in this section consists mostly of letters written by various members of the Dollie/Nagdee/Gool family to each other and also some letters written to and received from friends/ associates. The letters represent presumably only a portion of the family’s correspondence, and perhaps survived by chance. Presumably they were among the personal possessions of Halima Gool (nee Nagdee) inherited by her son Selim and as such were donated to UCT as part of the Gool Family Papers.
Nagdee letters. With the exclusion of Ahmed Nagdee (the father) and Fazli Nagdee (youngest child) all members of the Nagdee family are represented by at least one signed letter.
The three eldest daughters (Ayesha, Amina and Halima) wrote to each other and to their mother, expressing their views and opinions openly and apparently without reserve: referring to their health, their marriages and their children, their financial worries, their position in society, as well as more homely matters such as dressmaking and gardening. Some letters also show their political convictions and their feelings about family relationships. They reveal concern for the younger members of the family and for each other and a critical awareness of family dynamics. The letters include gossip, sometimes emotional outbursts, and details of buying and sharing clothing, dress-material and haberdashery, as well as comments about their parents’ unhappy relationship and their family business. The postal service at the time was presumably efficient and reliable, as parcels of various sorts, including foodstuffs, were routinely sent and received.
The letters written by the younger members of the family are generally concerned with their own lives, requirements and ambitions, and family gossip.
Letters written by Mahmood as a child include several affectionate messages to his sisters. Later his letters to his parents and sisters from India describe his life there and focus on his anxiety to return to South Africa with his wife and small son, although he had no delusions about the racial discrimination to which he would return.
Gool letters The correspondence between Goolam and Halima reflects not only their relationship but also their political activities and philosophy, with detailed assessments of the politics and personalities of the radical left in the western Cape and elsewhere. Goolam’s collection of contemporary radical literature, published by leftist groups in various countries including South Africa, the USA, Germany, and England, gives some idea of the theoretical foundation on which Goolam and Halima built their political beliefs.
The letters in the Gool family papers provide some insight, albeit only partial, into the personal lives and the struggles of this family - and into the social and political context within which they lived.
The letter-writers are very articulate and write with great candour: like Fatima’s diaries, most of the letters are therefore extremely readable.
One of the interesting aspects of this small network of letters is that certain events are described and commented on by more than one correspondent, and are also referred to and contextualised in Fatima Nagdee’s diaries. For example, Fatima mentions the temporary separation of Halima and Goolam in mid-1941, during which Halima and her sister Amina (on holiday in Cape Town at the time) moved out of the Gools’ home into a boarding house. This reference facilitated the dating of an undated letter written by Amina to her mother regarding the Gools’ relationship at this time.
Conclusion: Although not extensive, the collection as a whole is perhaps exceptional because of the inter-connectedness and spontaneity of the media (diary and personal correspondence, written in a very engaging style).These documents provide an intimate snapshot of a group of South Africans whose social history in the 1930s and 1940s has possibly not been extensively published.
The records of the Johannesburg-based Nagdees provide some information about (inter alia):
Small business/ economic activities, within the context of discriminatory legislation.
Leisure activities (including movies, reading, listening to the radio).
Relations between “Indians” (Nagdee) and “Malays” (Dollie family).
Links between Indian South Africans and India.
Attitude to domestic workers.
Standard of living/ housing/ availability of utilities.
Details of expenditure on household items, clothing etc. during a period that includes the Second World War.
Educational aspirations, goals, social mobility, social values etc.
Lives of women - revolt against prevailing patriarchal traditions etc.
The records of the Cape-Town-based Gool family reflect:
Protest politics among radical activists in Cape Town.
Relationships between activists within radical movements - attitude towards other members etc.
Criticism of the ANC.
Contemporary radical literature, as represented by the publications formerly owned by Goolam Gool.
Lifestyle: although mostly undated and unidentified, the photographs powerfully depict a transient lifestyle which was hugely distorted by the political events in South Africa during the late nineteen-forties and beyond.
Note: Although closely interlinked, sections A to F relate mainly to Goolam Gool and Halima Nagdee/Gool; and section G relates mainly to the Nagdee family.